A rock and a hard place
Secretaries ponder the quandary of Betty Currie and speculate on how
they would deal with similar circumstances
Sunday, September 20, 1998
By Jonathan D. Silver, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
Guilty of nothing, but with her hands in everything, President Clinton's
tryst-facilitating secretary Betty Currie has prompted some unusual
self-reflection lately among her peers.
Take Bonnie Gift, 53, a secretary at a Downtown law firm. She has never
been called to the office on a weekend to usher in a starry-eyed paramour for
her boss, much less twiddle her thumbs for 20 minutes in the next room while
the two exchange presents of both the wrapped and unwrapped kind.
"I was watching Larry King, and a friend of Monica Lewinsky's was on
talking about Monica and her situation, and she said that Betty Currie should
have just resigned and said, 'I can't do this,"' Gift said last week. "I thought,
'What would I do?' That's a really interesting question."
One, no doubt, that Currie must have pondered as she sank deeper and
deeper into her boss's tomcatting tomfoolery.
As portrayed by her grand jury testimony, Currie's role in the affair that led to
Clinton's most humiliating days was that of an accomplice. Such actions might
have been expected from an old boy in a network of winking, philandering
backslappers looking out for one another, but not from the 59-year-old
stalwart, matronly churchgoing guardian of the Oval Office.
Over a period of two years, if Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr's report is
to be believed, Currie sneaked Lewinsky into Clinton's private study, shielded
her from high-level Clinton caretakers who were wary of the lovestruck young
woman, did not list phone calls from Lewinsky to the president on official
telephone logs, and retrieved gifts from Lewinsky's apartment when the
relationship ended.
Maybe office politics inside the Beltway means something different than it
does in Pittsburgh. But even in Washington, is this what a loyal secretary is
expected to do?
Some of Currie's actions should come as no surprise. The word secretary,
after all, is derived from the Latin secretarius, or one entrusted with secrets.
Those who define their role in this way serve as gatekeepers, protectors and
confidantes, privy to the most private, proprietary information, both about
their bosses and their companies.
They are expected to adopt the see-no-evil, hear-no-evil approach, tell white
lies when necessary and always use the utmost discretion when it comes to
making the boss look good. But in doing so, they sometimes don't make
themselves look very good.
As America absorbs the details, several views of Currie have emerged. Is she
a paragon of secretarial virtues who went to extraordinary lengths to help her
boss? Is she a helpless civil servant who became trapped between her boss's
overactive libido and a fear of losing her job? Or is she the main player in a
cautionary tale for clerical workers, an example of how not to behave?
So far, Currie hasn't spoken publicly about her role in the Lewinsky saga,
leaving it open to interpretation as to why she did what she did, and whether
she did it of her own volition.
Colleagues are giving Currie split marks. Some said bully for Betty: she did
her job, asked no questions, and told no lies -- at least not while under oath.
"If I were her, I probably would've done the same exact thing," said Carol
Torres, 51, an administrative assistant at PNC Bank. Over her 30-year
career, she said she has had to cover more than once for bosses having
affairs, adding that it was while she worked at other companies. "My bosses
generally are my friends. I would do that for my friends."
Said another veteran secretary, who asked that her name not be used for fear
of getting in trouble with her Downtown employer:
"(Currie) felt a loyalty to help. And as far as morals go, I think what
(Clinton's) done is just absolutely horrible, but if it was someone I felt a loyalty
and devotion to, I would have helped and figured everybody makes a
mistake."
Not everyone was as tolerant or forgiving of Currie. Why didn't Currie speak
up, some wonder? If she was uneasy, why didn't she say so?
"I don't believe in compromising values," said Ginny Deily, 50, the immediate
past president of Pittsburgh's chapter of the International Association of
Administrative Professionals.
"We feel somewhat upset by this behavior, feeling that it casts a bad light on
our profession, that we're willing to do anything to maintain a position," said
Deily, recalling a discussion about Currie at a chapter meeting last week. "I
think she should have made it known it was an unethical situation and she
would not be a part of it, irrespective of the consequences."
And then there is the contingent that took Clinton to task, blaming any
secretarial corruption on the president and his bimbo eruption. This group held
Clinton up as the example of the worst kind of boss, the one who sticks a
secretary in an uncomfortable spot.
"I don't think it's OK for a boss to put their employee in that position. I think
it's an abuse of their power," said Meg Lewis-Sidime, spokeswoman for
9to5, National Association of Working Women.
"Secretaries and administrative assistants handle all sorts of important
functions. They have a right to say, 'I want to be treated like a professional. I
don't want to be treated like a domestic, or someone who's running around
with their bosses' dirty laundry,"' Lewis-Sidime said.
From stained dresses to stained reputations, major scandals involving
secretaries and personal assistants, while rare, are nothing new.
Currie will undoubtedly own the '90s as far as the history books go. But in the
'80s, it was Fawn Hall, the paper-shredding, document-smuggling assistant to
Iran-Contra figure Oliver North. And the '70s produced Rosemary Woods,
Richard Nixon's personal secretary, who was blamed for erasing a section of
taped conversation related to Watergate.
Pennsylvania has its own tales of office loyalty gone awry or subordinates
being forced to comply with their bosses' more offbeat requests.
Catherine "Jeanne" Ronschke was convicted in 1996 of obstructing justice
during a kickback controversy that toppled her lifelong friend and boss,
former Allegheny County Maintenance Director Joe Moses, to whom she had
loaned $100,000.
And Barbara Roberts, former secretary to ousted state Supreme Court
Justice Rolf Larsen, testified in 1994 that she had been ordered to buy jock
straps, medication for jock itch and pornography for the impeached judge.
Some schools of thought hold that a secretary's job starts at the telephone and
ends at the filing cabinet. But while individual job descriptions might vary,
executive secretaries of all stripes are often called upon to do far more than
take dictation, file papers and keep an office running on a day-to-day basis.
"There are secrets. You don't tell," Gift said. "If there are things going on, you
just do not talk to anybody about them, and your boss learns that he can
confide in you or he can send a letter across your desk that isn't going to get
into the wrong hands."
When layoffs are about to hit or the financial outlook darkens, executive
secretaries know, often before the rank-and-file. And if the boss is fooling
around, they often cannot help but be aware.
"I have been in situations where I knew that my boss was having an
extramarital affair, and I specifically told him, 'I don't want to hear about it, I
don't want to know about it. That is your friend, as far as I'm concerned,"'
said Lori Tillman, 35, who works Downtown and has been an adminstrative
assistant for eight years.
"If I was asked to do something personal -- go pick up cards or go make a
reservation for someone's personal life -- I would do that," Tillman said, but
only as long as she knew it was not linked to any infidelity.
For many secretaries, personal morals and ethics seem to be the guiding lights
for office conduct. In other words, if it feels OK, then do it. Just don't break
the law.
"If you feel uncomfortable, you just have to let them know," said Michele
Vanek, 39, executive assistant to the president of a Coraopolis company and
a 20-year veteran of the field. "I don't think any boss should ever expect them
to actually be deceitful to cover for them. If push comes to shove, no job is
worth it, no amount of money and no amount of prestige, in any position."
"Where you draw the line is when it puts your personal integrity in harm's
way," said Kevin Imbrescia, career services coordinator of the Douglas
School of Business in Monessen. "That has to be an individual call." |
