He has been called a sex-obsessed right-wing power-hungry prosecutor.

To his admirers, he is a paragon of legal virtue, a man who has dedicated four years to uncovering the truth about President Clinton.

Now the independent counsel Kenneth Starr has given his first full-length interview on American television.

The exchange with Diane Sawyer of the ABC news network was in the tradition of this whole extraordinary saga: hard hitting and sexually explicit.

Sawyer put it to the special prosecutor that his best-selling report on the case for impeachment was regarded by some as "demented pornography".

Colourful dialogue

There are 62 mentions of the word "breast", she said, and 23 of the word "cigar." Did he have to provide such a massive amount of colourful sexual detail?

Mr Starr's face is of course instantly familiar to American news viewers - and probably to millions around the world.

He looks like a demure boy scout: ever-neat, mild-mannered, and always impassive.

When it was put to him that he is seen by many as self-satisfied and sanctimonious, he mustered a tolerant smile, but was quickly back to business.

"That's missing the point", he said "I was assigned to a job... to find out whether crimes were committed... The whole idea of equal justice under the law means that you've got to play by the rules".

But the independent counsel admitted some failings.

Keeping tabs on Tripp

He said his legal team should have "kept better control" of key witness Linda Tripp, who took her tapes of conversations with Monica Lewinsky straight from his office to lawyers for Paula Jones.

In effect this enabled them to set a perjury trap for the president when he testified in the original sexual harassment case.

Mr Starr says he was "unaware" that Tripp was co-operating with the Jones camp.

He also said he has "plenty of human frailties".

Marital fidelity

He was asked the predictable question: have you been unfaithful to your wife? He gave the predictable answer: he has not.

There is no "news" as such in this fireside chat - it is an interesting insight into the man who almost brought down the president.

The comments that may raise most eyebrows are his words of praise for Bill Clinton: this is a man, he says, who is "extraordinarily talented and wonderfully empathetic", who "inspires tremendous affection and loyalty".