Jim Guy Tucker, a former Governor of Arkansas who became entangled in the long -term investigation that in vain pointed his predecessor as Governor, Bill Clinton, died on Thursday in Little Rock, Ark. He was 81.
His death, in a hospital, was caused by complications of ulcerative colitis, said his daughter Anna Ashton.
The Whitewater research, investigating so -called fraudulent land deals in northwestern Arkansas, was led by a Republican special public prosecutor and consumed much of the Clinton presidency. But it only made secondary players against small charges.
Mr. Tucker was one of them. He was one of the most promising figures in the politics of Arkansas and a rival of Mr. Clinton in the Democratic Party of Arkansas. But he was forced to resign as Governor in July 1996, after serving his term of office for less than two years.
Two months earlier he was convicted in a federal court in Little Rock. He was continued by Independent Counsel, a team led by Kenneth W. Starr, for receiving a fraudulent loan from a small business development company, Capital Management Services, in the mid -1980s.
In August 1996, Judge George Howard Jr. From the Federal District Court in Little Rock him to four years conditional – Mr. Tucker avoided prison for a serious state of health – and ordered him to pay $ 294,000 in refund to the small company administration. By that time, Mr. Tucker had already left the country house of the governor; He would never keep his place again.
But his conviction-such as Whitewater himself, who called the journalist and commentator Larser-Oll Nelson 'A Travesty of a Scandal Investigation, a freight cult version of Watergate' in the New York Review of Books later later.
The loan – for $ 150,000, according to the historian Jeannie M. Whayne of the University of Arkansas – should never have went to Mr. Tucker's water and sewerage company. Other sources say that almost $ 3 million was lent to Mr. Tucker and his co -suspects, James B. and Susan McDougal, who were also convicted in May 1996.
Capital Management Services “was supposed to provide loans to companies where at least half of the owners were 'disadvantaged' in one way or another,” the experienced journalist of Arkansas, Ernie Dumas, described as the dean of the Arkansas Political Press Corps by The encyclopedia or arkansas wrote in a non -published manuscript.
But David Hale, the banker who led capital management services and was the most important witness for Mr. Starr's prosecution team, “never told one of his borrowers that, and none of them would have qualified,” Mr Dumas wrote. “Tucker and the McDougals heard of the special designation, for disadvantaged people, during the process.”
However, the conviction of the Governor of Arkansas represented a sort of flood marking for chasing Mr Starr of Mr. Clinton. Mr. Tucker was the highest ranked official who was convicted during the investigation and was considered his conviction as a promising sign for Mr Starr's efforts. It turned out not to be.
Before his conviction, Mr Tucker had pursued the kind of moderate conservative agenda that South Democrats of that time were obliged to follow, because the last of them reached the office of the governor. Thirty years later, these states are almost exclusively in the hands of Republicans.
He reduced the expenditure in some government agencies, such as the Arkansas Parks and Tourism Department, and gave the savings to public schools. In 1994 he pushed through accounts aimed at juvenile criminal offenders, a special concern of the Conservative Electorate of the State. However, he was unable to persuade voters to approve a building application of $ 3.5 billion.
Earlier in his political career, Mr. Tucker had served two two-year periods from 1973 to 1977 as Attorney General of Arkansas. In 1976 he was chosen in the American House of Representatives to follow the powerful chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, Wilbur D. Mills, who was forced to retire in a scandal in which the Stripper Fanne Foxe was involved. He served one term in the congress and became close to President Jimmy Carter.
James Guy Tucker Jr. was born on June 13, 1943 in Oklahoma City, one of the three children of James Guy Tucker Sr., who ran the local social security office, and Willie Maude (White) Tucker. The family moved back to Arkansas, where his father had been the state auditor when he was a child, and he went to public high schools in Little Rock.
He graduated from Harvard University with a diploma in the government in 1964 and served with the Marine Corps. He was quickly fired for health reasons, but he went to Vietnam anyway – to work as a freelance correspondent, especially for the Arkansas press.
He obtained a diploma at the University of Arkansas in 1968 and became an employee at the Rose Law Firm in Little Rock, later in the Whitewater research as an employer of Hillary Clinton.
While Mr. Tucker rose in the politics of Arkansas – he ran in vain to the American Senate in 1978, after his stay in the house, and for governorship in 1982 – Mr. Clinton began to consider him “his main competition as the emerging Star of state -democratic politics, “wrote David Maraniss in his 1995 biography of Mr. Clinton,” First in his class. “
During his time outside of office, Mr. Tucker practiced law and developed a successful cable television company, which extended it from Arkansas to other parts of the United States.
He was elected Lieutenant -Gouverneur in 1990. When Mr. Clinton, as governor, started his presidential campaign the following year, he was reluctantly forced to give up his power to his old rival. After Mr. Clinton was chosen in 1992 and resigned as governor, Mr. Tucker succeeded him. He was chosen in 1994 until a full period to resign two years later.
At the end of 1996 he received a liver transplant, which he credited with saving his life. Two years later, Mr. Starr was again after him and Mr. Tucker argued guilty of tax fraud “to prevent them from going to prison,” wrote Mr Dumas.
“The Ministry of Justice and the IRS eventually acknowledged that Starr Tucker had accused the violation of part of the federal bankruptcy code that did not even exist at the time of a cable television transaction in the 1980s,” Mr Dumas added Toe. “The government eventually concluded that the Tucker's money would be due, but could not distinguish how much. It sent him and his wife a check of $ 1.44, which he mentions and pulled on his wall. '
In addition to his daughter Anna, Mr. Tucker survived by his wife, Betty Allen (Alworth) Tucker; Another daughter, Sarah Allen Tucker; a stepson, Lance Alworth jr.; A stepdaughter, Kelly Driscoll; A sister, Carol Tucker Foreman; Nine grandchildren; And a great -grandson.
Mr. Tucker once remembered the pressure that Mr Starr's prosecutors had put him in an attempt to reach Mr. Clinton:
“What they wanted me to do was remember a conversation that I heard between Bill Clinton and David Hale, that I just never heard. There wasn't something like that. But they tried to ensure that they could get Bill Clinton. That is what those persecutions were about, and I was not helpful for them, because he did nothing that they wanted to testify. “
Steve Barnes Contributed report from Little Rock.
