In Focus: Hillary Rodham Clinton

THE White House strategy to undermine the Right-wing author of a biography of Hillary Clinton has crumbled following the book's sympathetic portrayal of her as a woman whose qualities far exceed her husband's.

The new biography, The Seduction of Hillary Rodham - Mrs Clinton's maiden name - was written by David Brock, a conservative journalist. He is loathed by the American Left for his earlier investigations of the Clintons and of Anita Hill, whose accusations of sexual impropriety nearly de-railed Justice Clarence Thomas's elevation to the Supreme Court six years ago. For his expose of Ms Hill - whom he famously concluded was a "bit nutty and a bit slutty" - Mr Brock was branded a misogynist and reactionary.

His latest study contains a few revelations, notably that Mrs Clinton hired a private investigator in Arkansas to keep tabs on her husband's philandering when he was governor of the state. By interviewing security staff, Mr Brock also pieced together a furious row between Mr and Mrs Clinton on Inauguration Day in 1993 that culminated with her shouting obscenities at him.

The White House worried these episodes might be damaging in the run up to the November election, and disparaging comments about Mr Brock's personality and reporting techniques have found their way into the American media. However, Mr Brock offers a sympathetic view of a woman burdened by principles her husband does not share.

It has become fashionable in Washington to portray Mrs Clinton as a serious liability to her husband, and some of the president's advisers want to keep her in the background in the final weeks of the presidential campaign. Nevertheless Mr Clinton put his wife back in the spotlight during a recent television interview when he suggested - to her apparent surprise - that she might oversee the administration's welfare policy if he wins the election in November.

Republicans seized upon the comments as proof that the White House would lurch to the Left during a second Clinton term, and that Mrs Clinton would do for welfare what she tried to do to the nation's health care system in 1993.

Mr Brock agrees that Mrs Clinton is a convinced American liberal who has retained her faith in the efficacy of government intervention. He argues though that as the weakest president since Warren Harding, Mr Clinton has relied heavily on his wife's discipline and determination. Her single-mindedness was essential if anything was to be achieved in the White House because Mr Clinton is incapable of taking decisive action.

Mrs Clinton is emphatically not a "social Lady Macbeth", as one Right-wing commentator put it, but an old-fashioned do-gooder whose politics are "coloured by the religious moralism of the Christian Left".

17 September 1996: Call girl's diary could put Hillary in the dock

© Copyright Telegraph Group Limited 1996.

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