WESLEY CLARK (archival audio): You want to be more than a soldier. You want to be someone who's more broadly based. You want to have a perspective on the world because this will help you later on in your career.
KYLE KELLAMS: This is Ozarks at Large. I'm Kyle Kellams.
RANDY DIXON: How the heck. Hello, Kyle.
KELLAMS: I'm doing great. Good. Randy is with the David and Barbara Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History. Every Monday or almost every Monday, we dive into archives about Arkansas history. Last week, we talked about Wesley Clark's run for the White House.
DIXON: That's correct, Gen. Wesley Clark. This week we're going to talk about the rest of his life, his military career and what he did after he retired from the military and went into business and ran for president. And we're going to talk about everything around that. And that's obviously the voice we heard just a moment ago.
KELLAMS: Right. That was an early 2000 interview that Gen. Clark did with ABC News Peter Jennings. As we mentioned last week, he was a Rhodes Scholar, a decorated soldier, presidential candidate, expert analyst, author and a financial advisor. That's a pretty big full plate.
DIXON: Absolutely. So Clark was career military, having graduated from West Point at the top of his class and stationed in Vietnam, where he commanded an infantry company. During that time, and it was only for nine months that he was in Vietnam, he was shot four times and received a Silver Star, a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart. He was in the U.S. Army for 34 years, and Clark retired from duty as the Supreme Allied Commander of NATO during the war in Kosovo. Let's bring us up to that point of his life and career. So he has been — he's a four-star general. He's been asked by NATO to be the supreme commander of the troops. And here he is in 1999, briefing the press about the progress on the war.
WESLEY CLARK (archival audio): We've brought a well-balanced task force that's capable of supporting itself, sustaining itself and accomplishing the mission as we see it. We size the force according to the mission. Question right here. We're a month into the campaign now. How do you see it going? Well, I think the air campaign is right on schedule. We said it would be a serious and sustained effort. We said it would progressively intensify. We've more than doubled the aircraft that are engaged. We're bringing in additional reconnaissance means and others. And I think we're having an effect, as I said, in Washington a couple of days ago. We're winning. Milosevic is losing and he knows it.
KELLAMS: Our subject for this week's Pryor Center profile is Gen. Wesley Clark.
DIXON: That's right. And the air part of the war, and it was actually called Operation Allied Force, was based mostly out of the Aviano Air Force Base in northern Italy. So Clark was there occasionally, but there were also troops from Little Rock Air Force Base, Arkansans there. And as weird as it sounds, I have a story from the archives about the Arkansas troops there and Clark's involvement. I mean, we went to a lot of places and covered a lot of things, but you wouldn't think we'd go to northern Italy to just do a story on Arkansas. Well, we happened to already be in Italy. We were doing a feature story on the Harding University campus there. We finished a day early, so we were having breakfast, had a free day. I was getting antsy. You know. Yeah. Go figure. Thought about this Aviano Air Force Base and called the Little Rock Air Force Base and asked if there happened to be any troops there. Well, it just turns out that there had been a whole batch of folks from Little Rock Air Force Base stationed there just six weeks previously. So I thought, we've got a free day. Why don't we just drop by the Air Force base and do a story in our spare time? Right. So why sightsee? Why see the Italian countryside?
KELLAMS: Why do that?
DIXON: Well, we actually did. Okay, because I looked at a map and it seemed reasonably close, the Air Force base. And we get a driver, and after breakfast, we start driving. Well, I didn't realize it was a three-hour drive. So we get there and it's pouring rain and we're going to shoot our little story. And I had worked out with the air base that we could talk to these Arkansas people. So we go in and we get on the base and we're doing our story, and we're about to leave. And I look, and there's a satellite truck parked outside the base, and I see CNN. Well, we were CNN affiliate, so I just knocked on the door and talked to the crew in there. And yeah, it was a CNN crew and they let us do a live shot. Wow. From there.
KELLAMS: Well, you have natural curiosity. That's way too long of a story. Why don't we get to a brief portion of a report from Karen Fuller at Aviano Air Force Base in Italy.
KAREN FULLER (archival audio): The NATO bombing is now in its 24th day with bombing efforts growing in intensity as the days and weeks pass. NATO forces are averaging about 450 to 500 missions per day, with many of them originating from here at Aviano Air Force Base. The weather, as you can see, is a problem, but we are still seeing flights take off on regular intervals. The activity at the base is less than we expected, perhaps keeping a low profile after yesterday's mistaken bombing of a civilian convoy over western Kosovo. Security at the base is tight and we are being given limited photo access. This base, by the way, is home to the only U.S. fighter wing south of the Alps. So its location is crucial to this mission, especially now that President Clinton has said he wants to keep this war in the air. At one point, supplies were being brought in by C-130s from Arkansas deployed to Ramstein Air Base in Germany. And right now there are several airmen from Little Rock Air Force Base assisting the troops already stationed here.
DIXON: So Clark at this point is overseeing all of this. It wasn't going smoothly for him. He not only had his conflicts abroad, but he also had them at home. He got kind of sideways with the chair of the Joint Chiefs and also Secretary of Defense William Cohen over how to execute this operation. As a result, I mean, it got bad enough that he was forced into early retirement. So, as they say, if you and your boss have a difference of opinion, your boss owns the opinion.
KELLAMS: You own the difference.
DIXON: Oh, so you are. Yeah. You usually don't win those.
KELLAMS: No you don't. Yeah. You have to know how to read a roster.
DIXON: That's right. But what's he going to do now? He's fairly young.
