News World news Bill Clinton How Bill Clinton betrayed us: allies speak out on Lewinsky affair

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UK Guardian:

A close-knit band of friends and colleagues around Bill Clinton at the time of the Monica Lewinsky affair will speak publicly for the first time of their disbelief and sense of betrayal this month in a much-anticipated four-hour documentary about the former US president.

The two-part biography, which premieres in Britain and America on 20 February , chronicles Clinton's struggle with his unruly libido from the beginning of a political career he was determined would take him to the White House. His loyal adviser, the pollster Dick Morris, will tell of the moment Clinton rang him just before evidence of his affair with Lewinsky was about to be made public.

"Bill said to me: 'Ever since I got to the White House I have had to shut down my body'," says Morris, adding that Clinton told him he had been weak in the case of the 23-year-old intern and had done enough with her to be in serious trouble. He then asked Morris to conduct polls on how he should handle the crisis. Ken Gormley, a legal expert working in the White House, also recalls the sexual tension between the president and Lewinsky. "There were almost these sparks flying between them from the first moment when they saw each other," he says.

Those who worked with Clinton on his initial bid for governorship in his home state of Arkansas, campaigning alongside his wife Hillary, refer to his involvement with a long queue of women. One campaign chief remembers dealing with "25 women a day" who came into the office looking for Clinton, while Betsey Wright, the politician's trusted political aide, recounts how she eventually presented him with a list of girlfriends he had to deal with before he could stand as governor. "It became clear it was not the time to do it," she says.