WASHINGTON -- Soon after Monica Lewinsky joined the White House in the summer of 1995, she developed a relationship with President Clinton that progressed quickly from "intense flirting" to an array of sexual encounters to -- on her part at least -- a deep emotional attachment.

Her account of the affair, revealed yesterday through the release of Kenneth W. Starr's report to Congress, includes graphic details of the sexual activities the former White House intern says the two engaged in over a period of 17 months -- generally in or near a private study off the Oval Office -- until Clinton abruptly cut off the relationship in May 1997 before a weeping Lewinsky.

"I never expected to fall in love with the president," Lewinsky testified, according to the Starr report. "I was surprised that I did."

Lewinsky, who had obviously become infatuated with Clinton and thought he returned her feelings, emerges in the report as sexually aggressive but at the same time naive.

For his part, Clinton appears conflicted about the relationship, actively pursuing and encouraging the sexual activities at times, attempting to cool the relationship with Lewinsky at other times.

According to Lewinsky's testimony, Clinton told her that he enjoyed talking to her, that the two of them were "emotive and full of fire," and that she made him feel young. Even after the sexual relationship ended, Lewinsky testified, the president led her to believe they might have a future together. "I just knew he was in love with me."

White House view

In a rebuttal to the Starr report released by Clinton's legal team yesterday, the affair is portrayed with minimal detail as an "improperly intimate relationship" that the president ended in early 1997. The president testified that "on certain occasions in early 1996 and once in early 1997 he engaged in improper conduct with Ms. Lewinsky. These encounters did not consist of sexual intercourse."

That may be the only point on which the president and Lewinsky agree.

The former intern testified that she and the president had 10 sexual encounters between November 1995 and March 1997, eight of them while she worked at the White House either as an intern or later as a paid staffer, two after she was transferred to the Pentagon.

Generally, Clinton would call her -- either at home or at her office -- and ask her to come to the Oval Office on the pretext of bringing him some papers. Or the two would arrange an "accidental" meeting in a hallway after which Clinton would invite her into his office.

On nearly all of those 10 occasions, she performed oral sex on him -- sometimes when he was on the phone -- but he never performed oral sex on her, nor did they ever engage in sexual intercourse, Lewinsky said.

And contrary to Clinton's suggestion in a sworn deposition that he never had "sexual relations" with Lewinsky or touched her in a sexual way, Lewinsky testified that on numerous occasions, the president intimately kissed and touched her. On one occasion, she said, their sex play involved a cigar, and on another occasion there was mutual intimate contact.

Phone calls, gifts

Along with their meetings, Lewinsky said the president called her about 50 times, often late at night, and their conversations sometimes evolved into "phone sex." Clinton acknowledged before the grand jury that his phone conversations with Lewinsky sometimes included "inappropriate sexual banter," according to Starr's report.

Clinton and Lewinsky exchanged numerous gifts, and Lewinsky said she sent the president notes and letters, some expressing anger that he was "not paying enough attention to me," some saying she missed him, one "mushy."

The two were often affectionate and playful, she testified: "A lot of hugging, holding hands sometimes. He always used to push the hair out of my face."

According to Lewinsky, she called him "Handsome," and he occasionally called her "Sweetie," "Baby" or "Dear."

"We would tell jokes," she testified. "We would talk about our childhoods. Talk about current events. I was always giving him my stupid ideas about what I thought should be done in the administration or different views on things."

She said they would start their trysts in or near the president's private study off the Oval Office. "And we'd talk, and that was where we were physically intimate, and we'd usually end up, kind of the pillow talk of it, I guess, sitting in the Oval Office," she said.

The two of them had a "mutual understanding," said Lewinsky, that they would keep their relationship private, "so that meant deny it and take whatever appropriate steps needed to be taken." She said Clinton never directly instructed her to lie, but he suggested misleading cover stories and reminded her of those stories after she became a witness in the Paula Corbin Jones sexual misconduct case.

In Clinton's rebuttal, lawyers asserted that "what began as a friendship" between Clinton and Lewinsky later came to include intimate contact. But Lewinsky's account describes a relationship that moved in the opposite direction: "The emotional and friendship aspects developed after the beginning of our sexual relationship."

She said she first met Clinton at an official function soon after she was hired as an intern in July 1995 and made eye contact with him, shook his hand and introduced herself.

During the government shutdown in the fall of that year, she worked in the West Wing office of then-chief of staff Leon Panetta, where she often saw and talked to Clinton and carried on what she called a "continued flirtation."

On Nov. 15, the second day of the government shutdown, Lewinsky said she saw the president several times during the day, flirted with him and even raised her jacket in the back to reveal the straps of her thong underwear.

He invited her to his office, where she told him she had a crush on him, and they kissed. She wrote down her name and phone number before returning to her office. At about 10 p.m., he visited her office and invited her again to his private study.

'Come and see me'

There, they engaged in their first sexual encounter, one that would be repeated two days later when Lewinsky, at the president's suggestion, delivered pizza to his office, she said.

