Clinton Cites a 7-Year ‘Strategy’ to Discredit Him

WASHINGTON —  Deflecting responsibility for his legal troubles, President Clinton declared Thursday that the damage done to his reputation can be attributed to a well-financed, seven-year “strategy” headed by his political enemies.

Addressing the ongoing investigations of him during a White House press conference, Clinton did not dispute poll findings that a majority of Americans no longer believe he shares their values. But he argued that the collective judgment reflects a continuing campaign to besmirch his image and is not an accurate assessment of his true character.

“All these people that have been working hard on this for seven years, they can affect my reputation,” he said. But “they can do nothing, for good or ill, to affect my character.”

Although many Clinton supporters, including First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, have blamed the president’s problems on the efforts of a right-wing conspiracy, the president’s comments mark the first time that he has publicly endorsed that view.

In his first formal news conference of the year, Clinton also denied any responsibility for the emotional and financial difficulties faced by many of his friends, associates and current and former White House staff members because they have been drawn into the investigation of him by independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr.

While a large part of the 55-minute news conference was consumed by questions about Starr’s investigation of whether the president had sex with former White House intern Monica S. Lewinsky and then tried to cover it up, Clinton also addressed a range of domestic and foreign issues:

* On anti-smoking legislation, Clinton attempted to dispel arguments made recently by some Republicans that the main purpose of the bill was to raise money to spend on new programs.

* On Middle East peace, he expressed hope that Secretary of State Madeleine Albright’s meetings with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat next week in London will result in “elements of an agreement which will get the parties into final status talks” aimed at resolving the conflict over a Palestinian state.

* On Cuba, the president flatly rejected the notion that the Organization of American States--an alliance that includes the United States and most Latin American nations--should extend membership to the Caribbean island because the group “voted to kick anybody out who abandoned democracy.”

Still, time and again the questions came back to matters related directly or indirectly to the Clinton-Lewinsky allegations.

Although the president had not spoken before about a coordinated effort against him by conservative Republicans, that does not mean he is a new convert to this belief, his allies said after the news conference.

“I think it’s fair to say that most of the senior-level officials at the White House, including the president and the first lady, have believed this for a long time,” said Harold M. Ickes, deputy chief of staff during Clinton’s first term and now a Clinton advisor on the legal controversies.

Ickes added: “The president tends to give people the benefit of the doubt more than others.”

That did not seem to be the case Thursday.

Referring to the controversies that have swirled around his presidency almost from its start and which peaked with the Lewinsky allegations, Clinton said: “It’s obvious, I think, to the American people, that this has been a hard, well-financed, vigorous effort over a long period of time by people who could not contest the ideas that I brought to the table, couldn’t even contest the values behind the ideas that I brought to the table.”

Clinton had responded differently in February when, during a joint press appearance with British Prime Minister Tony Blair, he was asked if he agreed with Mrs. Clinton’s assertion that he was a victim of a “vast right-wing conspiracy.” Then Clinton said that he did not think he “should amplify on her observation in this case.”

On Thursday, Clinton refused to say directly that he believes Starr has gone overboard in his investigation. Asked that question, he said tersely: “I think modestly observant people are fully capable of drawing their own conclusions.” At the same time, he often seemed to be straining to conceal his anger toward the independent counsel.

Clinton said that no matter what his assessment of Starr’s performance, it would “not be appropriate” for him to urge Atty. Gen. Janet Reno to fire the independent prosecutor.

The president’s news conference came in a week during which efforts by congressional Republicans to depict his presidency as mired in illegalities and immorality reached a new, higher pitch. House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) pledged to mention alleged Clinton illegalities in every public address he makes from now on. This contrasts with the earlier GOP strategy to maintain distance from Clinton’s difficulties, in part because they feared such attacks might result in the exposure of their own dirty laundry.

Even as Clinton squarely placed the blame for his problems on his political enemies, he pledged not to engage in specific name-calling or mudslinging himself.

“If I were to answer them in kind, I might be able to damage their reputations, which they might be able to do to me. But I could have no effect on their character, just as they can have none on mine.”

The president conceded that the attacks on him have been “distracting” but expressed determination to continue collaborating with critics such as Gingrich to achieve his domestic and foreign policy aims.

When he first commented in mid-January on the news that Starr was investigating the allegations of a sexual relationship between himself and Lewinsky and a possible effort to cover it up, Clinton said that legal considerations prevented him from discussing the issue but that he would give a fuller explanation at some point. On Thursday he stressed that he has no plans to talk any more about his relationship with Lewinsky or to provide information about several visits that documents show she made to the White House after she was no longer working there.

Clinton defended the various uses of privileges that the White House has invoked to withhold information from Starr.

For instance, in an interview with Starr on Saturday focusing on the Whitewater land deal, Mrs. Clinton refused to answer two questions by claiming spousal privilege, saying that the queries concerned conversations with her husband. If anyone challenged her right to exercise this long-established common law privilege, Clinton said, “shame on them.”

Clinton also rejected the notion that doubt is cast on his denials of a sexual relationship with Lewinsky because the Treasury Department is seeking to claim a new form of privilege so that Secret Service agents assigned to the White House can avoid testifying as part of Starr’s inquiry. The Treasury Department, which oversees the Secret Service, has argued that the unique relationship between presidents and Secret Service agents requires that chief executives feel confident they may have confidential conversations around their bodyguards without fearing investigators later will learn the details.

“I literally have had no involvement in that decision whatsoever,” Clinton said, referring to the Treasury Department’s objection to having several Secret Service officers testify.

In his comments on tobacco legislation, Clinton continued the recent White House effort to tone down partisan bickering. He gave strong support to the bipartisan legislation, authored by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), that was approved by the Senate Commerce Committee last month. And he shrugged off House Republicans’ reluctance to unify behind tobacco legislation as “high-level static.”

More important, for the first time publicly, Clinton said what aides have been telling lawmakers privately: that the White House will avoid a showdown about how any new tobacco revenue is spent.

“I would never stand in the way of a tobacco bill that actually reduced childhood smoking because [Congress] disagreed with me about how to invest the money,” said Clinton.

The tobacco measure set to go to the Senate floor would raise at least $516 billion over 25 years, and Clinton has proposed funding programs to improve children’s health, provide child care and increase the number of teachers in the classroom, as well as public health programs. Republicans want to enact a tax cut instead.