Dark City

30. CORRUPTION: You Can Fight City Hall – Clifford Clinton’s Complex Legacy with Robert Petersen

• Dark City Productions • Season 1 • Episode 30

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Los Angeles, CA | How does a cafeteria owner in 1930s Los Angeles, dedicated to providing affordable meals for all, become the driving force behind exposing and dismantling corruption? Today we are joined by Robert Petersen, host of the podcast The Hidden History of Los Angeles, to talk about Clifford Clinton—a man who took on the city’s power structure and won, but whose own personal life tells a far more complicated story.

You can check out Robert’s podcast The Hidden History of Los Angeles at podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-hidden-history-of-los-angeles/id666596114, or follow him on Instagram @hiddenhistoryla.  

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Speaker 1:

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Speaker 1:

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Speaker 2:

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Speaker 1:

How does a cafeteria owner in the 1930s, dedicated to providing affordable meals for all, become the driving force behind exposing and dismantling corruption in the city of Los Angeles? Today, we're talking about Clifford Clinton, a man who took in the city of Los Angeles. Today, we're talking about Clifford Clinton, a man who took on the city's power structure and won, but whose own personal life tells a far more complicated story. This is Dark City Season 1, los Angeles. Today. I am joined by Robert Peterson, the host of the podcast the Hidden History of Los Angeles. Before we explore Clifford Clinton's story, robert, can you tell our audience more about yourself and how you decided to start your podcast?

Speaker 3:

Well, thank you so much for having me on. It's a pleasure to be here and talk about Clifford Clinton, one of my favorite characters in LA history. For me, both my parents grew up in LA. My dad grew up just west of downtown and my mom grew up in Pasadena and Altadena and my grandparents came here in the 20s and 30s. So all my life I've heard histories from LA's past, hearing about my grandmother take the Pico streetcar to Bullocks, wilshire, with her and have tea with her gloves and how she dress up, and my dad talking about going to Hollywood Stars games over at Gilmore Field where the Grove and Farmer's Market are now.

Speaker 3:

And then in college I started getting a little bit more serious into LA history reading everything that was out there, of course, mike Davis and Fragmented Metropolis. I wrote my thesis in college comparing different neighborhoods in LA. I was obsessed in college with this idea of why neighborhoods look the way they do like, why my neighborhood in Pasadena looks this way and is so different than Arcadia and Sierra Madre and La Cunada. What makes the neighborhood look this way. And I compared different neighborhoods throughout LA and in doing that kind of became obsessed with LA history. And that obsession continued and finally started listening to podcasts. Uh, 10 years or so I was like, oh, I'll give this a try, not knowing anything about podcasts, not knowing anything about really any of this, just on a whim. It became a kind of passion project and it just has continued as a passion project. I've been doing it for about 10 years, have 80, 90 episodes and hopefully we'll continue doing it.

Speaker 1:

That's awesome. I actually think we could probably bring you on just to talk about the different LA neighborhoods, because I've always kind of wondered that too. That's also really fascinating. And you know, I didn't give this background up front, but the way we met was we just happened to be. It was your child's birthday party. A mutual friend had said hey, Leah, you actually cited his podcast and then you started talking, because I didn't make the connection of the name because it'd been so long. It was the lover in the attic episode, because you did a really good episode on it too, and as soon as you started talking I recognized your voice. So it's just a very very small world.

Speaker 3:

I love that. No, it is a small world. I especially feel like in the San Gabriel Valley. It is a very, very small world.

Speaker 1:

When I started researching Clifford Clinton, one of the things I found was an article that you published on him on PBS SoCal in 2015. You went pretty deep into the archives to document his fight against corruption, from the hospital investigation through to the bombing of his home and, eventually, the removal the first time a mayor from a US city was removed. How did you decide to research and share his story?

Speaker 3:

Well, first, I've always loved Clifton's Cafeteria, before it closed in 2011,. When it originally closed, it was this really unique, fun place. I'm also side note I love cafeterias and buffets. I don't know why, I do too.

