WASHINGTON, Aug 4: The swirl of allegations and innuendo about President Bill Clinton's excessive libido will simply not die.

Even as the Paula Jones case hangs like a dark cloud over the Presidency, new charges have surfaced about Clinton's romps within the White House after he took over as President.

The new charges against Clinton were being reported on the internet and the tabloid media for several days now, but the story has moved centerstage after Newsweek magazine followed it up and chose to print a mildly substantiated update this week.

According to the original story, Clinton is said to have ``kissed and fondled'' Kathleen Willey, a White House aide, sometime in 1993. It appears Willey mentioned the episode to a colleague as she emerged from the encounter.

But apparently, she was not perturbed and chose not to pursue the matter.The story may have died there but for the fact that Joseph Cammarata, a lawyer for Paula Jones, claims he got a call from someone he believes was Willey herself, disclosing the incident. He tipped off a Newsweek journalist, even as he followed it up himself.

From all accounts his chase did not yield much. He could not persuade Willey to come out and testify. Late last month, Jones' lawyers finally subpoenaed Willey to force her to take the stand in the Jones case so that they could establish a ``pattern of behaviour'' case against Clinton.

But Willey has already turned hostile and said (through her lawyers) that she was outraged by the move to summon her and that she had excellent relations with Clinton though she no longer worked at the White House. She wants to contest the subpoena and not testify.

Again, the matter may have died there, but for the latest Newsweek revelation. According to the magazine, Willey told Linda Tripp, another White House executive assistant, that the President made sexual advances towards her in the White House, fondling, kissing and propositioning her. Tripp revealed to the magazine that Willey stepped out of the Oval office all ``disheveled... her face was red and her lipstick was off''.

But she was ``flustered, happy and joyful,'' Tripp said, adding she has come forward with the story because Willey did not seem appalled about the encounter at the time and ``to make it clear that this is not a case of sexual harassment''.

In trying to bail out President Clinton, Tripp, who now works at the Pentagon, seems to have left him in a deeper hole. Although Willey has raged against the story, it is taking on serious overtones because this incident is alleged to have happened in the White House after he became President, unlike the Jones case, when he was still the Governor of Arkansas.

Jones' lawyers are going after the fact that a woman was ``sexually propositioned by the President on federal property''. But neither the lawyers nor Newsweek have yet been able to convince Willey to go on the record with her story.

Willey, who is 50 and a resident of Virginia, has meanwhile left for an undisclosed hideout, leaving her lawyers to take the heat and the media speculating wildly.

According to one version, Willey went to Clinton shortly after she lost her husband, Edward E Willey Jr., when the incident happened. Although she had no particular qualification for a White House job, she was taken on as a political appointee because she and her husband knew the Clintons and raised money for them.

The conservative media and tabloids have now begun to rake up her husband's death. Apparently, he committed suicide after being unable to pay huge debts.

The Newsweek story reports Clinton as saying he has ``no specific recollection of meeting (Willey) in the Oval office''. Clinton's lawyer Bennett says that Clinton may have consoled her around the time of her husband's death, but it is ``preposterous'' to suggest that he might have made a sexual advance.

The White House has declined comment on the matter. Bennett says he smells a rat in the whole affair. ``I'm sure this is a Jones team effort to humiliate the President. We're not going to be intimidated by it,'' he said.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.