According to today's New York Times, he told the grand jury that he was troubled by her transfer out of the White House and discussed bringing her back in the summer of last year.

In an almost identical story, the Washington Post reported that Clinton told prosecutors that he tried to help Lewinsky in January in her efforts to find a private sector job and asked a senior White House aide whether he would be willing to write her a favourable job recommendation.

The President, at a press conference in Moscow after his summit with Russian President Boris Yeltsin yesterday, said he believed he had adequately expressed his ``profound regret to all who were hurt'' by the affair.

The President said he had asked to be forgiven andspent very valuable time on vacation making amends to his wife Hillary and their daughter Chelsea.

Clinton testified on August 17 that he spoke about his worries over Lewinsky's situation with Marsha Scott, a senior aide in the White House personnel office and a friend of his since high school, the Times

reported, quoting lawyers familiar with the testimony.

That discussion, in July 1997, is the first indication that Clinton took an interest in returning Lewinsky to the White House from the public affairs job at the Pentagon, where she was transferred against her wishes in April 1996.

Clinton's apparent sympathy for Lewinsky is starkly at odds with the view of some White House staff members, who suggested as recently as this spring that she had been shadowing or even stalking the President, which is why they said they thought she should leave, the daily adds.

The President did not order Lewinsky's return and did not ask aides to give her favourable treatment, one advisor familiar with thetestimony said. And despite her own pleas to White House officials, Lewinsky did not receive a position there.

Scott met Lewinsky twice last summer to talk about her career, even though she was not responsible at the time for administration of jobs outside the White House.

Lewinsky has told grand jurors that, as early as spring 1996, at the time she was transferred.

Clinton assured her that he would bring her back to the White House after the Presidential election that November, an associate of Lewinsky said.

Clinton's allies and Whitewater independent counsel Kenneth Starr have seized on Clinton's conversation with Scott for opposing purposes.

To the President's team, the talk is evidence that Clinton was concerned, as any man might be, for the well-being of a woman he had been intimate with. They argue that if he was intent on buying her silence, he would have surely insisted that his aides rehire her.

But Starr's allies say that prosecutors view Clinton's stated interest in Lewinsky's return tothe White House as a possible abuse of his office, a likely accusation in a report that Starr is preparing for Congress. They may also cite the conversation as an attempt by the President to obstruct justice by keeping Lewinsky mollified and silent about their relationship, the Times says quoting the allies.

To the prosecutors, the timing of the conversation is significant. Weeks before, on May 27, 1997, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that Paula Jones' sexual misconduct suit could proceed against Clinton while he was in office. Days later, Jones' lawyers said that they planned to seek testimony from other women linked to Clinton. That effort eventually led them to Lewinsky.