Link purporting to be memos re Hillary Clinton Hillary Clinton: In her own words Hillary's Hair

HILLARY CLINTON began an 11-day European escape from the forbidding territory of Washington yesterday.

But the questions about her troubles at home kept cropping up, and once again she issued blanket denials of responsibility. She arrived in Romania as part of a White House plan to take her out of the political cauldron to foreign soil, where she has always done better in attracting favourable media coverage. Her trip takes her to Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Estonia, all key nations in her husband's attempt to shore up the ethnic vote in November in key states such as Illinois.

The itinerary was in stark contrast to that of her rival in the White House race, Mrs Elizabeth Dole, who spent yesterday captivating with her renowned Southern charm the huge audience of a New York morning television chat show, Regis & Cathy Lee. She told them how her husband, Robert, courted her with three long telephone calls before even asking her to dinner. "I like a shy man," she said, to the delight of the television studio audience.

Mrs Clinton attracted a crowd of more than 3,000 people in Revolutionary Square, Bucharest, amid shouts of "We love you" and "Long live Clinton". She stopped at an Aids clinic and a kindergarten. Then the media started badgering her, and she tried to react with a spot of humour. Asked if Craig Livingstone, the aide who kept FBI files on Republicans in a vault at the White House, was hired as a dirty tricks operative because she knew his mother, Mrs Clinton replied: "There is no connection. I do believe though, if I ever met the woman, I am going to say, 'Mrs Livingstone, I presume'."

Mrs Clinton derided as 'a politically inspired fabrication' a book by a retired FBI agent, Gary Aldrich

Republicans suspect that Mr Livingstone was hand picked by her to gather information in her purge of the White House of career staff whom she regarded as potentially disloyal. Mrs Clinton claimed that she knew nothing about the hiring of Mr Livingstone. Back in Washington, the White House has finally come up with an explanation of how he was employed. It seems that Mrs Clinton's friend, Vincent Foster, who was found shot dead in 1993, was responsible.

Mrs Clinton derided as "a politically inspired fabrication" a book by a retired FBI agent, Gary Aldrich, who worked at the White House until recently. The author is starting to back off from claims that President Clinton secretly visited women at a Washington hotel. It now appears that the stories are based on unsubstantiated gossip passed on by a Right-wing journalist. But Mr Aldrich is sticking to his version of a conversation with William Kennedy, a White House associate counsel, who allegedly told him that Mrs Clinton personally hired Mr Livingstone.

Bill Clinger, Republican chairman of the House Government Reform Committee, plans to question Mr Aldrich in public hearings, as well as ask Mrs Clinton to provide written evidence on oath.

Mr Aldrich insists that while he was at the White House, Mr Livingstone was "extremely close to the Clintons". Mr Livingstone, had told him the official reason given for Mr Foster's apparent suicide - he was depressed about the "blood sport" aspect of politics - was way off the mark.

He quoted Mr Livingstone as saying: "Gary, I assure you, none of that stuff had anything to do with his death. He had bigger problems on his mind. He was worried that rumours about his affair with Hillary were re-surfacing. Vince thought that if it re-surfaced it would ruin his life, his reputation, and his marriage."

19 June 1996: Whitewater net closes on Hillary Clinton

Reply to Electronic Telegraph

Electronic Telegraph is a Registered Service Mark of The Telegraph plc