2ND WOMAN'S MOTIVES UNDER MICROSCOPE.

Byline: Jill Abramson and Don Van Natta Jr. The New York Times

Monica Lewinsky, 24, formed a fateful friendship with an older woman, Linda Tripp, 48, at a time in her life when she was distraught and looking for a sympathetic ear, according to government investigators and people who have worked with the two women.

More than a year ago, they say, Lewinsky began confiding to Tripp about the details of an affair she said she had with President Clinton, although the president repeatedly denied having an ``improper relationship'' with her in interviews Wednesday.

Both women had worked at the White House and later had offices near one another in the Pentagon. Last summer, Lewinsky began calling Tripp from her apartment in the exclusive Watergate complex in Washington. The calls were made after work to Tripp's home in suburban Maryland. What Lewinsky, a native of Beverly Hills and daughter of an affluent California medical doctor, did not know is that Tripp was taping the conversations with a device connected to her telephone, several federal and congressional investigators say.

Despite their age difference, the two women had much in common. They had both worked in relatively low-level administrative jobs in the White House, Lewinsky as an intern in the legislative affairs office, among other jobs, and Tripp as a secretary in the counsel's office. Both women then transferred to jobs in the Pentagon.

Why the tapes?

Why would Tripp tape the sad ramblings of her love-struck friend? While Lewinsky was a young career woman, graduated from Lewis and Clark College in Oregon in May 1995 trying to make her way in Washington, D.C., Tripp's career in Washington was already far more complicated and her relationship with the Clinton White House was strained.

Tripp had worked in the Bush White House but remained after President Clinton was inaugurated and served as executive assistant to Bernard Nussbaum, the first White House counsel. She had been called to testify before Congress and had been questioned by the Whitewater independent counsel, Kenneth Starr, because she was the last person to see former deputy counsel Vincent Foster Jr. before he killed himself.

Her congressional testimony about Foster's death was extremely embarrassing to the White House. In one e-mail message she sent to a co-worker, Tripp called Nussbaum and some of the other White House lawyers ``the Three Stooges.''

On Aug. 21, 1994, Tripp left the White House and went to work at the Pentagon. The circumstances leading to her departure are unclear, but one White House co-worker said she was ``sent to Siberia'' because senior White House aides viewed her as a loose cannon.

But soon after her banishment, she was became entangled in another embarrassing situation for the White House. She was quoted in an article in Newsweek in the summer of 1997 as saying that Kathleen Willey, a volunteer in the White House's social office, had told her that Clinton had kissed and ``fondled'' her in a room off the Oval Office.

Although Tripp, whose lawyer did not respond to calls Wednesday, told Newsweek that she was divulging this information in an effort to help Clinton fend off accusations of sexual harassment involving Willey, Robert Bennett, one of Clinton's lawyers, was quoted in the same article as saying that Tripp ``is not to be believed.''

Having her credibility attacked might have provided Tripp a motive to record her conversations with Lewinsky, government investigators suggest.

At the time Lewinsky began confiding in Tripp, she too had left the White House and had begun working in the Pentagon. She was hired by Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs Kenneth Bacon, as his confidential assistant on April 17, 1996. Bacon said the White House recommended her for the position. ``Her name was suggested but they did not push it in any way,'' he added.

Lewinsky left the job on Dec. 24.

According to one former co-worker of Lewinsky, her work in the legislative affairs office, where she handled correspondence from members of Congress, drew the displeasure of former Deputy Chief of Staff Evelyn Lieberman, who closely supervised White House interns and was known as a tough, but loving, taskmaster.

Lieberman, who did not return calls, complained that Lewinsky was spending too much time at public events, like the Rose Garden ceremonies, where President Clinton appeared. Apparently, this was a common criticism from Lieberman, who also arranged for other White House interns to be transferred out of their jobs.

Lewinsky told Tripp that she was in love with Clinton, said one investigator, and that their affair had lasted more than a year. Several investigators said that Lewinsky also played for Tripp several taped telephone messages left on her answering machine by the president. Unbeknown to Lewinsky, Tripp also taped this conversation, including the messages from the president, the investigators say.

CAPTION(S):

2 Photos

PHOTO (1 -- color) Monica Lewinski

Detailed affair

(2 -- color) Linda Tripp

Taped phone calls