Hillary Rodham Clinton looks on as President Clinton speaks at a prayer breakfast last week. (AP) Full text of Starr's report and the White House response are available online.

By Debra Rosenberg
And Matthew Cooper
Issue of Sept. 21, 1998;
Web-Published Sept. 14, 1998

Hillary Clinton was not about to be told what to do. The First Lady's friends were livid last Wednesday at anonymous press leaks from White House officials trying to pressure her into publicly supporting her beleaguered husband. The Los Angeles Times quoted a "Clinton confidant" hinting Mrs. Clinton would soon make a public statement telling the nation that she had forgiven the president. In fact, she had no such plans and her allies resented the attempt to bully her. The First Lady's staff quickly sent word to the West Wing: she would support the president in her own way--and on her terms.

Two days later she did just that. Hours after Kenneth Starr's report hit the Internet last Friday, Bill and Hillary Clinton appeared at a White House ceremony promoting Irish-American relations. The enthusiastic audience gave the couple a standing ovation. Taking her seat behind the podium, Mrs. Clinton reached over and put her hand on her husband's leg. A moment later, beaming brightly, she leaned over and whispered in the president's ear.

As Bill Clinton suffers through his lowest moment in public life, Hillary Clinton is essential to his survival. In recent days, as the lurid details of the president's marital infidelity became known, she has been at his side. Introducing Clinton at a fund-raiser on the eve of the report's release, she said she was "proud" of her husband's accomplishments. But in private it's a different story.

Behind closed doors Mrs. Clinton is anything but buoyant. Friends say the First Lady is still deeply angry about Clinton's affair with Monica Lewinsky. "It's enormously painful for her," says a former aide. She long ago stopped reading newspaper articles about the scandal, and has shown little interest in learning the particulars of Starr's case against her husband. And though Mrs. Clinton and her closest associates have held brief discussions about how to handle this difficult time, the First Lady has made it clear to those around her that she has no plans to make a speech defending him. "She's not up to it yet," says a friend. The closest she's come so far is to allow her press secretary, Marsha Berry, to publicly say Mrs. Clinton forgives the president.

Why the reluctance to speak out herself? A deeply private person, Mrs. Clinton hates grand displays of emotion. "She's got no interest in sharing her hurt with the world," says one close associate. Friends say she was irritated when the Rev. Jesse Jackson talked about her "pain and humiliation" after he visited the White House on the eve of Clinton's Aug. 17 grand-jury testimony. Vacationing on Martha's Vineyard last month, Hillary only hinted at her private agony. At one party, newsman Mike Wallace--in a conversation about a friend's medical condition--politely asked Mrs. Clinton if she'd ever had a stress test. "I'm having one now," she deadpanned.

Even so, friends say Mrs. Clinton hasn't ruled out publicly forgiving Clinton some time in the future. She realizes how much power her words could carry with the public--both because of her high approval ratings and her unique position as the person perhaps most wronged by the scandal. (The NEWSWEEK Poll shows that 59 percent of Americans have a favorable opinion of Mrs. Clinton, up from 52 percent last month.) But that popularity won't necessarily help Clinton if his own numbers should slip in the wake of the report. Only 30 percent of those polled said they would be more likely to support the president if Mrs. Clinton made a statement forgiving him for his affair with Lewinsky.

For now, some of Mrs. Clinton's friends say, she would give such a speech only if absolutely necessary. "She will pick her moment very carefully," says a former aide. "She knows there's not a second chance." Determined not to appear debilitated by scandal, Mrs. Clinton will stick to a rigorous schedule of public events in the days to come. This week includes a fund-raising trip to New York on Monday, speeches to the Peace Corps and a Jewish women's group on Tuesday and a state dinner for Vaclav Havel on Wednesday. But as Starr's case against the embattled president is weighed by the Congress--and the public--Hillary may yet come forward as a critical witness for the defense.