Bill Clinton and the Black Belt

Every now and then, life has a funny way of dropping something completely unexpected into your lap. You don't see it coming. You aren't looking for it. You certainly don't have it on your five-year plan. And then, years later, you find yourself saying, almost apologetically, “Oh, by the way, I once wrote speeches for Bill Clinton.”
 
That sounds like the beginning of a political memoir. It wasn't. It was the result of a struggling advertising agency, a martial arts tournament, a former television sports reporter, a Korean grandmaster, a governor, a little creative thinking—and one very nervous Taekwondo expert.

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It was 1984, and I owned a small advertising agency in Little Rock, Arkansas, called Shaner-Barger Advertising with my business partner, Boyce Barger. “Struggling” is probably the more accurate word.
 
I had come out of the news department at KATV, Channel 7, where I had worked as a photographer. I enjoyed television news, but I wanted to move into the broader world of mass communications. Unfortunately, KATV didn't seem particularly interested in helping me make that leap, so I eventually left and started doing what people often do when they can't find the job they want: I created my own job.
 
Boyce and I were actually a pretty good combination. I was the former news photographer who had gotten pretty good at public speaking and had written and delivered more speeches than I could count. Boyce was a professional voice announcer and an audio-production wizard who had worked at several radio stations. He may have been the best “voice artist” I’ve ever heard.
 
We were both responsible for acquiring clients. Once we landed one, we'd figure out how to actually produce whatever it was they had hired us to do.
 
Which brings me to the American Taekwondo Association. Boyce landed the ATA as a client. The organization was preparing for its World Championship tournament, which was going to be held in Little Rock in just a few months. The problem was that publicity, and public relations weren't exactly sitting on our shelves next to the typewriter ribbons.
 
So, we did what any good advertising and PR agency should do when it doesn't have all the expertise required for the job: We got help. We brought in Bob Harris, a former sports reporter, and a former colleague of mine, from KATV. Bob knew sports, he knew the media, and he knew how to get reporters interested in something.
 
The American Taekwondo Association had been founded by Haeng Ung Lee, a Korean martial arts master who had established the organization in 1969. His son, Gee Ho Lee, was running the U.S. national headquarters—which, conveniently, was located right there in Little Rock.
 
Our assignment was simple enough: Get people interested in the tournament. And that's where things started getting interesting.
 
We weren't quite sure how we were going to compensate Bob for all the publicity work he was doing. Eventually we came up with an arrangement that was probably less sophisticated than modern agency contracts, but it worked. Every time Bob got a story, television mention, radio segment, newspaper article or other piece of media coverage, we assigned it a dollar value. Then Bob received half.  The other half went to the agency. Everybody was happy.
 
I also employed one of the great principles of marketing: Put something ridiculously expensive at the bottom of the menu. The theory is that most people won't buy the most expensive thing, but they may feel perfectly comfortable buying the next item up.
 
Buried at the bottom our list of publicity opportunities, I included something called a “live sports report” from one of Little Rock's television stations during the 10 o'clock news. I attached a very large price tag to it. Apparently, the universe had decided to reward my marketing strategy because, much to my delight, the Lees said, “Yes.” The night before the tournament, all three Little Rock television stations showed up with live trucks, cameras and crews, and I could hear the cash register ringing during those live shots.
 
We had our media spectacle. But I had another idea. One of the advantages of having worked in television news was that I knew people at the governor's office. At the time, Arkansas had a young governor named Bill Clinton.
 
Back then, every other Thursday was essentially Proclamation Day at the governor's office. Companies, organizations and groups would line up for their turn to have the governor officially proclaim something—usually something designed to recognize the organization and, not incidentally, generate a little publicity for Clinton himself.
 
I knew how the system worked, and I knew a Taekwondo tournament was the kind of unusual, visual event that could make for good television. I called the governor's office and suggested that Governor Clinton proclaim the day of the tournament Taekwondo Day in Arkansas.
 
The idea was accepted. I also proposed that the governor be made an honorary Taekwondo black belt. That idea was accepted, too. And Bill Clinton loved the idea and wanted to do it. Of course he did!
 
Now, my job was to craft the messages and get the participants ready. I wrote the proclamation-related remarks and the speech for Mr. Haeng Ung Lee, explaining why the governor was being honored. I also wrote the remarks for Governor Clinton and how the ATA had been a successful economic driver in Arkansas. I also explained to the governor’s staff what needed to be done to when he accepted the honorary black belt.
 
