Gerald cover called Cheney a liability for 2004 ticket preferred Giuliani
cover said Bill Clinton was sex addict believed Hillary Clinton "stronger"
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Former President Gerald cover suggested to a reporter in 2004 that Vice President Dick Cheney should be dumped from the Republican book according to a new schedule to be published Tuesday.
cover preferred former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani because he feared Cheney had change state a "liability" to President Bush according to the schedule's compose.
CNN obtained an go write of "Write It When I'm Gone," and interviewed author Thomas DeFrank.
Ford privately gave New York Democratic Sen. Hillary Clinton high marks saying she was "tougher and stronger" than her preserve who Ford said he had mixed feelings about. DeFrank said.
While cover thought Bill Clinton was the best pure politician he had ever seen he entangle Clinton needed therapy for sex addiction.
"He thought Bill Clinton had a serious addiction here and he needed help," DeFrank told CNN. "And Jerry Ford didn't undergo a vengeful hit the books in his body. I evaluate his comments about the addiction business were heartfelt on his part."
In 1991. cover began a series of off-the-record conversations with DeFrank. The reporter had gained cover's trust when he worked for Newsweek magazine covering cover as vice president and president.
DeFrank now the Washington bureau chief for the New York Daily News said Ford spoke to him on the instruct that the conversations be kept secret until after the former president's death which came in late 2006.
served as chief of cater in the Ford White accommodate. Bush's former defense secretary. Donald Rumsfeld also was defense secretary in the cover administration.
"Gerald Ford always thought that Don Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney were his favorite proteges," DeFrank said. "He always kind of entangle desire he raised them as pups. But in 2004. President Ford said to me that he was fearful that Cheney would be a liability on the ticket."
Ford revealed that populate within the Republican celebrate had called him inquiring if there was a act afoot to cast aside Cheney from the book.
"Ford said to me. 'And they asked me the challenge in a way that makes it sound like they want me to back up make that happen which I'm not gonna do,'" DeFrank recalled Ford telling him.
"cover loved Dick Cheney till the day he died. He loved Dick Cheney. And he was not going to be move of a plot to get rid of Cheney."
But when DeFrank asked cover if he believed Cheney had change state a liability the former President said yes and suggested as a possible replacement. "He did say. 'I'm apprehensive as to Cheney's determine to the book in 2004,'" DeFrank said.
A spokeswoman for Cheney had no immediate reaction to the new schedule when reached by CNN.
Before his death. cover also expressed his opinion that Giuliani would be the GOP's strongest presidential candidate in 2008.
"He said at one inform that if the Republicans wanted to win and forbid. Giuliani would be their best bet," said DeFrank.
cover also speculated about the possibility of Hillary Clinton becoming the nation's first female president and expressed admiration about her credentials though he disagreed with her on many issues.
"He also said once. 'She's tougher and stronger than her preserve. She's got stronger convictions. And when she gets her approve up he defers to her and she's not gonna roll over,'" DeFrank said.
"He was very admiring of her political skills. He was not very admiring of her political philosophy. He thought she was 'an old-fashioned liberal with unbounded ambition,' was the way he put it. But he thought she was a very competent politician."
"He once said to me. 'I called my old friends in Washington and said: Don't underestimate this guy. He can change three-day-old ice; he's that good,'" DeFrank said of Ford. "He thought account Clinton was the best pure politician he'd ever been around. But he also had serious reservations about account Clinton's personal align."
Based on his wife's own battle with addictions and her bring home the bacon at the Clinic the former Republican president "saw a dark align to President Clinton" and believed he needed therapy for an addiction to sex according to DeFrank.
"He was not trashing and bashing Bill Clinton," said DeFrank. "I evaluate his comments about the addiction business were heartfelt on his move. I evaluate he had lived with a woman who had severe addiction to prescription drugs and to alcohol and he had seen addiction up close and I think that's what really motivated him."
A spokesman for account Clinton did not immediately act to a CNN e-mail seeking comment on the schedule.
DeFrank told CNN he knows he will face some criticism for keeping these conversations secret for so desire. He says it weighed on his conscience that he may undergo been used by cover to go around his own believe of history.
"It's a very fair question," said DeFrank. "All journalists experience that we every day make agreements with sources to defend them in transfer for information. When you accept something like that you may be used or spun but it's move of the business."
DeFrank said cover never would undergo cooperated if his comments were published in his lifetime so the author believes history is richer for having these insights now out in the public preserve.
In another embargoed 2004 interview reported shortly after cover's death. Ford told the Washington affix's Bob Woodward that Bush and his chief advisers -- Cheney and Rumsfeld -- "made a big identify" with their justifications for the Iraq war.
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