Speaker 3:

Bring them back Something about it. And Clifford Clinton is a name that kind of pops up when you're studying LA history. He pops up in all these different parts, some of the corruption, food culture, and I'd known about the name, but I didn't know that much about him, and I heard that I think it was somewhere around the time before Clifton's reopened in 2015. That is, I think, what kind of spurred me to want to do an article about it, and there were a lot of mentions of him in different books.

Speaker 3:

I think I looked up some newspapers, but for me it was really helpful to go to UCLA special collections. There has an archive on Clifford Clinton, and that was just the best experience ever. I spent two days over there just going through his papers and really digging, you know, deep into trying to figure a little bit about him, and it was just, I must admit, one of my favorite experiences in the podcast, because you read about someone, you read about them in the newspaper, but there's something very different and when you're reading his handwritten like that, that was just such a special experience. And then also some of the things he wrote in the little newsletters from the restaurant were really interesting. So after doing that, and then, you know, submitted it to I think was KCET at the time and they put it up and it was actually great because because of that article I got to go to the grand reopening of Clifton's in 2015.

Speaker 1:

Oh nice.

Speaker 3:

With disgraced council member Jose Huizar was there, of course, but it was really fun and it was great and I loved it. When Clifton's reopened I went there I worked pretty close to there, so it was a great spot and I was bummed when they closed the cafeteria again. Hopefully one day they'll reopen it.

Speaker 1:

Well, you know, actually. So they. I don't know if the cafeteria is open, but the club part, or I think it's they call it a nightclub. It's pretty cool, just like give people like a visual because it's such an interesting place. I think everyone should visit it, not just because there's good history, but it has like a giant fake sequoia that runs all the way from the floor, the bottom floor, all the way up to the.

Speaker 1:

I guess be like the top floor. Every floor has a theme, Like the way up to the. I guess be like the top floor and every floor has a theme, like there's a tiki bar theme because it used to be a Hawaiian restaurant, or one of his locations was there is a Gothic themed Thor, which was my favorite. You have like a DJ playing from a pulpit and you can get a shot reading with a tarot card. It's just a really cool, unique place. But it's also an old place, so it was shut down, I think, for a while, because they had plumbing issues or it was like some major infrastructure issues. You can catch it when it is open. It's good to do.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, I hope to. I've seen pictures. I know they opened up. I think they have like bars and clubs, upper floors and I guess maybe the basement too, and I've seen pictures. It looks great and I love how the owner what is his name, andrew Marin I might be mispronouncing his name really kept a lot of the soul of Brookdale the giant Sequoia like you're in a redwood forest, and then recreating some of his other restaurant Pacific Seas, I think in one of the bars it's like a South Pacific kind of island, tropical island paradise kind of vibe. I've only seen pictures but unfortunately, as you know, with kids my ability to go out at night has been limited greatly.

Speaker 1:

So at some point.

Speaker 3:

I'm hoping to see the newly renovated Clifton's.

Speaker 1:

Well, going back to his first cafeteria in downtown Los Angeles, so that was also a head turner. Can you talk a little bit about how it was designed and what it was like dining there?

Speaker 3:

Yes, so his first cafeteria and it was Clifton's Pacific Seas on Hill Street pretty close to Pershing Square. It's actually a vacant lot right now the site is but it was probably the most unusual cafeteria of its time, or restaurant really. It was designed as like a tropical island paradise. They had a waterfall, palm trees, bamboo all these items imported from Hawaii, hawaiian music playing and just such an experience to be walking in downtown Los Angeles and then you take a turn into Clifton's Pacific Seas and you step into a tropical paradise. Of course they're serving meatloaf and moderately priced cafeteria food. I never was there it was before my time but from everything I've read about it and people talking about their experiences there, it was just the most unique, memorable experience to eat there.

