The day Clinton asked Mandela for advice on turning the other cheek

Mandela gets ready to burn his pass outside his Orlando, Johannesburg, home during the national stay-at-home in 1960. The protest led to the Government declaring a state of emergency and arresting hundreds of activists, including the future president.

Bill Clinton benefited from some words of wisdom just when he needed them most, as he reveals in this excerpt from Mandela: The authorised Portrait.

The Republicans were quite surprised when I got elected and they basically decided to assault my legitimacy from the day I became President. It was tough.

When they started trying to run me out, Mandela was especially helpful.

I remember asking him one day to go over the moment when he realised that he was letting go of his anger and hatred toward his jailers.

"Well, I hated them for 14 years," he said, "and I'm not sure, when I was young and strong, if I wasn't kept alive on my hatred.

"But one day when I was breaking rocks I realised they had taken so much from me. They had abused me physically; they had abused me emotionally; they had taken me away from my wife and children; I wouldn't see my children grow up; eventually it would cost me my marriage.

"They'd taken everything from me except my mind and my heart. And I realised I would have to give those things to them - and I decided not to give them away."

Then he looked at me and smiled and said, "And neither should you." And I said, "Okay! I got it!"

Not long before the vote on the impeachment, I saw [President of South Africa] Thabo Mbeki in Washington and I asked how President Mandela was. He said, "Oh, he's fine, but he did tell me to give you a message. I have no idea what he's talking about but he said you would know.

"He said I should remind you 'not to give them away'." Right there before the House voted. It was amazing. And I went, "Right!"

The Republicans were worried because they wanted to impeach me and knew they had no constitutional, legal or historical basis to do so, but they knew that the US press had made such a big deal out of it that they could get it.

They were worried, however, about the fallout in the minority community and so they voted to give Mandela the Congressional gold medal.

Mandela called me and he starts off, "My President." Whenever he said, "My President," I knew he was telling me something we were going to do and I was going to do it whether I wanted to or not.

He said: "The Congress has voted to give me this gold medal. As the President of South Africa I cannot turn down such an award. I may be old, but I'm not foolish. I understand what is going on here so here's what we are going to do.

"I'm coming in a day early and we are going to have dinner at the White House and I will tell America what I think about what they are doing."

So he comes and says how all these world leaders are dependent on me and how I've helped solve all these problems and how it's not for him to tell America what to do but they ought to leave me alone and let me go back to work. Boy - was he stirring the water!

I got a standing ovation at the UN, which is unheard-of for an American, but I don't think one network carried his speech on the evening news.

Mandela will never know how much he helped me get through that period. Thinking about what he went through that was so much worse helped me keep my head up and keep going.

I realised that, in a small way, not only I but anyone who was willing to develop the kind of emotional and spiritual discipline he had, the kind of pain threshold he had, to hold on to their dignity instead of their anger, could achieve this result. I'll never be able to repay him for what he did for me in those months.

It's a terrible burden oppressing someone else; it's like being in chains yourself. Most of us act as if we have no control over the way we react.

I tried to convince Yasser Arafat not to start the intifada in 2000. Mr Sharon, before he was Prime Minister, went up on the Temple Mount. He was the first Israeli politician to do so in 33 years and the Palestinians felt it was desecration. President Arafat said, "It's humiliating; we have to prevent it," but I said, "No, you don't. You have another option. You could have a little Palestinian girl go with flowers, give them to Mr Sharon and welcome him and invite him to the Al Aqsa Mosque and say when Temple Mount is yours he can come back every day. You have a choice."

I used Mandela's model of peacemaking over and over and over again - in Northern Ireland, in the Middle East, in the aftermath of the conflicts in Bosnia and Kosovo - and I regretted that so few people seemed able to follow it. They thought they had paid too high a price, but if you think of what Mandela went through, arguably they hadn't paid the price long enough to be purged of their own anger. I like the fact that - in the parlance of my part of America - he is determined to die with his boots on. It meant a lot to me that we went to Barcelona together in 2002 to close the world Aids conference - he knew I'd been in South Africa and he supported the work I'd tried to do.

He's never asked for a retirement cheque. In 2000 he hauled me all the way to the peace centre in Arusha in Tanzania.

He called me and told me I was coming to help end the conflict in Burundi and I said, "Yes, sir." He said, "We are going to do a good cop, bad cop routine and for once I'll be the bad cop and you be the good cop."

He said: "They'll either have to do it for me or they'll have to do it for you. You've just got to come."

So I showed up. "Here's what we're going to do," he said. "We're going to make peace, and all the parties are going to sign up."

Darn it, if that's not what happened. He's never quit. You know, I like that.


'Freedom will come to South Africa '

International human rights lawyer Joel Joffe, now Lord Joffe, was part of the defence team at the Rivonia Trial. He says:

AS [Mandela] climbed the staircase and his head and shoulders appeared above the level of the dock, there was a ripple of excitement among the public.

His deep voice boomed out with the ANC battle cry: "Amandla!" The African audience replied immediately in chorus: "Ngawethu!"

When we eventually got to the beginning of the trial after all sorts of delays, Mandela was called. The clerk says, "Accused Number One, how do you plead?" and Mandela says, "I plead not guilty. It is the Government that should be on trial, not me."

Right from the start Mandela said, "You are my lawyers. You will do what I want you to do. You are not allowed to cross-examine any witness who is telling the truth. It is of fundamental importance that I, and my fellow accused, accept responsibility for everything because what we did was the only thing we were allowed to do and that was to fight for the freedom of our people.

"What we must do is turn this trial into a trial of the Government."

Later George Bizos said they spoke more as gladiators than defendants.

When it came to the defence, Mandela decided that as he was in effect pleading guilty, the best way to get his message to the world would be to make an unsworn statement to the court that would allow him to speak uninterrupted.

When [prosecution head] Percy Yutar realised this he was very taken aback - almost hysterical - but the judge allowed us to proceed.

It was amazing to sit through Mandela's speech. There was tremendous silence in the courtroom when he stood up and he spoke for a long time, around five hours.

"What I did was right. I had no alternative. Freedom will come to South Africa one day and even if you hang me it will only give inspiration to others. I plead not guilty."

When finally he got to the end, he took off his reading glasses, looked straight at the judge and said: "It is an ideal which I hope to live for and achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die."

There was this intense pause. As he sat down, the court was very quiet and then a sort of sigh went up from all the black people listening.

The only time I despaired was when they had eventually been found guilty. There was a real concern they would be sentenced to death. We asked Mandela if we could bring in some witnesses to give evidence in mitigation - historians, for instance, who could explain that if you deny people the opportunity to vote and refuse to talk to them, revolution is the natural consequence.

But Mandela said no. He prepared a note for what he would say if the death sentence was passed: "I meant everything I said. The blood of many patriots in this country has been shed for demanding treatment in conformity with civilised standards. If I must die I will meet my fate like a man."

Mandela: The Authorised Portrait is being released in 21 countries, in 11 languages. It retails in NZ for $79.99.