The roots of the Clinton smear

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In October 1991, Bill Clinton announced that he would likely seek the Democratic presidential nomination in 1992. He and Hillary began a statewide pilgrimage for the laying on of hands. Soon, Flowers began a series of phone calls to Clinton that would eventually serve as her putative "proof" of their 12-year affair. The story she told couldn't have been better calculated to bring out Clinton's well-known tendency to empathize with women down on their luck -- especially, a cynic might note, good-looking women with long blond hair and long-ago shared secrets.

Flowers' gambit was that because of the allegations in Nichols' lawsuit, which he had recently re-filed, she was being pestered to distraction by tabloid newspaper and TV reporters. The candidate returned one of her calls late one night from the campaign trail. According to a transcript provided by "Clintonwatch," a newsletter published by the right-wing agitprop organization "Citizen's United," the conversation went as follows:

"Gennifer, it's Bill Clinton." An odd way for a long-term lover to announce himself, one might think.

Flowers commented that he didn't sound like himself. Did he have a cold? "Oh it's just my ... every year about this time I ... my sinuses go bananas."

"Yeah, me too."

"And I've been in this stupid airplane too much, but I'm OK."

Clinton's allergies act up in the spring and fall. His voice gets hoarse and his nose swells up like W.C. Fields'. That and his brother Roger's cocaine-dealing conviction were the main reasons for persistent rumors of the governor's own drug habit.

Listening to the tapes, it sounds as if these two people scarcely know one another. Flowers launched into her tale of woe. Forces unknown had broken into her apartment and rifled the joint.

"There wasn't any sign of a break-in," she explained, "but the drawers and things. There wasn't anything missing that I can tell, but somebody had ..."

"Somebody had gone through your stuff?" Clinton asks. "But they didn't steal anything?"

"No ... I had jewelry here, and everything was still here."

Possibly that's why Flowers never reported the purported break-in to the Little Rock Police Department. In a January 1998 interview with Geraldo Rivera, however, Flowers would pin the blame for the non-burglary upon Clinton himself.

At no point in this, or any of Flowers' tapes, did Clinton say anything that could reasonably be construed to indicate a long-term sexual relationship. Indeed every one of their taped conversations centered around the same issue: Larry Nichols' accusations, and Flowers' fear and loathing of the tabloid press.

In one conversation Clinton advised her that it would be "extremely valuable" if she would sign an affidavit explaining -- as she'd told Clinton, and would repeat at her Star press conference -- that an Arkansas Republican had offered to pay her $50,000 to point the finger at the candidate. He repeatedly expressed regret that Flowers had to get dragged into the political maelstrom, and made no bones about who he thought responsible.

"[Sheffield] Nelson called me," Clinton told Flowers, "and said 'I want you to know we didn't have anything to do with that.' I said, 'Yeah, you sent your little lawyer to the prison system to find inmates who would trash me ...' He was calling people off the street, trying to get people to say I'd slept with them."

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