WASHINGTON, March 16: In a riveting public disclosure telecast to millions of Sunday evening viewers, a former White House aide broke her long silence to graphically describe how President Bill Clinton pawed her when she went to his office in 1993 to ask for a job.She said the President has lied when he subsequently denied in a sworn affidavit that he had groped her. What former aide Kathleen Willey said on television is not new because she has disclosed much the same thing in her sworn affidavit in the Paula Jones case. But unlike Jones or Monica Lewinsky, Willey has never gone public.
She has been a reluctant witness, much less appeared on camera. On Sunday night, she was interviewed on the highly respected CBS show "60 minutes" and immediately struck viewers as a credible and vulnerable victim, with her halting and visibly painful recollection of an encounter with the President.
According to Willey, she went to the President -- then a friend of hers and her husband -- to seek a job because of thefinancial difficulties the couple was facing. Although the President was initially kind and solicitous and even fetched her coffee, he began making a pass at her on the way out, seemingly taking advantage of her emotional distress.
The President, Willey said, initially hugged her but she did not take this amiss because Clinton had hugged her in a friendly way before. But this embrace turned out to be longer than needed. He then groped her breasts and took her hand and placed it on his private parts. She said Clinton whispered in her ears, "I've wanted to do this ever since I laid eyes on you." In reply to a question from interviewer Ed Bradley, she said yes, the President was aroused.
In a halting, stammering account of her ordeal, Willey recalled: "The hug lasted a little longer than I thought necessary, but at the same time, I mean, I was not concerned about it. And then he, then he, then he kissed me on, on my mouth and, and pulled me closer to him. And I remember thinking, I just remember thinking,`What in the world is he doing?' ... And I, I pushed back away from him and he, he, he, he, he's a big man. And he, he had his arms, they were tight around me and he, he touched me...He touched my breasts with his hand and I, I, I, I was, I, I was just startled."
"It was kind of like I was watching it in slow motion and thinking surely this is not happening," she said in the interview which commentators said was the most damaging bombshell since the Jones-Lewinsky stories broke.
"I thought, well, maybe I ought to just give him a good slap across the face. And then I thought, well, I don't think you can slap the President of the United States like that. And, and I just decided it was just time to get out of there," she said.
Willey was cryptic about why she had now decided to air her allegations publicly. It was because of the dishonesty surrounding her. "Too many lies are being told. Too many lives are being ruined. And I think it's time for the truth to come out," she said, adding that she wasinitially embarrassed for the President's behavior and did not believe much good would come out of going public.
Presidential aides immediately attacked Willey's story, pointing out that she had continued to maintain friendship and a very respectful correspondence with the President for four years after the alleged episode. They also suggested that Willey was victim of her own emotional distress at that time.
Willey's husband, a real estate lawyer who was in deep financial trouble, committed suicide on the day the reported incident took place without knowledge of the ordeal his wife allegedly underwent at the White House.
In his affidavit in the Jones case, Clinton has acknowledged hugging Willey and perhaps kissing her on the forehead, but said there was nothing remotely sexual about it. The White House said the President was bewildered by the latest Willey allegations.
"As he testified, Ms Willey asked to see him to discuss her concerns about her family and financial situation. The President soughtto comfort Ms Willey at this obviously stressful time for her. He did not touch her, and she did not touch him, in any sexual manner," a Presidential aide said. Ironically, it was on "60 minutes" that Clinton first defended himself publicly against charges of infidelity. The show is the most popular public affairs program in the US.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
