Economics
Burwell Passing Note in Oval Office Got Her Noticed
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In a 1997 Oval Office meeting with President Bill Clinton, Sylvia Mathews Burwell tried to discreetly pass a note to her boss, Treasury Secretary Robert E. Rubin. She got caught.
Erskine Bowles, then Clinton’s chief of staff, stopped the meeting. He then announced to the president that he “broke the code” on Burwell, then known by her maiden name of Mathews.