In an Uncertain World (58 page)

But while we cannot overcome the uncertainty around economic and other public policy choices, I do think it's possible to sharpen our sense of the probabilities and thereby improve our decision making. We are living in a time of great geopolitical and economic change, when the choices we make can have huge consequences. Since leaving Washington, I have remained deeply involved in public policy not only because I find it engrossing but because it matters so much. Working on this book over the past few years has furthered my own thinking about these issues while reminding me of what I've felt for most of my adult life—that the quest for the best possible answers is never-ending.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

THIS BOOK wouldn't have been possible without the generous contributions of many friends, family members, and colleagues. Caroline Atkinson, Stanley Fischer, Michael Froman, Ron Klain, Sylvia Mathews, Linda Robertson, Judith Rubin, Gene Sperling, and Fareed Zakaria all read the entire manuscript or a substantial portion of it, sometimes in various drafts, and offered innumerable improvements and suggestions.

A number of others read chapters and sections of the manuscript, saving us from countless mistakes of fact and judgment and deepening my own appreciation of many of the complex and controversial issues examined here: Lew Alexander, Robert Boorstin, Lisa Caputo, Steve Einhorn, Steve Friedman, Tim Geithner, Michael Helfer, Elli Kaplan, Jennifer Klein, Ed Knight, David Lipton, Mark Malloch Brown, Michael Masin, Peter Orszag, Larry Pedowitz, Jeff Shafer, Jane Sherburne, Peter Sherry, Todd Stern, Susan Tanaka, Ted Truman, and Dan Zelikow.

I am grateful as well to a number of people who helped me reconstruct bits of history from earlier stages of my life: in chapter 2, I drew extensively on the recollections of my parents, Alexander and Sylvia Rubin, and my sister, Jane Zirin. I also relied on the memories of my old friends Leon Brittan, David Scott, George Lefcoe, and Charles Toder. Steve Hyman, the provost of Harvard University, served as a philosophical consultant of sorts, and Marne Levine, Michael O'Mary, and Jung Hye Paik also helped with Harvard matters. Jan Conroy at Yale Law School provided class history.

Former colleagues at Goldman Sachs contributed similarly to chapters 2 and 3. In particular, I owe gratitude to Ken Brody, Jon Cohen, Jon Corzine, George Doty, Steve Einhorn, Bob Freeman, Steve Friedman, Jacob Goldfield, Bob Katz, Howard Katz, Richard Menschel, Norma Ranieri, John Rogers, L. Jay Tenenbaum, Peter Thompson, John Whitehead, and Mark Winkelman.

Clinton-era colleagues were generous in helping to reconstruct and reexamine key events discussed in chapters 4 through 10. Among them are Erskine Bowles, Warren Christopher, President Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Neal Comstock, Bo Cutter, David Dreyer, Vice President Al Gore, Alan Greenspan, Cheryl Matera, Mack McLarty, Linda McLaughlin, Annabella Mejia, Leon Panetta, John Podesta, Howard Schloss, Jim Steinberg, Michael Waldman, and Neal Wolin.

At Citigroup, I received generous help from Steve Bernstein, Judy Carbone, Yvette Damiani, Meyrick DeCoteau, Robert DiFazio, Evrard Fraise, Connie Garone, Sheryl Harden, Margaret Jenkins, Tobias Levkovich, Ann-Marie Lyew-Vizzini, Peter Mangano, Paul Masco, Karen McGruder, Robert Moore, Chuck Prince, Johnny Sabater, Michael Schlein, Kim Schoenholtz, Ellen Thompson, Dotti Ward, Sandy Weill, and David Weisberger.

My wife, Judy, helped in countless ways. Most important, she served as an additional and very thoughtful editor of our manuscript, a monumental task that led to many improvements. She combed through our vast collection of family photographs to help put together the photo section. And she also offered sensible counsel on some of our larger decisions and provided much-needed support at difficult moments.

Meeghan Prunty Edelstein, a veteran of the 1992 Clinton campaign and the Clinton White House and a graduate of Columbia Business School, began as our researcher and rapidly evolved into the indispensable manager of what became a very complicated project. Meeghan wove together Jacob's and my work in the text, helped with drafting, and offered elegant solutions to any number of difficult problems. She kept everything, and everyone, on track with good grace and a sense of humor that at times was much needed.

Caroline Atkinson, my former colleague from Treasury, took on the additional role of consultant and became invaluable—an overused word, but in this case accurate—on our chapters dealing with Mexico, the Asian financial crisis, and international matters more generally.

