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The Go-Between 19 20 21 Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and 22 23 Tony Blair All Have Robert Barnett to Thank 24 25 for Their Multimillion-Dollar Book 26 27 Contracts

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The Go-Between 19 20 21 Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and 22 23 Tony Blair All Have Robert Barnett to Thank 24 25 for Their Multimillion-Dollar Book 26 27 Contracts Wealth: Profile 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 The go-between 19 20 21 Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and 22 23 Tony Blair all have Robert Barnett to thank 24 25 for their multimillion-dollar book 26 27 contracts. How did a Washington lawyer 28 29 come to be the power-broker behind 30 31 some of the biggest deals in publishing? 32 33 By D.D. Guttenplan 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 ARACK OBAMA AND JOHN McCAIN DON’T AGREE 61 ABOUT MUCH, BUT WHEN, IN THE MIDDLE oF oNE oF THEIR DEBATES THIS MONTH, OBAMA REFERRED 62 TO “THOSE oF US, LIKE MYSELF AND SENATOR McCAIN, WHO DON’T NEED HELP [FINANCIALLy]”, HIS 63 OPPONENT NODDED. Whoever comes out ahead in 10 days time, the next president of the United 64 States will be a rich man. McCain made his first million the old-fashioned way: he married the 65 daughter of a wealthyB businessman. But Barack Obama, the son of an absent African father and a 66 mother who relied on government-issued food stamps to feed her children, became a millionaire in 67 a more modern manner – on the back of a book deal. 68 It happened circuitously. In 1990, Obama was already enough of a celebrity – the first black pres- 69 ident of the prestigious Harvard Law Review – for the New York publishers Simon & Schuster to FT WEEKEND 16 October 25/26 2008 1 Washington lawyer 2 cum literary agent 3 Robert Barnett in his office at 4 Williams & Connolly 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 Wealth: Profile 1 offer a “six-figure contract” for a proposed autobiography. The only prob- 2 lem was that Obama was too busy finishing law school to write the book, 3 and the contract was eventually cancelled. By the time Obama finished 4 Dreams From My Father – published by Times Books in 1995 – his advance 5 was only $40,000. In 2004, Obama – now a state senator in Illinois and a 6 candidate for the US senate – was chosen to be the keynote speaker at the 7 Democratic National Convention, but his book was long out of print. Yet 8 when he arrived in Washington, the $169,300 senator’s salary was not 9 going to be his mainstay: two weeks before he was sworn in, Crown Books 10 announced a $1.9m three-book contract with the senator-elect. 11 As The Audacity of Hope shot up the bestseller lists, taking a reprint of 12 Dreams From My Father along with it, Obama became a rich man. But like 13 McCain, he had help: before that deal with Crown, he left his longtime 14 book agent for Robert Barnett, a Washington lawyer also responsible for 15 negotiating Tony Blair’s £4.5m contract with Random House a year ago 16 today. It was a move that revealed a streak of ruthless calculation that may 17 help land Obama in the White House. But to Washington insiders it was 18 far from surprising. “Nobody games the system better than Bob Barnett,” 19 says Peter Osnos, a former Washington Post journalist and head of Times 20 Books when the company acquired Dreams From My Father. 21 Barnett does more than handle book contracts; he negotiated Blair’s 22 consulting contracts with Morgan Stanley (reported at £2m a year) and 23 Zurich Financial Services (more than £500,000 a year) as well as lucrative 24 speaking engagements – last November, a single speech to Chinese busi- 25 nessmen earned the former PM a reported $500,000. Barnett tailors his 26 service to the client’s priorities, playing career 27 As well as coach as much as book agent. With his well-cut 28 Tony Blair’s suits and Savile Row shirts, his tortoiseshell 29 glasses and ornate antique cufflinks, Barnett 30 £4.5m book seems at home in the corridors of power. “Many 31 deal, Barnett of these people who come out of government 32 have an enormous number of offers,” he says. 33 negotiated his “The first thing we do is sit down and say ‘What 34 consulting are