By John Solomon
Associated Press Writer
Monday, August 17, 1998; 7:43 p.m. EDT

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Forced by prosecutors and political reality to reverse course after months of denial, President Clinton testified under oath Monday that he had engaged in an inappropriate relationship with a White House intern, according to a knowledgeable source.

Clinton underwent more than four hours of questioning under oath from independent counsel Kenneth Starr, televised in a scrambled video signal from the White House to a federal grand jury. He secured himself an unwanted place in history: the first president to testify before a grand jury investigating his own conduct.

Starr has been investigating allegations that Clinton had sexual relations with Monica Lewinsky and then lied about it under oath in the Paula Jones sexual harassment case, and tried to cover it up.

Clinton planned to address the nation at 10 p.m. EDT and in advance his chief of staff Erskine Bowles told Democratic leaders Clinton would ``take full and complete responsibility and express real regret.''

Clinton's attorney, David Kendall, said the president ``testified truthfully'' and hoped the appearance would end the investigation into the president's ``private life.''

Two advisers said Clinton wrote a draft of the speech, handing it to aides as he was heading into the grand jury session. Clinton was expected to assure Americans he didn't violate any laws and to offer an explanation and perhaps an apology for his denials last January.

On Jan. 26, at a White House event, Clinton said emphatically, ``I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky. I never told anybody to lie.''

The grand jury session lasted all afternoon, until 6:25 p.m. EDT, and a well-placed source, speaking on condition of anonymity said it ended Clinton's denial of an extramarital relationship with Ms. Lewinsky, a recent college graduate not half his age.

``He testified truthfully,'' Kendall said outside the White House. ``We're hopeful that the president's testimony will finally bring closure to the independent counsel's more than four-year and over $40 million investigation, which has culminated in an investigation of the president's private life.''

Tuesday the president was leaving with his wife and daughter for a vacation in Martha's Vineyard and aides suggested it would be a time for healing within the family.

With Congress awaiting a report that might spark impeachment proceedings against him, the president's dramatic reversal carried a high political price.

Lawmakers and Americans alike were forced to weigh why Clinton would drag the nation through seven months of political turmoil, waging a series of court battles at taxpayers' expense, to sustain his denial and avoid acknowledging a sexual relationship.

Prosecutors' questions pressed beyond a sexual relationship with Ms. Lewinsky to whether Clinton sought to obstruct Mrs. Jones' lawsuit, and later Starr's investigation, to conceal the nature of his relationship.

The president's appearance was also a defining moment for Starr, who endured months of stinging political and legal attacks to gather the evidence that forced Clinton to the witness stand. Prosecutors were eager to end their wide-ranging four-year-old investigation by sending a report to Congress.

``We are trying to complete the investigation as quickly as possible,'' Starr spokesman Charles Bakaly said. Starr left the White House without comment.

Republicans in Congress sent mixed signals about how they might react if Clinton reversed course to admit a sexual relationship with Ms. Lewinsky.

Sen. John Ashcroft, a presidential aspirant from Missouri, said Congress couldn't ignore what's already transpired. ``If he has subverted the truth, if there are the serious crimes of perjury, the Congress has a responsibility to impeach,'' Ashcroft said.

Senate Judiciary Chairman Orrin Hatch said voters would be disappointed in Clinton if he had lied but could forgive him. ``I'm one of those who does not want impeachment if he tells the truth and if it's not more serious,'' he said. ``Those are big ifs.''

The formality of Monday's proceedings -- jurors in a courtroom watching a closed circuit television -- belied the personal anguish it was causing First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton and their college-age daughter, Chelsea.

``I think that Bill has a sense of embarrassment. Hillary, as the wife, there's a sense of humiliation,'' said the Rev. Jesse Jackson, who spent Sunday night counseling the first family. ``Theirs is a partnership. And my sense is they will survive.''

Ms. Lewinsky testified to the grand jury two weeks ago and her whereabouts Monday was not know.

Inside the White House, aides who provided Clinton's defense for months privately seethed with anger and fretted over whether the president's turnabout would affect his credibility in the world arena and at home, and their ability to shape an agenda for his last two years in office.

Chief of staff Bowles met early with senior staff, acknowledged the magnitude of the moment and urged the staff to stick together.