Speaker 1:

I think I read too. They had a signature green jello with whipped cream and just interesting stuff they did, like the jello.

Speaker 3:

Jello was always a theme. They always had jello.

Speaker 1:

Do people really serve jello? Anymore, I feel like that's something that kind of went out of style. I think so I'm a fan. Bring that back too. He opened up his cafeteria in 1931, that smack dab right in the middle of the.

Speaker 3:

Great Depression. Why did he do that and how did it survive? Well, I think a couple things to note. First is that Clinton's parents ran restaurants. So he grew up in the I don't know the quote, unquote restaurant business, so he was familiar with how that worked. But I think, even more importantly, he really had this passion to feed people feed people who maybe didn't have means to feed themselves. And a lot of that people say comes from his childhood.

Speaker 3:

He spent a great deal of his time, before he was 11 or 12, in China. His parents were also missionaries and there he experienced some of the fallout from the Boxer Rebellion and saw a lot of starvation, had a lot of experiences that really instilled in him this desire to address hunger, starvation, feeding people, and that's something we saw throughout his career when he was running cafeterias and also later in his life when he actually turned his sights on world hunger. But I think that was really what caused him to really start a cafeteria. And then, in terms of making how that worked as an economic model is interesting because, you know, cafeterias and restaurants are notoriously difficult to stay in business, but he really, you know, catered to the public and the needs at the time I mean in the middle of the Great Depression he offered customers a full meal of soup, salad, bread, jello, coffee, all for a nickel, and then, when that became difficult, he would offer just basic vegetable soup over brown rice for a penny.

Speaker 3:

He really catered to the needs of folks who were hurting. And then, of course, he had the very famous policy that was written on every receipt pay what you can or don't pay at all. I'm butchering it, but basically, if you didn't have the money, you know, you didn't have to pay, and I don't know how that makes economic sense for a business owner, but it did for him, because people kept coming back and people loved his establishments and he actually, throughout his life, became very, very wealthy based on his cafeterias. But I think it's he knew the restaurant business, he knew his clientele and he knew the restaurant business.

Speaker 1:

He knew his clientele and he knew the needs of the people at the time. I also read too that when I was sitting down it was the Penny Cafeteria where they did the vegetable soup on rice. They sold like a million of those, which is incredible when you think of. In the end I also read. So I think the policy did work. They struggled financially time to time, but he always approached it as a problem to solve. There was one individual that refused to pay that could, and eventually they had to call the police and he got arrested for trying to defraud the restaurant. This is so terrible. And then when he got out he parked his car in front and had signs slandering the restaurant. That is so terrible. I think for the most part people were good and they respected it, but you've always got like that. One crazy story.

Speaker 3:

Definitely.

Speaker 1:

Now your article also mentioned there was a pivotal moment when Clinton took a public stand for racial integration in his restaurants. So the guest voice leaflets which you looked at when you were researching for your article, there was an exchange where he had responded to a customer who objected to dining with black patrons. Can you tell us about his response and what it meant for Los Angeles at that time?

Speaker 3:

Well, so this was 1944. You know there was a lot of Jim Crow in Los Angeles establishments, and not just in commercial spaces but in residential. He had restrictive covenants, so Los Angeles was a deeply segregated city and then Clinton made sure that his establishments people of all types, all races, colors, creeds, could eat there and dine together. And it's interesting I think it reads as a pivotal movement because he was taking a stand, a moral stand, against something that threatened his business and his livelihood. But that was also just Clinton. He did that throughout his career. He had this kind of compass of what he believed and he just kept going there and suffered negative consequences throughout. But I think it's actually helpful. I know it might take a second, but I did pull it up. I can actually read, if you don't mind, the comment and then his response, because I think it does really provide insight into Clinton's ideas.

