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Times Magazine [“Bill Clinton’s Garbage Man,” September 21, 1997]. Ickes was the guy who took
care of all the scandals. His father had been the secretary of the interior under FDR, and wrote
millions of words in diaries, both published and unpublished. When I read Ickes Sr.’s diaries, I was
struck by the parallels between father and son. The son had a relationship with Clinton much like the
father’s with Roosevelt. So I opened up my interview by mentioning these parallels. I told him my
theory that, unbeknownst to him, he was reliving his father’s experience in some strange way. And the
conversation just flowed! He revealed emotional and factual material I never would have gotten
otherwise. Even though he objected to my theory, he objected in useful ways.
Do you have a reporting routine?
I don’t have a system. But what I do have is a conviction that if I want to get to the truth of
someone’s life, I have to insinuate myself into that life as thoroughly as I can.
How do you convince people to allow you to do that?
I make sure my presence isn’t obnoxious to them. If I am a chore, I’ll become the reporter they let
into their lives for a few hours to ask a few superficial questions. And that’s not enough access for
what I do.
For someone to want me around, I have to be useful to them. And the best way to be useful to them
is to help them think through the problems they are facing. I’m often my subject’s sounding board.
For example, when Jim Clark was launching Healtheon, we talked about how he should deal with
the investment bankers. The fact that I had worked on Wall Street helped. Clark was also in the
process of acquiring about $200 million in paintings, and the fact that I had studied art history in
college helped our relationship as well. Whether it was about finance or art, we could have a
conversation that might be useful to him.
Moneyball is an even better example. I developed relationships with the players, the coaches, and
the front office while I was reporting the book. I could tell the front office things that the players were
thinking and saying that they hadn’t heard. And I could tell the players things that the front office was
thinking and saying that they hadn’t heard. The fact that I was useful to all of them made them less
resistant to talking to me when I showed up at the ballpark. I had something to trade. I didn’t have a
parasitic relationship with them. I had a symbiotic relationship.
The ideal relationship isn’t reporter-subject. It’s just two people hanging out together.
How do you initiate such a relationship?
It starts as a casual conversation—without my taking notes and asking interview-like questions. I
don’t even have a notebook. But at some point the notebook comes out, and then it stays out.
We talk informally for a while. I explain exactly why I’m curious, which is pretty vague in the
beginning. I think it’s offensive when a writer knows what he is going to write before he starts