During this encounter, she said, Clinton told her he liked her smile and her energy, and said, "I'm usually around on weekends. No one else is around and you can come and see me."

When Clinton next ran into Lewinsky six weeks later -- on New Year' Eve -- she told him her name because she feared he had forgotten it. He had called her "Kiddo."

He assured her he remembered her name and their sexual relations resumed and continued into early 1996, when Clinton began phoning Lewinsky at home.

In late January, Lewinsky started asking Clinton about their relationship. "I asked him why he doesn't ask me any questions )) about myself and is this just about sex or do you have some interest in trying to get to know me as a person?" Lewinsky testified.

She said Clinton laughed and said he "cherishes the time that he had with me."

At their next sexual encounter, Lewinsky said, "He was looking at me and touching me and telling me how beautiful I was." Their physical activities were followed by a 45-minute conversation in the Oval Office, their first lengthy personal talk after six intimate episodes.

Clinton, Lewinsky said, called her later that afternoon at her desk to tell her he enjoyed their time together that day. But about two weeks later, Clinton told her he no longer felt right about the relationship and would have to end it. She could visit him, but only as a friend, he told her.

The hiatus was short-lived, Lewinsky said. There were two more sexual episodes with the president, including one on Easter.

Lewinsky's presence in the Oval Office did not escape the notice of aides and Secret Service agents, the Starr report says. In early April, Lewinsky was told she would be transferred to the Pentagon.

She burst into tears at hearing the news, fearing her relationship with Clinton would come to an end, and asked if there was any way for her to stay at the White House, even without pay. According to Lewinsky, Timothy Keating, the staff director for legislative affairs, told her no. "He told me I was too sexy to be working in the East Wing," she testified.

She also said Clinton was troubled by her transfer and, at their Easter encounter in the hallway of his study, promised to return her to the White House if he won re-election.

"He told me that he thought that my being transferred had something to do with him and that he was upset. He said, 'Why did they have to take you away from me? I trust you.' And then he told me 'I promise you if I win in November, I'll bring you back like that.' "

After beginning her Pentagon job, Lewinsky says she and the president had no further physical encounters in 1996. But they continued to have sexually-charged phone conversations and quietly flirted at public events. To see him, Lewinsky would often attend these public events and arrive early so she would be sure to get up front.

She became increasingly frustrated over her relationship with the president. In an e-mail to a friend, she wrote: "I just don't understand what went wrong, what happened? How could he do this to me? Why did he keep up contact with me for so long and now nothing, now when we could be together?"

In late February -- after Lewinsky placed a Valentine's Day love note to Clinton in the Washington Post -- the two had another sexual encounter, this one with Lewinsky wearing the navy-blue dress from the Gap that would later be turned over to Starr as evidence.

Lewinsky testified that, at that meeting, Clinton gave her several gifts, including "the most sentimental gift he had given me," a special edition of Walt Whitman's "Leaves of Grass."

Their final sexual episode was on March 29, 1997. "This was another one of those occasions when I was babbling on about something, and he just kissed me, kind of to shut me up, I think," Lewinsky testified.

On May 24, Lewinsky said, the president invited Lewinsky to come to the White House, where he ended their intimate relationship. He told her that earlier in his marriage he had had hundreds of affairs, but since turning 40, he had made a concerted effort to be faithful, Lewinsky testified.

He told her he was attracted to her and considered her a great person and hoped they would remain friends, she said. Weeping, she pleaded with him not to end the relationship, but he was insistent.

'Very frustrated'

Through December 1997, she tried to both revive her relationship with Clinton and return to a White House job, but failed. The president's secretary, Betty Currie, testified that the president instructed her and White House aide Marsha Scott to help find Lewinsky a White House job. Both Currie and Scott resisted.

"Very frustrated" over her inability to get in touch with Clinton to discuss the job situation, Lewinsky said she wrote Clinton a peevish letter that began, "Dear Sir," and took him to task for breaking his promise to get her another White House job. She subtly threatened to disclose the relationship, writing that she would have to explain to her parents why she wasn't working at the White House.

Clinton agreed to see Lewinsky, and on July 4, the two had what Lewinsky described as a "very emotional" visit. She said Clinton scolded her, saying, "It's illegal to threaten the President of the United States."

After more heated words, Lewinsky began to cry and Clinton hugged her and "was the most affectionate with me he'd ever been," she said.

She continued to send the president notes and gifts, and attempted to call and see him, and tempt him with sexual suggestions.

But their communications were sometimes heated, with Clinton calling Lewinsky once at about 2 a.m. to rail against her job demands. Lewinsky said he told her, "If I had known what kind of person you really were, I wouldn't have gotten involved with you."

Lewinsky had her own misgivings. In a letter she drafted to the president around Thanksgiving that was recovered from her Pentagon computer, she wrote, "Both professional and personally, our personal relationship changing has caused me more pain. Do you realize that? I am consumed with this disappointment, frustration and anger. All you ever have to do to pacify me is see me and hold me. Maybe that's asking too much."

Pub Date: 9/12/98