According to press secretary Mike McCurry, Bowles told the staff, ``It's easy to be there for someone when they're up. But it's the good ones who are there for you when you're down.''

Aides' first efforts to survey Democrats on Capitol Hill and urge them to come out early in defense of the president was met with a cool response. Lawmakers indicated they wanted to wait and see whether the president told the whole truth and to gauge public reaction.

Still, the president's strategists banked that candid testimony would sit well with Americans, who polls indicated continued to give Clinton high marks for his job performance and might be willing to let the Lewinsky matter slip if he apologized.

The president was accompanied to the session by his attorneys, unusual because grand jury witnesses are typically required to appear without counsel.

The president was brought to this moment by an unlikely series of events that resurrected the question of marital infidelity -- an issue that haunted him as Arkansas governor and threatened his 1992 presidential campaign.

Suddenly part of the president's private life was placed squarely inside the criminal investigation being conducted by Whitewater prosecutors.

The genesis was a 1994 lawsuit by former Arkansas state worker Paula Jones accusing Clinton of sexual harassment. The Supreme Court ruled that Clinton could not postpone the lawsuit until after his presidency, and last fall, Mrs. Jones hired new lawyers who began investigating to determine whether there was a pattern of conduct with other women.

A series of anonymous phone calls led Mrs. Jones' lawyers to the names of several women alleged to have relationships with the president, including a little-known former White House intern named Monica Lewinsky.

Secretly, one of Ms. Lewinsky's confidants, co-worker Linda Tripp, had been recording conversations in which her friend described a sexual relationship and an attempt to conceal it from Mrs. Jones' lawyers.

In addition to talking with Mrs. Jones' lawyers, Mrs. Tripp brought the secret tapes to Starr's office in early January. Mrs. Tripp has said she was convinced Ms. Lewinsky was asking her to lie about the relationship as part of a criminal coverup inside the White House.

That coverup was alleged to include efforts by presidential friend Vernon Jordan to find Ms. Lewinsky a job and a lawyer who would help her file an affidavit denying she had a sexual relationship with Ms. Lewinsky.

Mrs. Tripp wore an FBI wire to capture one last conversation with Ms. Lewinsky, giving prosecutors ammunition to ask Attorney General Janet Reno to expand their long-running probe.

Reno and the court that appointed Starr accepted Starr's argument that Ms. Lewinsky fit an earlier pattern of jobs-for-silence allegations that Starr was already investigating. Prosecutors immediately confronted Ms. Lewinsky at the hotel, seeking her cooperation.

Fatefully, the expansion was approved the day before Clinton was questioned by Mrs. Jones' lawyers. In that deposition, he denied a sexual relationship with Ms. Lewinsky.

Within days, news reports about the allegations touched off the most sensational -- and tawdry -- crisis of Clinton's presidency. Once unthinkable details emerged -- allegations of oral sex, a semen-stained dress, a novel about phone sex -- as the reality of a president under investigation for possible perjury and obstruction threatened to derail the presidency.

Clinton's popularity and support from his wife and supporters provided political protection that lingered through seven months of investigation by Starr. Since the story broke, polls consistently have put his job approval rating between 60 percent and 70 percent.

Ms. Lewinsky and her garrulous family lawyer, William Ginsburg, failed to reach a deal to secure her cooperation. So prosecutors set about piecing together evidence of the relationship and coverup from other witnesses -- including the president's secretary Betty Currie and Secret Service officers to Ms. Lewinsky's 20-something friends and her tearful mother.

Every step of the way, Clinton's private and government lawyers staged roadblocks to Starr's efforts -- claims of executive privilege, attorney-client privilege and efforts to shield Secret Service agents from testifying -- that reached all the way to the Supreme Court.

Starr won at nearly every turn, and evidence mounted. The president received a subpoena July 17 ordering his testimony.

In late July, the prosecutor reached an immunity deal with Ms. Lewinsky's new lawyers that instantly transformed the investigation -- securing her testimony to contradict the president's sworn denial of an affair.

Ms. Lewinsky went before the grand jury Aug.6, and according to legal sources, testified she had sexual relations with Clinton, discussed with him ways of concealing the relationship, and even talked with him about how to return the gifts he gave her to Mrs. Currie to avoid them being found.

And she turned over the piece of physical evidence -- a dress she said was stained during one of the sexual encounters with Clinton.