Speaker 3:

So the person commented and again this was I forgot what it was called the guest voice. It was basically patrons of Clifton's cafeterias could make comments, sometimes good, sometimes bad, and then Clinton himself would actually write in the response, and sometimes there'd be back and forth. It's really interesting. So the customer wrote I've always liked Clifton's, but yesterday while having lunch, two Negroes came and sat at my table. After that the food tasted like sawdust. I like the Negro people, but I refuse to eat or sleep with them. I will hereafter go somewhere else. They do not have Negroes. Watch out, clifton's, that your place does not become dot dot, dot. Now, my apologies, I know the word yeah.

Speaker 1:

It's so terrible to think about. But also we've got to recount just to capture what it was like back then.

Speaker 3:

And I think it does. I mean that was a sentiment that was not a marginalized sentiment, that was a sentiment that a lot of people held at the time. So, Clifton, he wrote a very thorough response and this is what Clinton's response was. Clinton's response was Democracy brings many people together who may not enjoy closed social contacts. It is for us to weigh the benefits of democracy against this alternative in which a majority class or master race could outlaw minorities.

Speaker 3:

So far, a few nations have chosen the undemocratic way of life. We are at war with those nations and there is no discrimination as to the races among those who are offering their lives for our American rights and freedom To promote peace, justice, order and harmony. Our laws and constitution make it unlawful to discriminate. We are left with two choices we can obey the letter and spirit of the law, which we believe also expresses the Christian solution of our problems, or we can violate the law in the Christian conscious of our republic. Frankly, we know of only one line of conduct consistent with our conscious and our obligation as a citizen it is our duty to serve all who enter our doors and conduct themselves within their legal rights.

Speaker 3:

If the ruin so often predicted is around the corner, then we prefer to be ruined doing business in accordance with our obligations as a citizen. This is our policy. We survive or perish, according to which point of view has greatest appeal to the people. Somehow we have faith in the people. I know that's a little bit long and long-winded, but I think it actually really is a sentiment you hear throughout Clinton's life, whether it's corruption, whether he really believed he had this civic duty. That was grounded in part because of his kind of Christian consciences. But it was basically this idea, this moral imperative to try to do right in society and have you perform your civic obligations.

Speaker 1:

I think that's so great too, that he published the comment and he published the spot. It's one thing to just take the comment, but it's quite another to put your neck out there, which he did quite a lot. That is a good segue to. So how does one go from running cafeterias to taking on the whole entire corrupt power structure of Los Angeles?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, this is where the story gets even more interesting. So in 1935, a county board of supervisor asked Clinton to inspect food operations at the County General Hospital and Clinton did his own investigation and discovered waste and corruption that was costing the county something like $200,000 a year. So that kind of got him started in this process of looking at corruption within local government and Clinton got himself appointed to the county grand jury and then pushed the grand jury to investigate vice conditions in LA. Now there were people on the grand jury who did not want to do that. Now there were people on the ground jury who did not want to do that. They were associates and or receiving money from crime bosses and or corrupt political officials.

Speaker 3:

So then Clinton started his own group called the Citizen and Independent Vice Investigating Committee, or CIVIC, found hundreds of brothels, hundreds of gambling houses, bookie joints and slot machines. That was a big thing, thousands of slot machines in the city and the grand jury refused to make that public. So Clinton then produced his own minority grand jury report and in it he really went after the power structure and he basically said look in County, the district attorney, the sheriff, the chief of police, the mayor's office, they're working in quote in complete harmony and never interfere with the activities of the crime bosses or the criminal underground in LA. And that I mean I think newspapers would kind of comment upon corruption. But I think Clinton in this report really put into picture, hey, how widespread corruption was in LA.

Speaker 1:

It's incredible, and I also imagine too, a lot of people were afraid to speak up, because when you have it in literally every single facet of what should be the structure and function of a lawful city, the retaliation is really dangerous. When I was reading this part, it kind of reminded me did you ever watch Game of Thrones?

Speaker 3:

I did not. I have missed it. Oh my gosh, it's so angry at me. She's not angry at me, but she can't believe that I've never watched it. But yes, I'm glad I'm not.

