Clark McAdams Clifford (December 25, 1906 – October 10, 1998) was an American lawyer who served as an important political adviser to Democratic presidents Harry S. Truman, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, and Jimmy Carter. His official government positions were White House Counsel (1946–1950), Chairman of the President's Intelligence Advisory Board (1963–1968), and Secretary of Defense (1968–1969); Clifford was also influential in his role as an unofficial, informal presidential adviser in various issues. A successful Washington, D.C., lawyer, he was known for his elite clientele, charming manners, and impeccable suits.
All four Democratic presidents of the Cold War era employed Clifford's services and relied on his counsel. Emblematic of Clifford's influence in postwar Democratic presidential administrations was that after Jimmy Carter won the 1976 presidential election, his transition team was adamant that Clifford, as a symbol of the Washington, D.C., establishment, should not have any influence whatsoever, declaring that "if you ever see us relying on Clark Clifford, you'll know we have failed", yet Carter eventually came to rely on him nonetheless.
In his later years, Clifford became involved in several controversies. He was a key figure in the Bank of Credit and Commerce International scandal, which led to a grand jury indictment.
Clifford was born on December 25, 1906, in Fort Scott, Kansas. His parents resided there at the time because his father, Frank, was a traveling auditor for Missouri Pacific Railroad. He was named after his maternal uncle, Clark McAdams. He attended Washington University in St. Louis where he was a member of Kappa Alpha Order (Beta Theta) initiated in 1924.
On October 3, 1931, Clifford married Margery Pepperell "Marny" Kimball (April 20, 1908 – April 14, 2000). They had three daughters: Margery Clifford (nickname: Gery), Joyce Clifford Burland and Randall Clifford Wight. Clifford was a self-proclaimed Christian Zionist.
Clifford built a solid reputation practicing law in St. Louis between 1928 and 1943. He served as an officer in the U.S. Navy from 1944 to 1946.
In 1945 he was assigned to the White House and quickly promoted to captain while serving as assistant naval aide and then naval aide to President Harry S Truman. He became a trusted personal adviser and friend of Truman. Clifford went to Washington, first to serve as assistant to the President's Naval Adviser, after the naming of a personal friend from Missouri as the President's Naval Adviser. Following his discharge from the Navy, he remained at Truman's side as White House Counsel from 1946 to 1950, as Truman came rapidly to trust and rely upon Clifford.
Clifford was a key architect of Truman's campaign in 1948, when Truman pulled off a stunning upset victory over Republican nominee Thomas Dewey. Clifford encouraged Truman to embrace a left-wing populist image in hope of undermining the impact on the race of third-party Progressive candidate Henry A. Wallace, who had served as President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Vice-President from 1941 to 1945. Clifford also believed that a strong pro-civil rights stance, while sure to alienate traditional Southern Democrats, would not result in a serious challenge to the party's supremacy in that region. This prediction was foiled by Strom Thurmond's candidacy as a splinter States' Rights Democrat, but Clifford's strategy nonetheless helped win Truman election in his own right and establish the Democratic Party's position in the Civil Rights Movement.
In his role as presidential adviser, one of his most significant contributions was his successful advocacy, along with David Niles, of prompt 1948 recognition of the new Jewish state of Israel, over the strong objections of Secretary of State General George Marshall. Of similar importance, with the input of senior officials in the Departments of State, War, and Justice, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Central Intelligence Group, and utilizing the expertise of George F. Kennan and Charles Bohlen, was his preparation, along with George Elsey, of the top secret Clifford-Elsey Report for President Truman in 1946. That report, solicited by the President, which detailed the numerous ways in which the Soviet Union had gone back on its various treaties and understandings with the Western powers, along with Kennan's X Article in Foreign Affairs, was instrumental in turning U.S. relations toward the Soviet Union in the direction of a harder line. During this period he participated extensively in the legislative efforts that resulted in the National Security Act of 1947 and its 1949 amendments.
After leaving the government in 1950, Clifford practiced law in Washington, D.C., but continued to advise Democratic Party leaders. One of his law clients was John F. Kennedy, then a U.S. Senator, and Clifford tried to assuage Truman's suspicion of Kennedy and his father, Joseph P. Kennedy. Clifford was the head of the presidential transition of John F. Kennedy. Clifford was also a member of President-elect Kennedy's Committee on the Defense Establishment, headed by Stuart Symington. In May 1961, Kennedy appointed Clifford to the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, which he chaired beginning in April 1963 and ending in January 1968. After Johnson became president in November 1963 following Kennedy's assassination, Clifford served frequently as an unofficial White House Counsel and sometimes undertook short-term official duties, including a trip with General Maxwell Taylor in 1967 to South Vietnam and other countries in Southeast Asia and the Pacific.
Clifford served as the chairman of the President's Intelligence Advisory Board during the 1967 Six-Day War. In this capacity, he oversaw the official investigation of the 1967 USS Liberty incident. As a staunch supporter of Israel, he was perplexed by the Israeli government’s explanation following the attack: “We were baffled. From the beginning there was skepticism and disbelief about the Israeli version of events. We had enormous respect for Israeli intelligence and it was difficult to believe the Liberty had been attacked by mistake. Every conceivable theory was advanced that morning. It became clear that from the sketchy information available we could not figure out what happened.”
He delved deeper into the inconsistencies in the Israeli explanation: “That the Liberty could have been mistaken for the Egyptian supply ship El Quseir is unbelievable. El Quseir has one-fourth the displacement of the Liberty, roughly half the beam, is 180 feet shorter, and is very differently configured. The Liberty’s unusual antenna array and hull markings should have been visible to low-flying aircraft and torpedo boats. In the heat of battle the Liberty was able to identify one of the attacking torpedo boats as Israeli and to ascertain its hull number. In the same circumstances, trained Israeli naval personnel should have been able to easily see and identify the larger hull markings on the Liberty. The best interpretation of from available facts is that there were gross and inexcusable failures in the command and control of subordinate Israeli naval and air elements…The unprovoked attack on the Liberty constitutes a flagrant act of gross negligence for which the Israeli Government should be held completely responsible, and the Israeli military personnel involved should be punished.”
Immediately after the attack, he had pressured the Johnson administration to hold the Israelis responsible: “My concern is that we are not tough enough. Handle as if Arabs or USSR had done it. Manner egregious. Inconceivable that it was accident. 3 strafing passes, 3 torpedo boats. Set forth facts. Punish Israelis responsible.”
He expressed his desire to hold Israel accountable in an eponymous 1967 report that he had authored: “I do not know to this day at what level the attack on the Liberty was authorized and I think it is unlikely that the full truth will ever come out. Having been for so long a staunch supporter of Israel, I was particularly troubled by this incident; I could not bring myself to believe that such an action could have been authorized by Levi Eshkol. Yet somewhere inside the Israeli government, somewhere along the chain-of-command, something had gone terribly wrong – and then had been covered-up. I never felt the Israelis made adequate restitution or explanation for their actions.”