Roger Clinton Says Brother Saved His Life

President Clinton’s brother, Roger, says in a new book that he was on the verge of suicide after being arrested for cocaine dealing in 1984, but brother Bill “saved my life.”

As the younger Clinton describes the scene, he was sitting in the Little Rock, Ark., home of his mother, Virginia Kelley, facing her and his brother, then governor of Arkansas.

“I was delirious and ticked off at the world, crying and sweating so hard my hair was soaked,” Roger Clinton, 38, says in his new book, “Growing Up Clinton.”

He recalls telling his audience of two: “I’m going to kill myself … Look what I’ve done to you and mother, the two most important people in the world to me.”

Roger Clinton, who is 10 years younger than the president, then writes, “All of a sudden, Bill reached out, grabbed me by the upper arm and started shaking me violently. … ‘You’re sick,’ he finally told me, his voice dripping with scorn.”

“The next thing I knew he was shaking me by the shoulders, shoving me back and forth while he yelled at me, his reddened face just inches from mine.”

“How dare you be so selfish! You’re the most precious thing in the world to your mother and me!” Roger Clinton quoted his brother as yelling. “… You would be cheating yourself with suicide.”

Roger Clinton concludes: “Bill saved my life that day…. Thank goodness my brother was there - and not a gun. I was not thinking very clearly at the time, and who knows what I would have done with a gun in my hand.”