Speaker 1:

Okay, well, I got to draw this analogy because I think most of our listeners have. I cannot believe you've not watched it. The last few seasons are disappointing, I will warn you, but it's worth it. So there's this character, ned Stark. He's the core character in season one and a lot goes on with him.

Speaker 1:

So he is serving as the hand of the king, so that's basically like your chief of staff and he finds out that the king's supposed legitimate heir, joffrey, is actually not legitimate. In fact, his wife was having an affair with her brother and so, instead of building support or waiting for his army to arrive from the north, he trusted honor and proper procedure. And he even had this great scene where, when Robert died, he presented this final declaration that Ned would be the protector of the realm. And Cersei, the queen, just took it and ripped it up and was like what's this? A piece of paper? That kind of reminds me of Clifford at this time, where it's like you don't necessarily have all the alliances and everything backed up and these people don't care. You're really going after very deeply entrenched power structures and people who don't have a moral compass With that said one, watch the show.

Speaker 3:

I will watch the show and you're right to bring up the scope of the corruption in LA. That's something I think people we hear about corruption and there is definitely problems with corruption, as we've seen with some of our council members Always. But the scope of the corruption, especially in the 30s, early 30s, was intense. I mean, we're talking about the mayor. The mayor appointed his brother as like and then his brother was handing out civil service assignments and jobs for bribes. The police chief, the district attorney, the person that's supposed to be the highest law enforcement person in the county to go after bad behavior and misconduct and crime. He's on the take.

Speaker 3:

But really bribery corruption was a way of. That's a little joke that I always think of I know a lot of people love to talk about. Oh, the tunnels underneath downtown were all bootlegging tunnels. There may be a couple, but the truth is they didn't need bootlegging tunnels because LAPD was complicit in the criminal activities of bootlegging. So there may be a few, but there was no need for an elaborate maze of tunnels underneath LA because the LAPD was part of it. They were complicit.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I remember reading the reports of like he had information or would see like police would just walk past it could be a brothel or like blatant illegal things happening on the street and nobody would stop. So when Clifford called this all out, it did turn out better for him than it did for Ned Stark which you'll find out when you watch season one but still it was really bad for him. There were really bad things that happened.

Speaker 3:

So what happened specifically, Clinton's own establishments as cafeterias were suddenly being visited by city health inspectors and cited for violations or supposed violations. His real estate taxes were mysteriously increased. He was denied a permit for a new cafeteria. Suddenly there were slip and fall and food poisoning, lawsuits being filed against him. But then it even got violent. In 1937, a bomb exploded in Clifton's home, in his home in Los Feliz, and luckily Clinton and his family were on the other side of the home at the time and were unharmed. But it was clear that people were willing to kill him to stop him from his crusade against vice. It was interesting what the LAPD's response to the bombing of Clifford Clinton's home was. The LAPD said that you know. They suggested it was a publicity stunt engineered by Clinton himself.

Speaker 1:

So there was no help from law enforcement.

Speaker 3:

I mean, they were linked to it and they blamed it on Clinton. So he was really on his own in an island battling law enforcement, city hall, the sheriff's department. He was really taking on everybody. I mean he had allies but he couldn't go to the normal places where you would go for protection.

Speaker 1:

That's so terrible. I didn't know that part about how they tried to go back and say and actually he just manufactured it, that is dark. Manufactured it, that is dark. So he's also known for like he would keep his door unlocked as a sign of his generosity and acceptance of other people. Did he start locking it after that time?

Speaker 3:

I would hope so. He had a family? I would hope so, but it is interesting to note that his house is still there and it's a beautiful house. Oh, interesting. You drive down, it's on Franklin and Los Feliz, right as Franklin turns into Western, gorgeous, beautiful house that, interestingly, was put on the market a few years back for about five. So they published all these pictures of the inside, beautiful, beautiful house. And every time you drive down as Los Feliz turns into Western, you can see Clifford Clinton's house and where the LAPD most likely planted a bomb to try to kill him.