Stan Fischer, who gained renown at MIT and then as deputy managing director of the IMF, and who is now my colleague at Citigroup, provided thoughtful commentary on multiple drafts until he probably could have recited some sections from memory.

Peter Orszag worked for Gene Sperling in the White House but now, as a scholar at the Brookings Institution, has emerged as a strong voice in his own right on fiscal matters. His advice and counsel indispensably informed the discussion of fiscal matters.

Michael Froman, my former chief of staff at the Treasury Department and now my colleague at Citigroup, like Stan, read and commented on successive drafts with patience and insight and probably also could recite sections from memory.

We also relied on a daily basis on my remarkable executive assistant, Joann McGrath at Citigroup, who always solved our problems, large and small, as well as Kaminie Bharat, who helped us unfailingly at every stage of this process. Eugene Corey at Brave New Words meticulously transcribed hours of taped interviews.

Every author should have a Michael O'Loughlin, fact-checker extraordinaire, to verify the things no one else would have even thought to check. In addition, Susan Cumiskey, Duncan King, and Jason Solomon worked overtime on research and fact-checking in the frantic weeks before our deadline. Earlier research help was provided by Sushan Demirjian and Jeremy Cleaver. Thanks to my former Treasury colleague Les Samuels, the Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton word-processing department—and the hard work of Michelle Zulli, in particular—helped us make that final deadline.

The photographs used in this book reflect the work of many talented photographers; I thank them for granting us permission to use their work. Special thanks to Frances Jane Mabe for her persistent efforts to track all the photographs down. In addition, I owe thanks to Karen Butler, Phyllis Collazo at
The New York Times,
Tony Cretaro at Citigroup, Diana El-Azar at Reuters, John Fox, Russell James at
The Washington Post,
Gloria Knudsen, Mario Lussich, Vera Murray, Robert Penney, Luis and Vivian Schuchinski, and Mittpheap You at the World Bank. And I'm grateful to John Keller and Marlene Ware at the Clinton Presidential Materials Project for their help.

I also want to thank all of the people who generously agreed to let me discuss private conversations we've had, whether they were giving me advice, I was giving them advice, or we were trying to figure something out together.

Most books have but one editor. We were lucky enough to work with two of the best: Ann Godoff, who signed the book up and offered valuable insights and criticism of our early drafts, and Bob Loomis, who took over from Ann in midstream and is a legend in the business for good reason. Others at Random House assisted us in many ways: Lynn Anderson, Rachel Bernstein, Liz Fogarty, Libby McGuire, Steve Messina, Tom Perry, Casey Reivich, Carol Schneider, and Katherine Trager. Timely and sensible legal advice was provided by Mary DeRosa, Beth Nolan, and Heather Wingate. Our agents, Mort Janklow and Tina Bennett, have offered sage counsel throughout, as has our foreign rights agent, Andrew Wylie.

Finally, for their patience and support through a lengthy project that cut deeply into family time, Jacob, Meeghan, and I wish to thank our spouses: Jacob's wife, Deborah Needleman; Meeghan's husband, Steve Edelstein; and my wife, Judy. I'd also like to thank my sons, Philip and Jamie, and my daughter-in-law, Gretchen.

Robert E. Rubin

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

R
OBERT
R
UBIN
spent twenty-six years at Goldman Sachs, rising to co–senior partner, before becoming director of the White House National Economic Council from 1993 to 1995, and U.S. Treasury Secretary from 1995 to 1999. He is currently a director of Citigroup. He and his wife, Judy, live in New York City, as do their two sons.

J
ACOB
W
EISBERG
is the editor of
Slate
and the author of
In Defense of Government.

Copyright © 2003 by Robert E. Rubin and Jacob Weisberg

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Random House, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.

Random House and colophon are registered
trademarks of Random House, Inc.

Rubin, Robert Edward.

In an uncertain world : tough choices from Wall Street to Washington / Robert Rubin with Jacob Weisberg.

p. cm.

1. Rubin, Robert Edward. 2. United States. Dept. of the Treasury—Officials and employees—Biography. 3. Finance ministers—United States—Biography. 4. Fiscal policy—United States. 5. United States—Economic policy—1993–2001. I. Weisberg, Jacob. II. Title.

HJ268.R78 2003

336.739092—dc21

[B] 2003046693

Random House website address: www.atrandom.com

eISBN: 978-1-58836-338-1

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