CLINTON'S DEEP FEAR REVEALED; NEW TRANSCRIPTS RELEASED.

Byline: Brian McGrory The Boston Globe

On the eve of a congressional inquiry, the House Judiciary Committee flooded the capital with thousands of pages of investigative documents Friday - transcripts that portray a worried president staving off public scandal as a lovesick former intern clings to the remnants of their dying relationship.

In her secretly recorded conversations with colleague Linda R. Tripp, Monica S. Lewinsky alternately appears ebullient over her romantic prospects with President Clinton and tearful because of his inattention. At one point she claims to love him and even offers Tripp money to tailor her potential testimony in the Paula Jones sexual harassment lawsuit to protect him. Another time, she refers to Clinton as ``the creep.''

Within the inner sanctums of the White House, Clinton appears, in the transcripts, to be a man consumed by fear that publicity over his adulterous relationship with Lewinsky would wreak havoc on his presidency. When he summons his personal secretary, Betty Currie, back to the West Wing on a Sunday afternoon to discuss his Jones deposition, she finds him standing on the putting green in the chill of a January dusk, putting golf balls in the company of his Labrador retriever, Buddy.

Late that night, Clinton would telephone Currie at home, advising her to get out of bed, turn on her computer and read a gossip item on the ``Drudge Report'' providing the first details of Clinton's relationship with Lewinsky.

``He said, `Have you read the Drudge Report?' '' Betty Currie testified on Jan. 27 before the federal grand jury. ``Nope. He said, `Do you have a computer? You can pull it out of the Internet.' '' Clinton later told Currie: ``Apparently, the story is breaking with Monica and Linda Tripp.''

The 4,600 pages of documents, void of any startling revelations, were released as the House Judiciary Committee prepares to meet Monday and take an almost certain vote in favor of opening an impeachment inquiry into Clinton. The full House could vote on the matter by Oct. 9, and hearings are expected to follow after the Nov. 3 elections.

House Democrats Friday proposed a narrow and expedited impeachment investigation that would end by Thanksgiving and leave open an explicit option to censure Clinton rather than impeach him. Republicans immediately criticized the offer, in a prelude to its certain defeat.

``The Democrats' alternative resolution is certainly made-to-order for the White House, but not for the American people,'' said Judiciary Committee Chairman Henry Hyde, a Republican from Illinois. ``We are committed to an expeditious search for the truth. But spending a month studying the law of impeachment in the abstract, while brushing aside documented allegations of serious crimes by the president does nothing to further that goal.''

The White House Friday accused Independent Counsel Kenneth W. Starr of ``evidentiary manipulation and misdirection,'' saying Starr purposely failed to include favorable testimony about Clinton in his report to Congress and often paraphrased testimony to obscure its meaning.

Foremost in their argument was Currie's testimony about how she helped Lewinsky find a new job, despite Starr's assertions that Clinton masterminded Lewinsky's job search as a way to win her favor and maintain her silence. ``I was doing it on my own,'' Currie testified.

The last release

Friday's document drop marked the last massive release of grand jury testimony and evidence from Starr's investigation and included hundreds of pages of transcipts from such crucial witnesses as Currie, Clinton ally Vernon E. Jordan Jr., White House aides ranging from Navy stewards to the chief of staff, as well as Secret Service agents. It also included transcripts of some 20 hours of secret tape recordings between Tripp and Lewinsky, of which portions had previously been published in excerpts over the last eight months.

All the documents represented supporting evidence for the report that Starr shipped to Capitol Hill on Sept. 9, outlining 11 possible grounds for Clinton's impeachment.

Most notable in the testimony was the vivid and omnipresent role of Currie, who is posted outside the Oval Office and often served as the conduit between Clinton and Lewinsky in their 16-month sexual affair. Throughout her testimony, Currie appeared to be a reluctant witness who often claimed an inability to recall. But time and again, under prosecutorial direction, she provided damning statements about the president.

In the taped telephone conversations, Tripp often appears to be a sympathetic but leading presence, occasionally coaching Lewinsky on how to handle the failing relationship with Clinton and the legal fallout.

At one point, Tripp tells Lewinsky, ``You have got to get out of town, big time.'' At other times, she heaps praise and sympathy on her young colleague, even comparing her to a ``Marilyn Monroe vixen.''

When Tripp, wearing an FBI body wire, meets with Lewinsky last January at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel at Pentagon City, she excitedly dramatizes Lewinsky's situation by telling her, ``I feel like we're in the middle of a John Grisham book, frankly.''

Feared for her life

In those tapes, Lewinsky professes a fear for her life. She advises Tripp to tell Jones' lawyers that ``I don't recall'' key details of her encounter with Kathleen Willey, who accused the president of groping her. She describes Clinton as ``gorgeous'' and ``delicious'' when she is not railing against him for refusing to meet with her.

Among other witnesses, Clinton adviser Dick Morris testified that the president told him in January, after stories were first published about the affair, ``I may have done enough so that I don't know if I can prove my innocence.''

Secret Service agent Larry Cockell, the head of Clinton's security detail, testified that he had no prior knowledge of Clinton's affair with Lewinsky before the story appeared in the Washington Post on Jan. 21.

Facing intense questioning from prosecutors, White House steward Bayani Nelvis denied any knowledge of a relationship or of Clinton and Lewinsky ever being alone together. Nelvis said he and Lewinsky had a close relationship of their own. She gave him ties, he gave her candy, and they had dinner and drinks together on several occasions.