Speaker 1:

There is an ex-police officer named Harry Raymond who was working with Clifford Clinton to feed him information on what was going on because Clifford's not backing down. But then Harry's car was bombed.

Speaker 3:

Yeah. So Harry Raymond is an interesting character unto himself. So let me just say that Harry Raymond is a pretty shady character. He was an ex-cop fired by the LAPD. I think he was fired from a couple other law enforcement agencies, got it. But he was doing his own investigation, quote unquote, into corruption in LA and he was simultaneously feeding some information to Clinton. And it also appears he was also trying to shake down the Shaw administration, mayor Frank Shaw, who was the mayor at the time. So his intentions are a little bit obscure, but he was feeding information to Clinton about Bison delay.

Speaker 3:

And one day Raymond gets into his car this happened a couple of blocks from Roosevelt High School in Boyle Heights and puts his foot on the pedal. Boom, car bomb explodes. Amazingly, raymond survives. They take him to the hospital. He's at this hospital bed, he's got shrapnel wounds all over his body and he calls a reporter from the Los Angeles examiner to come. And.

Speaker 3:

But Raymond lets it all out and basically accuses an LAPD captain named Earl Connett of planting the bomb. And these allegations became front page news. And then it even got crazier, because then, you know, earl Connett, the captain, is accused of planting the bomb. Who does the LAPD assign to investigate the bombing Captain Connett, which is crazy.

Speaker 3:

And finally he is investigated, finally the da looks into it probably didn't want to, but finally was kind of forced to and uh, connect was put on trial for and he was. And they found out during the trial that you know he purchased the steel pipe used in the bombing, connected him to the bombing. But a lot of more information came out during the trial information about you know spying and the lpD spying on prominent Angelenos, on judges, and just a ton of information. And again, this was front page news. Connett was eventually convicted and sentenced to prison. But the big thing was that all this information came out and I think it was a sort of turning point in public opinion and really an outing of just the depth of the corruption in Los Angeles.

Speaker 1:

It's amazing that anything ever well, I don't think it ever got completely better after that there's still long running issues but it did make a significant dent. I mean, what would you say if you were to wrap up Clifford Clinton's effort not backing down during this period? What impact did it ultimately have on Los Angeles politics? A?

Speaker 3:

huge impact. I mean so after after Kinnett's trial and all this information comes out, clinton and his allies again. It wasn't just Clinton alone, but there were several people involved in kind of anti-corruption efforts. They recruited a reform minded judge named Fletcher Bowron Fletcher Bowron Square in downtown LA if you've ever been by there to run for mayor against Frank Shaw and Bowron wins handily. And then they put pressure. They finally get the police chief to resign and I think Bowron when he gets elected then he actually forces a whole police commission to resign. Frank Shaw's brother who was handing out civil service jobs for bribes. He was convicted for doing so Pretty soon after the district attorney lost his campaign. So everybody was cleaned out and we're talking this is a matter of a few years. I think we're talking maybe three years from when Clinton first started with the county hospital investigation to like the mayor being sacked. So it had a huge effect on Los Angeles and also in ways that secondary effects.

Speaker 3:

Some of the crime bosses left LA because LA was no longer the safe haven for criminal activity that it once was in corruption. People like Guy McAfee, who was a crime boss, who went to Vegas. He actually started the Golden Nugget and became very successful there, but it had a huge impact in LA. The LAPD transformed Daryl Gates, who has many of his own issues, and Chief Parker transformed the LAPD Again. There continue to be problems, but it's unbelievable. I mean Clifford Clinton, this restaurateur, in a few years managed to clean house and deal a huge blow to corruption in LA.