KELLAMS: Yeah. He's in his 50s. He's had his full career in the Army. And the Pryor Center talked to him in 2022, and he had this to say about how he saw his life ahead.
WESLEY CLARK (Pryor Center interview): Well, I didn't know what I was going to do, and it was a sudden shock. I never had any real interest in it. I turned down a couple of opportunities that had been offered when I was in uniform because I was thrilled to look at the Army. That was my community. It was my family. And it was something I deeply believed in. And the other thing is that I think when you're wounded and you've shed blood for your country, I think it's a special bond that's really hard to give up. You've donated for your country and risk your life for it in a very special way. So it's hard to turn your back on it. But I knew I was 55 years old. I knew I had to do something. So I interviewed with various groups, and it looked like the best opportunity I had was in investment banking. So I interviewed with Goldman Sachs and Merrill Lynch and Stevens, and it seemed like the best fit for me was actually Stevens. Goldman Sachs wanted me to live in Europe and I didn't want to stay abroad. I wanted to come back home. I didn't have any particular idea of what was going to happen in investment banking. I had been in Congress, in the Office of Management and Budget, and I taught economics.
DIXON: I started hearing people sort of wanting him to get into politics pretty soon after this. Not that he was talking about it, but people were like, oh, wouldn't it be great if Wesley Clark ran? As a matter of fact, it started an entire campaign.
KELLAMS: Yeah. This grassroots, it was called Draft Clark.
DIXON: Right. Yes. Trying to convince him to run. Right? Yeah. And he couldn't decide for the longest time. He's immediately just inundated with all this. And he spoke about that to us.
WESLEY CLARK (Pryor Center interview): Before I got out, I was in Washington and I was asked, hey, are you going to go back to Arkansas? Are you going to run for office? Tim Hutchinson, you're going to run against me. Steve Friedman asked me, would you run against Hillary in New York as a Republican? Like, what the hell is this crazy stuff? Bill Clinton said, well, you know, you're young. You could do that. Like, oh, wow. Okay. I never thought about it. Really. I never ran for student council. I didn't do anything at Arkansas Boys State. There was no politics in my family. My stepfather would have said, we're not giving a dime to politicians. They're all corrupt. And, you know, there's a deep strain of that thought in America to this very day.
KELLAMS: It also helped that he became an analyst on television and did really well on TV, presented well, was smart and kind of — he wasn't just another talking head.
DIXON: Yeah, I think he distinguished himself. Well, I think that was the smartest move he ever made. The timing was amazing that you're going to hear about here in another clip from the Pryor Center interview.
WESLEY CLARK (Pryor Center interview): So I signed on to be a military analyst with NBC. After a year, they never used me. I think I was on one time. It's like, oh, they don't need you. They said, let's go to CNN. And so I got to CNN. Six weeks in CNN, nobody used me. I was going to work on the 11th, on the 11th of September, and I got into the office in Stevens and somebody said, you got to look at this, Wes. And there was a picture of New York City in the World Trade Center and a lot of smoke and everything. And then CNN called and said, come on right away. There's been — you know, I was on CNN virtually every day. And when we invaded Iraq, I was on four hours a night with Aaron Brown. And I became a trusted voice.
DIXON: And he still to this day — like that clip from News Nation, which we're about to listen to another one. And this was just, you know, a few weeks ago.
WESLEY CLARK (News Nation): What case would you make in 2026 for NATO and why it's still needed? What effect it has, why it helps Americans? Europe is our major trading partner. It's a major foreign direct investor in the United States. And so if anything happens with our relationships with Europe, it has an immediate direct impact on the United States economically. Europe, there are major friends diplomatically. If we're going to do anything and use the legal and diplomatic economic instruments of power, we need Europe with us. We cannot solve and protect American security just with the iron fist of the military. If we don't hold together across NATO, it's going to make it much more difficult for Europe to remain stable. And an unstable Europe is really bad for the United States economically, but also diplomatically and security-wise. There won't be any easy trips to see the Parthenon or to go home with an unstable Europe. All that fun in Paris that people like to have in the summer, you see, it's over there. You're going to find a hostile world if we let this thing come apart. All of us Americans have lived for three generations, really, on the wisdom of those who led this country out of World War II. I hope we don't throw it away.
KELLAMS: This spring, as part of the 50th celebration of the Arkansas Community Foundation, they are hosting a conversation with Wesley Clark and Asa Hutchinson talking about civil discourse. I am so looking forward to hearing these two men talk about that.
DIXON: Oh, I'll be there. Two men who also ran for president.
KELLAMS: That's correct. All right. Nice. Yeah, that'll be in April, I believe. We've got some final words from Gen. Clark.
DIXON: We do. And this is from his interview with us. It was the very last thing that our executive director, John Davis, asked him about, you know, not just how he wanted to be remembered, but how he summed up his life.
WESLEY CLARK (Pryor Center interview): It's love of country and respect for humanity, and a belief that we can actually make the world a better place, a safer place, that what brings humanity together is much greater than what divides us. That essentially we're all the same and all interconnected underneath. And the challenge is to help, in each person's small way, to make the world a better place for each other. I think that's the ultimate lesson I've taken from my life, and the meaning I'd like to live with in my life.
KELLAMS: Gen. Wesley Clark, the subject of this week and last week's Pryor Center profiles. Randy Dixon. Good stuff. Thank you. I'll see you next week.
Ozarks at Large transcripts are created on a rush deadline and edited for length and clarity. Copy editors utilize AI tools to review work. KUAF does not publish content created by AI. Please reach out to kuafinfo@uark.edu to report an issue. The audio version is the authoritative record of KUAF programming.
