"I don't quit. I keep going."
–Hillary Rodham Clinton

She is, quite simply, the most famous, most complex, most loved/hated/admired/reviled woman -- perhaps person -- in America. And, whether she fulfills her life's ambition or not, she can already lay claim to being the first woman ever considered a serious contender for the presidency.

From the beginning, there have been the inevitable comparisons to Argentina's legendary Eva Perón. Sex, power, money, lies, scandal, tragedy, and betrayal were the things that defined the lives of both women. Yet most of what we know about Hillary Rodham Clinton is seen in the context of her tumultuous marriage to the 42nd President. Now a power in the Senate, Hillary waits for the right moment to make her own run for the White House.

In the style of his #l New York Times bestsellers The Day Diana Died and The Day John Died, as well as Jack and Jackie, Jackie After Jack, George and Laura and Sweet Caroline, Christopher Andersen draws on important sources -- many speaking here for the first time -- to paint a startling portrait of America's most controversial woman. Among the revelations:

• How U.S. history has been shaped -- and will continue to be shaped -- by the arrangement between Hillary and Bill known as "The Plan."
• Important new details about the role Hillary played in the scandalous eleventh hour pardons of armed radicals, drug dealers, tax cheats, embezzlers, money launderers and more.
• How the outgoing First Lady registered like a bride at a gift store and left the White House with $400,000 worth of "gifts" belonging to the American people.
• How JFK Jr. almost thwarted her Senate plans.
• New details about Hillary's relationship with Vince Foster.
• How Hillary has coped with Bill's hundreds of affairs, and the new women in her husband's life.
• What Martha Stewart did for Hillary, and how Hillary repaid her.
• How Hillary is using the 2004 elections as a springboard to her own future presidential candidacy—regardless of who wins.

Whatever the ultimate judgment of history, the ongoing saga of Hillary Clinton's inexorable rise to power continues to stir passions, and to make her the American Evita.

The White House
Friday, January 19, 2001

Hillary Clinton was furious. Furious at the U.S. Supreme Court for handing the presidency to George W. Bush. Furious at George W. Bush for pushing his obvious advantage in Florida (where his brother was governor) to wrest control of that state's decisive electoral votes, and furious at Al Gore for blaming his defeat on the Clintons' own scandal-stained reputation.

In these waning days of their administration, the one person she was not furious at -- for a change -- was her husband. Throughout their marriage, it had always been Bill who screwed up and Hillary who came to the rescue. She had chosen to overlook his myriad past indiscretions as governor of Arkansas, and during their eight years in the White House stood squarely with Bill in the face of Whitewater and Travelgate and Filegate and Vince Foster and Paula Jones and the mother of all Clinton scandals, Monicagate. Hillary, in fact, went far beyond merely standing by her man. It was the First Lady who confronted each crisis head-on, master minding legal strategies and mounting counterattacks to debunk charges and discredit those with the audacity to have made them.

Now it was Bill's turn, and he did not have to be told what was expected of him. For years, White House staffers had been murmuring about "The Plan," the long-standing agreement that, once the Clintons left the White House, they would reverse roles: in return for all the sacrifices Hillary had made over the years -- all the dreams and ambitions put on hold, not to mention the heartache and searing humiliation she had had to endure because of his rampant womanizing -- Bill would throw himself behind his wife's political career. If all went according to The Plan, he would return to the White House as America's first First Gentleman. Hillary had already taken a step toward making The Plan a reality; just sixteen days earlier, she had been sworn in as the junior United States senator from New York -- the only First Lady ever elected to office.

It would be hard to overstate the potential historic significance of The Plan. After all, only the first half had been implemented thus far. If all went according to schedule, Hillary would serve two terms in the White House -- a combined total of sixteen years during which the Clintons would share power in the Oval Office. That would far outdistance the presidency of Franklin Roosevelt, who was elected to serve sixteen years but died after twelve. Constitutionally, there was nothing to prohibit a continuation of the informal, his-and-hers "co-presidency" the Clintons had always practiced.

In the meantime, there were some pressing issues to contend with -- foremost among them the President's eleventh-hour deal to avoid prosecution in the Monica Lewinsky case. In secret meetings with independent counsel Robert W. Ray, Bill had hammered out an arrangement whereby he would admit to wrongdoing, pay a $25,000 fine, and agree to have his Arkansas law license suspended for five years. Hillary worked with her husband on characteristically contorted wording of his so-called confession. "I tried to walk a fine line between acting lawfully and testifying falsely," he admitted, "but I now recognize that I did not fully accomplish this goal and that certain of my responses to question about Ms. Lewinsky were false."

Neither Hillary nor Bill gave the slightest indication that, behind closed doors at the White House, they had been negotiating with Ray for weeks in a desperate effort to stave off indictment.