Speaker 1:

After Clifford made this headway in this realm, going back to his experience running cafeterias and being in the food business, his work didn't stop there. Later his work would have an impact on even world hunger. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Speaker 3:

Sure, I mean it sounds it's almost unbelievable. But after all of this, Clinton says you know, I'm going to try to tackle world hunger. So he asked a Caltech biochemist to develop a food supplement that would provide proper nutritional values at a very, very cheap rate, like a few cents a meal. And Clifford Clinton.

Speaker 1:

I keep on conflating the two. Because he did this he mixed the two with his cafeteria, but Clinton also.

Speaker 3:

then he called it Clifton's. To make it even more complicated, clinton financed the research and it led to the development of a multipurpose food MPF and it's like a high protein food supplement that can be made for a few cents a meal. And then Clinton created Meals for Millions, a nonprofit organization which would go on to provide millions of MPFs multipurpose foods to people in over 60 countries around the world. I think it goes back to that kind of passion he developed early in life to feed people, to feed people in need. It's something that we really saw throughout his life.

Speaker 1:

Fast forwarding a couple decades later about, if not around, the time he's retired. A couple decades later about, if not around, the time he's retired. There's always a twist. It's never a simple story. I'm going to go even further forward in time before we talk about this point in Clifford's life.

Speaker 1:

It's January 2011, and a man named Ray Richmond shows up to Clifton's cafeteria on Broadway with his brother and sister with a very special box. They were the ashes of his mother, terry. Building renovations were well underway so, when nobody was looking, they poured the ashes down an electrical closet whose wiring extended down throughout the building, basically to spread her ashes throughout the building, which was probably illegal, but they believed it's what she would have wanted. And why would she want this? So when I started researching Clifford because he did all of these incredible things I did have this vague memory of an affair somewhere. So I started digging and at first I thought, okay, maybe it's not really that bad, maybe it's not that true. I had this temptation to try to sanitize history. And then I dug more. This is not the clean story I was expecting In 1958. So this is now okay.

Speaker 1:

So fast forwarding a couple of decades after at least his corruption fight. In 1958, according to Ray Richmond and recordings from his mother, terry, published on a KCRW podcast and cited in a few other vetted sources, clifford Clinton went to the chiropractor's office, probably innocent, probably was going through back pain or something like that. But when he was there it turned out they had one of those quote unquote massage therapists in the back and he went to see her. And then he kept going to see her and kept paying her. This woman, terry Richmond, had set up shop. Essentially it was across the street from 20th Century Fox Studios and it was more or less kind of like that industry. He was fought brothels that he was supposed to be fighting. He's now a regular client.

Speaker 1:

Now this would become a full-blown affair that would last for a decade up until when he died in 1969. His grandson even acknowledged it in his book that he'd read Ray's article on the affair and he remembered hearing certain whispers and hush conversations growing up. And now it made sense. We may not know ever the exact details, but more or less this happened and, even worse, his wife, nelda, it said when she found out and gave him an ultimatum, he tried to commit suicide and he told her he would never try to do that again, but as long as she accepted the arrangement, and so they went on like that. He stayed married with her and Terry stayed his mistress. There's even a picture of them on vacation in Hawaii together. It's just a lot. It's a lot to digest given, like all the other great stuff he did. So you know, knowing that kind of putting all of that in context with the things he did earlier in life, how do we make sense of his legacy?

Speaker 3:

I've heard that KCRW story too, and I don't know much about it other than just what I've heard from the KCRW story. That's something that I didn't come across in my research of Clinton.

Speaker 1:

And that came out after your article too.

Speaker 3:

So you know I would say that you know I've never researched a character who was not complicated and was, you know, not was you know, one dimensional. So a lot of the figures that we look at in history are pretty darn complicated and do things that don't seem to necessarily fit with either their public persona or maybe some things they've done other times in their lives. For him it's complicated how to place that. We're all kind of speculating here because I don't know what he would have said about it. But first, to preface everything, it's hard to explain matters of the heart. Looking back at Clinton and his crusade against public corruption, from my point of view it's always been more of attacking systematic corruption and not so much being obsessed with regulating the conduct of individuals. I didn't see him as a morality policeman trying to you know you guys got to stop sinning and fornicating and you know that didn't seem to be his, at least from what I've read about him and looked into. That wasn't his main purpose. He wasn't a preacher. He wasn't Amy Simpson-Folk-Mirson trying to change people's lives in that way. He was more interested in rooting out corruption that hurts society as a whole. You had a system in LA where the government answered to crime bosses and corrupt politicians, not the people, and that was something.