your goals? Do you want to live here or live 35 there? You wanna make money or have fun?’” 36 contracts 37 WHEN RoBERT BARNETT WAS A YOUNG LAWYER, 38 HIS FIRM HAD oFFICES IN THE HILL BUILDING, A 39 FEW BLOCKS FROM THE WHITE HoUSE. Just 40 across the street was a People’s Drugstore, and 41 every day at lunchtime, Clark Clifford, the legendary capital insider, 42 “dressed to the nines, wearing a hat, would go in, sit at the lunch counter 43 and eat a tuna sandwich. So if you wanted to see him you could just go to 44 People’s and there he’d be, eating his sandwich and reading The Washing- 45 ton Post,” Barnett remembered. Clifford advised US presidents from 46 Harry Truman to John Kennedy to Jimmy Carter, served as secretary of 47 defence in the Johnson administration and was widely regarded as the 48 most influential attorney in Washington – a description many people now 49 apply to Barnett, whose client list includes Bill and Hillary Clinton, Laura 50 Bush and her daughter Jenna, Dick and Lynne Cheney and their daugh- 51 ter Mary, Paul Wolfowitz, Karl Rove and Alan Greenspan – as well as 52 Blair and Obama. 53 Barnett resists the comparison. “Clark served at high governmental 54 positions. I’ve never done that. Clark Clifford is well above my pay grade.” 55 He also refrains from pointing out that after four decades as the capital’s 56 prime fixer, Clifford, who died in 1998, ended his career in disgrace thanks 57 to his involvement in the BCCI scandal, where his role as front man for the 58 bank’s American operations left him, as he later lamented, with the “choice 59 of either seeming venal or stupid”. Not even his harshest critics would 60 accuse Robert Barnett of stupidity. 61 As for venal, Bob Woodward, the reporter whose stories brought down 62 Nixon and who has been a Barnett client for 20 years, describes him as 63 “the last bargain in Washington”. Now a managing partner at Williams & 64 Connolly, the capital’s best-connected, most-feared law firm, Barnett com- 65 mands fees at the top end of the scale: reports range from $750 to $1,000 66 an hour. “He charges a lot by the hour,” says Woodward. “But he doesn’t 67 take 10 or 15 per cent [of book advances and profits, as most agents do]. 68 And when you get an hour of his time you are getting all of the knowledge 69 and the experience that he has.” Not to mention the contacts. On any given FT WEEKEND 18 October 25/26 2008 1 2 Though there are certain 3 people Barnett claims he 4 would never represent, 5 his talent list is defiantly non-partisan. Clockwise 6 from far left, Tony Blair, 7 Bill Clinton, Jenna Bush 8 and Lynne Cheney 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 FT WEEKEND October 25/26 2008 19 Wealth: Profile 1 Sunday in America, it is not unusual for a television talk show to feature 2 one of Barnett’s clients refereeing a debate between two others. 3 Normally, the man who The New York Times has dubbed “the Kingpin 4 of Washington book deals” and “the doorman” of the capital’s revolving- 5 door culture, prefers to remain in the background. And yet at the debate 6 between Sarah Palin and Joe Biden, Barnett became something of a pundit 7 himself, his comments being quoted on Sky News and numerous websites. 8 Although most of the stories identified Barnett as a long-time Democratic 9 adviser, none of them noted that Gwen Ifill, host of PBS’s Washington 10 Week and moderator of the debate, is also a Barnett client. 11 All Washington lawyers are political. But over the years of Barnett’s rise 12 to influence the meaning of “political” has changed – from blood sport to 13 “just business”. Last winter, when Hillary Clinton was slugging it out with 14 Obama and John Edwards for the Democratic presidential nomination, 15 Barnett had negotiated book deals for all three. In 2004, when Edwards 16 faced Dick Cheney in the vice-presidential debate, Barnett was Edwards’ 17 debate coach, impersonating Cheney in practice sessions. This year, Bar- 18 nett was coaching Hillary Clinton. Their friendship, which dates back to 19 before her husband’s presidency, is sufficiently close, and Barnett suffi- 20 ciently tactful, that he was reportedly given the job of informing her about 21 her husband’s “friendship” with Monica Lewinsky.
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