President insists on secrecy

Both Ms Lewinsky and the President testified that they took steps to maintain the secrecy of the relationship.

According to Ms Lewinsky, the President from the outset stressed the importance of keeping the relationship secret.

In her handwritten statement to this Office, Ms Lewinsky wrote that "the President told Ms L to deny a relationship, if ever asked about it. He also said something to the effect of if the two people who are involved say it didn't happen - it didn't happen."

According to Ms Lewinsky, the President sometimes asked if she had told anyone about their sexual relationship or about the gifts they had exchanged; she (falsely) assured him that she had not.

She told him that "I would always deny it, I would always protect him," and he responded approvingly.

The two of them had, in her words, "a mutual understanding" that they would "keep this private, so that meant deny it and . . . take whatever appropriate steps needed to be taken."

When she and the President both were subpoenaed to testify in the Jones case, Ms Lewinsky anticipated that "as we had on every other occasion and every other instance of this relationship, we would deny it."

'I knew it was wrong'

In his grand jury testimony, the President confirmed his efforts to keep their liaisons secret.

He said he did not want the facts of their relationship to be disclosed "in any context," and added: "I certainly didn't want this to come out, if I could help it.

I was embarrassed about it. I knew it was wrong."

Asked if he wanted to avoid having the facts come out through Ms Lewinsky's testimony in Jones, he said: "Well, I did not want her to have to testify and go through that.

And, of course, I didn't want her to do that, of course not."

Cover stories

For her visits to see the President, according to Ms Lewinsky, "[T]here was always some sort of a cover."

When visiting the President while she worked at the White House, she generally planned to tell anyone who asked (including Secret Service officers and agents) that she was delivering papers to the President.

Ms Lewinsky explained that this artifice may have originated when "I got there kind of saying, 'Oh, gee, here are your letters,' wink, wink, wink, and him saying, 'Okay, that's good.'"

To back up her stories, she generally carried a folder on these visits. (In truth, according to Ms Lewinsky, her job never required her to deliver papers to the President).

On a few occasions during her White House employment, Ms Lewinsky and the President arranged to bump into each other in the hallway; he then would invite her to accompany him to the Oval Office.(102)

Later, after she left the White House and started working at the Pentagon, Ms Lewinsky relied on Ms Currie to arrange times when she could see the President.

The cover story for those visits was that Ms Lewinsky was coming to see Ms Currie, not the President.

'I never told her to lie'

In his grand jury testimony, the President acknowledged that he and Ms Lewinsky "might have talked about what to do in a nonlegal context" to hide their relationship, and that he "might well have said" that Ms Lewinsky should tell people that she was bringing letters to him or coming to visit Ms Currie.

But he also stated that "I never asked Ms Lewinsky to lie."

The windowless hallway

After their first two sexual encounters during the November 1995 government shutdown, according to Ms Lewinsky, her encounters with the President generally occurred on weekends, when fewer people were in the West Wing.

Ms Lewinsky testified: "He had told me . . . that he was usually around on the weekends and that it was okay to come see him on the weekends."

From some of the President's comments, Ms Lewinsky gathered that she should try to avoid being seen by several White House employees.

Out of concern about being seen, the sexual encounters most often occurred in the windowless hallway outside the study.

According to Ms Lewinsky, the President was concerned that the two of them might be spotted through a White House window.

Once, when she spotted a gardener outside the study window, they left the room. Ms Lewinsky testified that, on December 28, 1997, "when I was getting my Christmas kiss" in the doorway to the study, the President was "looking out the window with his eyes wide open while he was kissing me and then I got mad because it wasn't very romantic."

He responded, "Well, I was just looking to see to make sure no one was out there."

'I bit my hand to stay quiet'

Fear of discovery constrained their sexual encounters in several respects, according to Ms Lewinsky.

The President ordinarily kept the door between the private hallway and the Oval Office several inches ajar during their encounters, both so that he could hear if anyone approached.

During their sexual encounters, Ms Lewinsky testified, "[W]e were both aware of the volume and sometimes . . . I bit my hand - so that I wouldn't make any noise."

On one occasion, according to Ms Lewinsky, the President put his hand over her mouth during a sexual encounter to keep her quiet.

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