Speaker 3:

But he was guided by a Christian conscience. That does seem to be at odds with the way he described being guided by his Christian conscience, does seem to be at odds with some of he described being guided by his Christian conscious. Does he be at odds with some of the behavior later in his life? It's hard to really know exactly how he would talk about it. Also, something that's possible is that people's views change. We're coming on the 60s and the sexual revolution. People do change their views and I don't know if maybe some of his views may have changed because of this relation, maybe not. Again, it's all speculation. It is definitely another interesting chapter, interesting fold in his life.

Speaker 1:

Allegedly there were letters. There were love letters he had written. I know they were originally linked, but now that they're not, it would be so interesting to see those. We don't really know what he would have said. We only know what Terry said and what her son said, and then his grandson later addressed it when he wrote a book about Clifford, but we don't really know his perspective on it too. It is a lot to digest, though, because people have different arrangements in their relationships, but it's more the fact of like. But you said you were fighting brothels. You know, broadly speaking Also too, if it's true that he forced his wife to accept. I mean, by putting that sort of burden on someone is yeah, that sounds.

Speaker 3:

In terms of fighting corruption and brothels. I mean, I could imagine a situation today where someone who maybe is on a crusade against you know drug cartels.

Speaker 1:

Oh yeah.

Speaker 3:

Might enjoy recreational drug use themselves Documented cases of it. You can also imagine someone trying to root out criminal underground gambling but doesn't have a problem going to Las Vegas and pulling the slots a few times. But again there's all kind of speculation. But it's really interesting because I wish we could hear Clinton talk about it. Because I bet it's really interesting because he was a very articulate man with very strongly held beliefs and I would love to hear what this relationship meant to him and if it changed his maybe views on things. Maybe it didn't, I would be fascinated. I wish we could.

Speaker 1:

I know, or even just validate, did this actually happen or did it not? But that's always the hard part. I'm sure you probably run into this over and over again with your podcast. But we just don't know these people and they're not alive to talk about it.

Speaker 3:

But I think it's good to. I think a lot of times in history we are afraid. We put people up on pedestals and we want to keep them there. We're afraid if we talk about anything negative that will somehow destroy the legacy, and I hope that people realize that people are complicated All of us are complicated and it doesn't destroy someone's legacy just to find out there's some change or they changed their mind about something.

Speaker 3:

I'm not saying what happened with Clinton. It doesn't take away, at least in my view, the important work he did for the people of LA and I think he is one of those characters that there's a lot of characters and figures in LA that had an important impact on LA and they did it because they wanted to be powerful or rich or to gain notoriety. Clinton is someone who really did it because he thought it was part of his civic duty, and I think that's special and I don't think it's rare to see a figure like that feel some sort of civic obligation and civic duty and put his life on the line to do it and then to have the effect that he did he cleaned house in a few short years. Of course we still live with corruption in LA, but it was a big change in the 30s and the 40s to how City Hall and the city was run.

Speaker 1:

Well, robert, thank you so much for coming on to talk about the story. It's fascinating for a million different reasons and I will link your podcast in our show notes so, for all of you who don't want to just hear the dark stuff when you listen to us, head on over to Robert's podcast, because he talks about all of it. So, thank you again. It was a joy to have you on the show and really appreciate you coming on.

Speaker 3:

Thank you so much for having me on. It's been an absolute pleasure talking to you and I really enjoy your podcast. So again, thanks so much for having me on. Thank you.