I then met with the ATA dignitaries and explained exactly what would happen and how the presentation was supposed to proceed.
 
The governor's staff handled the official scheduling and sequence of events for Proclamation Day, when the proclamation would be presented and how the ceremony would move from one part to the next.
 
Shaner-Barger Advertising had created the publicity opportunity. The governor's office handled the official ceremony. The ATA provided the martial arts expertise, the black belt and the Gi.
 
My part was making sure everybody knew what to say and what was supposed to happen.
 
Everything was ready. Until five minutes before the ceremony.
 
Mr. Lee looked at the speech I had written for him and decided he wasn't going to give it.
He turned to me and, in his Korean accent, essentially said, “You wrote it. You read it.”
 
I protested.  “No, no. You can do this. I wrote it for you. It's important that YOU give the speech.”
He wasn't having any of it.
 
“No. I can't.”
 
Five minutes before the governor was supposed to appear, the founder of the American Taekwondo Association had developed a severe case of stage fright.
 
So, I did what every good speechwriter eventually learns to do, I stepped up and read Mr. Lee's speech.
 
Then came the big moment. Governor Bill Clinton was presented with an honorary black belt and a martial arts, Taekwondo uniform called a gi.
 
We wanted him to put it on. That was the money shot. I could already see the picture in my head: Bill Clinton in a Taekwondo gi and black belt, smiling for the cameras. That was going to be in every newspaper the next day.
 
There was, however, one small problem. Nobody had told the governor's security detail what was about to happen. A group of Taekwondo black belts walked behind Clinton and began reaching toward him to help remove his suit jacket. The Arkansas State Police immediately stepped in. From their perspective, several people had suddenly started reaching for the governor. From the Taekwondo group's perspective, several state troopers had suddenly started interfering with a perfectly innocent wardrobe change.
 
On one side: the Arkansas State Police.
On the other: a group of Taekwondo black belts.
In the middle: the governor of Arkansas.
And standing nearby: me.
 
For a moment, there was a little standoff. Nobody was throwing punches, but there was definitely enough tension in the room to make you wonder whether we were about to witness the first-ever martial arts demonstration involving the Arkansas State Police.
 
Bill Clinton and I eventually helped straighten things out. I was telling the Taekwondo people to back up. Clinton was telling his security people to back up. Eventually everybody backed off just enough for the black belt to be tied around the governor's waist.
 
The photographs were taken. Clinton put on the gi. And the next morning, the photographs were everywhere. Mission accomplished!

About a week later, I received a telephone call from the governor's office. They thanked me for everything we had done with the Taekwondo Association, the black belt presentation and the event. Then came the question.
 
They explained that there were often occasions when the governor needed help preparing speeches, particularly when he was talking about economic development and other issues around the state. Would I be interested in helping?
 
Well... Yes.
 
I never became a political insider. I didn't join a campaign, work for the governor or suddenly find myself sitting around a table discussing the future of Arkansas or the country. But I did write a few more speeches for Bill Clinton.
 
And that is how a struggling advertising-agency owner from Little Rock ended up being able to truthfully tell people that, once upon a time, he was a speechwriter for Bill Clinton. I just happened to be writing those speeches before Clinton was President of the United States.
 
Looking back, I realize I wasn't really helping shape Bill Clinton's political future. I was simply helping him figure out what to say.  Which, come to think of it, may be the most accurate definition of a speechwriter in the first place. To be sure, Bill Clinton didn’t need much help with what to say, he just needed the time to do so, and that’s probably the last thing that might have been on his to-do list for the day.
 
And all of it started because I knew that every other Thursday the governor handed out proclamations, I knew a martial arts tournament could make good television, and I knew just enough people at the governor's office to get the idea through the door.
 
The governor's staff handled the ceremony. The ATA supplied the black belts. Bob got the media interested. I wrote the words and tried to keep everybody pointed in the right direction. And somehow, in the middle of all that, I ended up writing speeches for a future President.
 
Not a bad day's work for a guy running a struggling little advertising agency. Especially considering that nobody had thought “speechwriter” for a future president would be anywhere in my list of career defining jobs.
 
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