Copyright © 1996 The Telegraph plc. All Rights Reserved. Reproduced with permission.
International News Electronic Telegraph
Monday July 1 1996
Issue 417

See text menu at bottom of page
FBI author 'tool in Right's plot to smear Clinton'
By Hugh Davies in Washington


External Links

NetVote '96


PoliticsNow



THE flap over the retired FBI agent Gary Aldrich's claim in a new book that President Clinton slipped out of the White House for late-night romantic trysts at the nearby Marriott Hotel developed into a full political row yesterday.

George Stephanopoulos, a senior adviser to the President, accused the ex-lawman of being a "tool" in a Right-wing plot "to destroy" Mr Clinton at election time. Mr Stephanopoulos, who is also a close friend of Mr Clinton went on ABC-TV after trying unsuccessfully to dissuade the network from questioning Mr Aldrich on its political talk show, This Week with David Brinkley.

The Clinton aide said that he had seen Mr Aldrich with a man in the programme's "green room" who he said was Craig Shirley, "an adviser" to Bob Dole, the Republican presidential candidate. Mr Stephanopolous linked Mr Aldrich to a "smear campaign" orchestrated by "Republican party activists". He said that Mr Dole had "a responsibility to repudiate him or he is complicit in this campaign of character assassination". Mr Stephanopoulos called the book - Unlimited Access: An FBI Agent Inside the Clinton White House - "vicious", "totally preposterous", "absurd" and "outrageous".

Mr Aldrich, who spent the last two-and-a-half years of his 26-year FBI career at the White House, told ABC he was prepared to "swear on oath" about "anything in the book", included his sources for the hotel visits who included an "experienced investigator". This is thought to be David Brock, who has written about the Clintons for the Right-wing American Spectator. Mr Brock says he met the agent to talk about unverified rumours of the nocturnal outings, but was appalled to see them in print.

Mr Aldrich claims that Mr Clinton went out without Secret Service protection, and some of his facts appear to be wrong. He said that the hotel's parking area had lifts that went directly to the guest room floors. But it is the service entrance that gives access to the lifts.

However, US News & World Report disclosed that one way Mr Clinton could elude his minders was by using an underground passage that extended for about 50 yards beneath the White House from the Oval Office to the first family's East Wing residence. The tunnel, built during Ronald Reagan's presidency, was designed to allow the leader to escape from his office in the event of an attack by terrorists.

Mr Aldrich wrote that the President would leave through a side door at the White House, lie under a blanket on the back seat of a car and be driven the two street blocks to the hotel by Bruce Lindsey, deputy White House counsel and an old friend from Arkansas.



Front | UK | International | City | Sport | Features | Weather | Crossword | Matt | A-Z index | Search | Classified | Help | Marketplace

Reply to Electronic Telegraph

Electronic Telegraph is a Registered Service Mark of The Telegraph plc