WASHINGTON -- The president's senior advisers secured late yesterday his agreement to acknowledge to a federal grand jury today that he engaged in an inappropriate physical relationship with Monica Lewinsky, but he will deny that he counseled her or anyone else to lie about their relationship, said an adviser familiar with the preparations for Clinton's testimony.

The president will assert that he did not commit perjury in a sworn deposition in the Paula Corbin Jones sexual misconduct lawsuit when he denied having "sexual relations" or an "affair" with Lewinsky, the adviser said.

The adviser cautioned that Clinton could change his strategy at the last minute.

But prosecutors are seeking more than a presidential admission of extramarital sexual activity, said lawyers in the case. Prosecutors from the office of the Whitewater independent counsel, Kenneth W. Starr, have spent the past seven months investigating whether Clinton engaged in obstruction of justice, subornation of perjury or witness tampering.

The president is expected to face detailed questions on those allegations based on testimony from dozens of grand jury witnesses, said the lawyers. Nothing could be learned yesterday about how Clinton intends to answer those questions, but he has denied any effort to silence witnesses or otherwise impede the investigation.

Clinton is considering a brief address to the nation after his grand jury testimony, said a senior White House official. Such a statement likely would come at 9 p.m. or later and be broadcast from the White House residence rather than the Oval Office, the official said. The official said Clinton will not decide whether to speak publicly until after his testimony.

The president's approach to his grand jury appearance emerged at the end of a weekend of painstaking preparations for his testimony today, which could determine his political destiny.

He took a late-morning break from consultations with his lawyers to attend church with his wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton. Their daughter, Chelsea, did not accompany them. Clinton, clutching a Bible in one hand and Mrs. Clinton's hand in the other, waved to onlookers as he entered Foundry United Methodist Church near the White House. Neither of the Clintons spoke to reporters.

The only official word from the group cloistered with the president was a four-sentence statement from Clinton's lead private attorney, David Kendall, who attempted to hold back a flood of what he called "groundless speculation" about today's testimony.

"The truth is the truth, period," Kendall said. "And that's how the president will testify."

A White House official said the president was "confident" and fully prepared for today's appearance. "He knows exactly what he is going to say, which is the truth," the official said.

Clinton and his lawyers have spent seven months throwing up barriers in the form of privilege claims and rebuffing requests from Starr that Clinton appear voluntarily for questioning.

But beginning at 1 p.m. in the White House Map Room, the president will be confronted by a team of experienced prosecutors armed with testimony and documents from scores of witnesses, from the lead agent of Clinton's Secret Service detail to the steward who brings Clinton his Diet Cokes.

He will become the first sitting president to appear before a criminal grand jury investigating his actions. He agreed to testify only after Starr issued a subpoena on July 17 compelling his appearance, although the subpoena was withdrawn 10 days later when Clinton agreed to "voluntarily" appear on a closed-circuit television link to the grand jury room in the federal courthouse here.

Speculation about how Clinton will deal with questions about an alleged sexual affair with Lewinsky has consumed Washington for days. But Starr's prosecutors are expected to pursue other lines of inquiry today that go beyond Clinton's sexual behavior and into areas that they believe point to allegations of more serious offenses.

Lewinsky became the center of Starr's inquiry not because the independent counsel was embarked on an examination of the president's sex life, lawyers involved in the inquiry said, but because her story appeared to fit a pattern of denial and obstruction that Starr had seen in four years of investigating the Whitewater case.

Over the past several weeks, prosecutors have been preparing detailed questions about the president's numerous White House meetings with Lewinsky, his advice to her on how to testify in the Jones lawsuit and whether the two of them discussed ways to conceal evidence of their relationship from Jones' attorneys.

Prosecutors say they were particularly struck by efforts made by Clinton, his secretary, Betty Currie, and Vernon Jordan, a prominent Washington lawyer and close confidant of the president's, to find employment for Lewinsky after she had been subpoenaed to appear in the Jones lawsuit.

Prosecutors are expected to ask Clinton to explain those job-hunting efforts, as well as the 37 visits Lewinsky made to the White House after she was summarily transferred to a low-level job in the Pentagon in April 1996 for "immature and inappropriate" behavior around the president.

On most of her visits to the White House, Lewinsky was cleared past security by Currie. Clinton was asked during his deposition in the Jones suit in January whether he was alone with Lewinsky on any of those occasions.

"I don't recall," the president replied. But he added that it was "possible" that on one or two occasions they were alone.

But the president's testimony is not corroborated by other witnesses, most importantly by Currie, who testified that Clinton was alone with Lewinsky on a number of occasions, according to lawyers familiar with her testimony. In addition, Starr's prosecutors have questioned more than a dozen Secret Service officers who are stationed outside the Oval Office, asking them if they were aware of occasions on which the president and Lewinsky were alone.

Clinton's vague answers in the Jones deposition -- he answered "I don't know" or "I don't recall" dozens of times -- may protect him from accusations of perjury.

But testimony from Lewinsky, who was granted broad immunity from prosecution last month, and physical evidence, including a blue dress of hers that the FBI has tested for semen stains, could undercut Clinton's denials in January of a relationship and narrow his room for maneuvering today.

"A lot depends on what the evidence really is," Sen. Orrin G. Hatch, a Utah Republican, said yesterday on the NBC program "Meet the Press." "I just asked the president to testify truthfully, because, so help me, if he lies before the grand jury, that would be grounds for impeachment."

Leon E. Panetta, Clinton's former chief of staff, said on the same program that Clinton has an obligation not only to tell the truth before the grand jury but to level with the American public.

"This is not going to be easy for the president," Panetta said. "This is a tough thing to do, when you have to face the American people and say you made a terrible mistake and that you apologize for it. But if he has the courage to do that and put it behind him, hopefully others will be able to follow suit and begin the healing process in this country from seven months of turmoil."

Poll results

Here are findings from a weekend NBC News poll:

More than 60 percent of those polled do not believe President Clinton's denials of a sexual relationship with Monica Lewinsky.

If Clinton admits to a sexual relationship and apologizes to the nation, two-thirds of those surveyed said Congress should not open impeachment hearings.

Two-thirds said Clinton should have the right to refuse to answer certain personal questions before the grand jury.

56 percent of those polled said Clinton should speak to the public about his testimony.

The president's job approval ratings stood at 70 percent, the highest NBC has recorded since the scandal broke in January.

The poll for NBC surveyed 837 adults. The margin of error was 3.5 percentage points.

Associated Press

Pub Date: 8/17/98