“When she was in the room, you knew she was in the room,” my mother, professor Judith Stiehm observed of Janet Reno, the first woman to serve as U.S. attorney general. They were friends and my mother wrote Reno’s biography after she died in 2016 at age 78.

The book, “Janet Reno: A Life,” is a new portrait of a major figure in the 1990s.

Reno, a Miami native who built her legal career as state attorney in her hometown after graduating from Harvard Law School, came to Washington as an outsider in a city of insiders. She didn’t care and never changed, a constant amid the hurly-burly.

Some considered Reno naive for not playing the political game. But her plain speaking and strong record commanded respect; she was confirmed by the Senate, 98-0.

A straight arrow in the fluid Clinton administration, Reno confronted three major crises during two terms in office. They live on in political memory and cultural vernacular: the Branch Davidian fiery siege in Waco; President Bill Clinton’s impeachment over a slight affair; and Elian Gonzalez, the small Cuban boy found at sea, subject of a fierce struggle between his Miami relatives and his father.

Stiehm’s new volume shines light on the independent character at center stage of these dramas, and why Reno made the choices she did, with no regrets. For the first time, we learn the price Reno paid for following her moral compass.

“She was a character,” my mother said in conversation. “Tall, direct, serious, friendly.” In composing the first definitive biography of Reno, my mother was granted access to all her papers, organized by Reno herself in a shed. Her sister Maggy knew my mother had urged Reno to write a memoir and opened the shed to her.

“I became friendly with the shed,” my mother said. One remarkable finding was that Reno’s mother Jane built the home she grew up in, with a large screen porch for visitors. Her father was a crime reporter for The Miami Herald. The family of four children lived near the Everglades, out where geckos dwelled and paved roads ended.

Two rules governed that homestead: tell the truth and be kind.

As the author notes, “Janet Reno was no drama queen, but her tenure as attorney general was filled with crises.”

In Waco, a fire engulfed a cult that refused to surrender and shot at federal agents, killing four. Concerned about reports of child abuse, Reno ordered the tear gas raid. The FBI did not return fire from the occupants inside. The fire likely started with cult leaders, investigators found, with 70 lives lost.

Publicly, Reno took responsibility right away and a strange thing happened: “From being unknown, she became the best-known member of President Clinton’s cabinet -- and one with a strong approval rating.”

Reno walked the perilous path of appointing Kenneth Starr as Independent Counsel investigating Clinton for Whitewater real estate transactions -- then his starcrossed affair with Monica Lewinsky.

“She would do her job regardless of what Clinton wanted her to do,” Stiehm said. Reno saw herself as the nation’s top lawyer, not the president’s personal lawyer.

The agonizing Elian Gonzalez case took months to resolve. His Miami relatives defied immigration rulings to return him to his father in Cuba. Reno, well-acquainted with the anti-Castro stance of the Cuban exile community, pressed for the boy to go home. Once again, she ordered a raid, this time to back up high court rulings.

On Easter, Elian and his father returned to Cuba. Reno later said, “I should have gone in earlier.”

When Reno ran for Florida governor in 2022, Cuban American voters shunned her, bitter about the custody decision. “(That) cost her dearly,” Stiehm noted.

Parkinson’s, a diagnosis Reno openly discussed in 1995, slowly came to claim her. Bill Clinton praised Reno at her funeral: “She never cut a corner.”

Her life lesson shows one can succeed in high office while remaining human and honest.

Reno and Stiehm were born in the 1930s. They are known as the “Silents.” But it’s little noted that this is the first wave of women to break professional barriers. Often they were the only women in the class or in the room.

Jamie Stiehm may be reached at JamieStiehm. com. Follow her on Twitter @JamieStiehm. To find out more about Jamie Stiehm and other Creators Syndicate columnists and cartoonists, visit Creators.com.