`IT WAS WRONG'; PRESIDENT ADMITS HE MISLED AMERICA, WIFE.

Byline: James Bennet The New York Times

Saying that he had misled his wife and the public, President Clinton admitted in a solemn and grim-faced address Monday night that he had an intimate relationship at the White House with an intern. He also acknowledged the relationship in testimony to a grand jury.

``It was wrong,'' the president said, speaking in somber yet defiant tones from the same straight-backed chair from which, hours earlier, he had carried on a far more combative exchange with prosecutors. ``It constituted a critical lapse in judgment and a personal failure on my part for which I am solely and completely responsible.''

After seven months of emphatic denials of a sexual relationship with Monica Lewinsky, the former intern, Clinton found himself addressing among the most personally painful of matters - adultery - in the most public forum imaginable. Speaking just after 10 p.m. EDT (7 p.m. PDT), he tried to wrest political forgiveness from personal embarrassment, issuing a proud, almost angry demand for his privacy back.

``Now, this matter is between me, the two people I love most - my wife and our daughter - and our God,'' he said. ``It's nobody's business but ours. Even presidents have private lives.''

Clinton's defiant statement came after a contentious 4-1/2 hour session before a federal grand jury in which he repeatedly refused to answer prosecutors' questions not only about his relationship with Lewinsky but about other matters under investigation, according to a Clinton adviser familiar with his testimony.

In turn, prosecutors told the president that they might subpoena him again, as they did to secure his agreement to testify in the first place, and Clinton's lawyers said that he likely would fight such a move.

Clinton denied that he had obstructed justice and had tried to cover up his relationship with Lewinsky. ``I told the grand jury today and I say to you now that at no time did I ask anyone to lie, to hide or destroy evidence or to take any other unlawful action,'' he said in his public address. He urged the public to put the matter behind it. ``It is past time to move on,'' he said.

After Clinton's speech, it remained unknown what evidence Starr might have on the most damaging questions of obstructing justice, a point that Republicans were quick to emphasize after the president's appearance.

In testifying and then speaking to the public, Clinton tried the riskiest high-wire act of his career, trying to balance legal and political burdens. Two days short of his 52nd birthday, he sought to protect his presidency and elude legal jeopardy by acknowledging an intimate relationship in the White House with a subordinate less than half his age.

Clinton had been working on his speech for several days, aides said, trying to strike the right balance between disclosure and dignity, remorse and pride. He ran through it twice before delivering it live, addressing the camera head-on.

Starr is investigating whether the president lied under oath in denying an affair with Lewinsky last January in his deposition during the Paula Corbin Jones sexual misconduct suit. Beyond the nature of Clinton's relationship with Lewinsky, Starr has been investigating whether Clinton tried to obstruct justice and suborn perjury.

Clinton acknowledged in his testimony having had ``inappropriate intimate physical contact'' with Lewinsky, according to one lawyer and adviser to the president knowledgeable about his appearance. But the president argued that the contact did not fit the definition of sex used by the Jones lawyers, and that therefore he did not commit perjury.

In his brief speech Monday night, Clinton hinted at the depth of animosity between the two sides, saying the investigation had ``gone on too long, cost too much and hurt too many innocent people.''

Clinton testified Monday, and delivered his speech, from the White House Map Room, from which Franklin Delano Roosevelt monitored the progress of World War II.

Beginning at 12:59 p.m. EDT (9:59 a.m. PDT), President Clinton met with prosecutors in the Map Room on the ground floor of the White House. His testimony was videotaped and transmitted by live closed-circuit television to a grand jury at the federal courthouse, just blocks away.

The details of Clinton's testimony were not immediately disclosed. But his lawyer, David Kendall, gave a brief statement.

``As to a very few highly intrusive questions with respect to the specifics of this contact, in order to preserve personal privacy and institutional dignity, he gave candid, but not detailed answers,'' Kendall said.

In announcing his plans to testify earlier this month, Clinton said he would speak ``truthfully and completely.'' But some of his advisers had raised the possibility before his testimony that he might rebuff detailed questions about his sexual contact with Lewinsky.

Lewinsky testified Aug. 6 that she had had a sexual relationship with Clinton. She had previously denied such a relationship in a sworn affidavit.

Clinton took several breaks from his testimony to confer with his lawyers in the doctor's office next door to the Map Room. About 3:30 p.m., he took a break that lasted roughly an hour, one Clinton ally said.

Some Republican congressional leaders have said that an acknowledgment by Clinton that he had not told the truth about his relationship with Lewinsky might blunt the threat of impeachment proceedings on Capitol Hill. Erskine B. Bowles, White House chief of staff, called Democrats on the Hill on Monday evening to rally support for the president.

But even if Clinton heads off such hearings, it is far from clear whether he will put his second term back on track, or put to rest smirking speculation about his private life and new doubts, reflected in public polls, about his truthfulness.

CAPTION(S):

3 Photos

PHOTO (1 -- color) In this televised image, President Clinton speaks to the nation about his relationship to Monica Lewinsky.

Associated Press

(2 -- color) Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr waves to reporters as he exits the White House after President Clinton's testimony Monday.

Greg Gibson/Associated Press

(3 -- color) Lewinsky