Hillary Clinton writes of her fury over affair

WASHINGTON — Hillary Rodham Clinton, acknowledging tirades and tears over her husband's affair with Monica Lewinsky, says President Clinton lied to her about the relationship until the weekend before he admitted it to a grand jury.

The New York senator vividly describes her pain over the betrayal in "Living History," her memoir covering eight years as first lady. A copy of the book, which goes on sale Monday, was obtained by The Associated Press.

"The most difficult decisions I have made in my life were to stay married to Bill and to run for the Senate from New York," she writes.

She says she accepted her husband's story at first — that he had befriended the White House intern when she asked for job-hunting help, "had talked to her a few times" — and that the relationship had been horribly misconstrued.

"For me, the Lewinsky imbroglio seemed like just another vicious scandal manufactured by political opponents."

More than six months later, with the president preparing to testify before a grand jury, Hillary Clinton was still adamant her husband had done nothing wrong and was the victim of a "vast right-wing conspiracy."

On Saturday, Aug. 15, 1998, he woke her up, paced at the bedside and "told me for the first time that the situation was much more serious than he had previously acknowledged."

"He now realized he would have to testify that there had been an inappropriate intimacy. He told me that what happened between them had been brief and sporadic."

He was ashamed and knew she would be angry, she recounts.

"I could hardly breathe. Gulping for air, I started crying and yelling at him, 'What do you mean? What are you saying? Why did you lie to me?' I was furious and getting more so by the second. He just stood there saying over and over again, 'I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I was trying to protect you and Chelsea.' "

The 562-page book has been highly anticipated. Simon & Schuster ordered an extraordinary first printing of 1 million copies.

The first-lady-turned-senator was paid a $2.85 million advance toward the $8 million book deal. Foreign rights have been sold in 16 countries. List price is $28.

The publisher billed the book as a complete, candid accounting of her years in the White House.

Clinton says that up until that August morning when her husband confessed, she believed he was being railroaded and had merely been foolish by paying any attention to Lewinsky. She was incredulous he would endanger their marriage and family:

"I was dumbfounded, heartbroken and outraged that I'd believed him at all."

She says the president's eyes filled with tears when she told him he would have to confess to their teenage daughter.

She ultimately decided she still loved her husband, although "as a wife, I wanted to wring Bill's neck."

She describes in bitter terms the months of chill between them, never more painful than when they went to Martha's Vineyard for vacation right after his testimony.

"Buddy, the dog, came along to keep Bill company. He was the only member of our family who was still willing to."

While on the island, she felt "nothing but profound sadness, disappointment and unresolved anger. I could barely speak to Bill, and when I did, it was a tirade. I read. I walked on the beach. He slept downstairs. I slept upstairs."

She said her decision to run for a Senate seat from New York provided a healing bridge for them. "Bill and I were talking again about matters other than the future of our relationship. Over time we both began to relax."

She was the first first lady to run for elected office, defeating the Republican candidate, former Rep. Rick Lazio, in 2000. She was sworn into the Senate in January 2001, the same month her husband left office. She recounted their last day at the White House, waltzing down a long hallway in her husband's arms.

She concludes that what her husband did was morally wrong but not a betrayal of the public.

On the Whitewater matter that dogged much of the Clintons' time in the White House, the former first lady acknowledges only "public-relations mistakes in how we handled the growing controversy."

"Whitewater never seemed real because it wasn't," she writes.

Clinton portrays Whitewater partner Jim McDougal as an embittered man who threatened her several times when she tried to file overdue tax returns for the property.

The payback came, she says, when her husband decided to run for president in 1991 and McDougal planted "false information about our relationship" in the press, claiming he had refused favors from Clinton when he was governor.

The final report on the Whitewater investigation questioned the first lady's truthfulness. Independent counsel Robert Ray's report concluded that the Clintons' mid-1980s Arkansas land venture benefited from criminal activity and that the president and his wife gave inaccurate testimony, but there was not enough evidence to prove they engaged in wrongdoing.

Clinton's political stock is on the rise. She is among the Democrats' top fund-raisers. She has raised more than $3 million for her political-action committee, which she uses to support other Democrats running for office.