Clinton Takes the Offensive to Battle Adultery Rumors : Candidate: He and wife will appear on ’60 Minutes.’ New questions arise over credibility of self-styled ‘other woman.’

Democratic presidential hopeful Bill Clinton, going on the offensive to combat rumors about his personal life, decided Friday to appear with his wife, Hillary, on the CBS television program “60 Minutes” Sunday to answer questions about their marriage.

The decision, made after a day of discussions between officials of Clinton’s campaign and the network as well as high-level meetings among top Clinton aides and supporters here, likely will create a pivotal moment for Clinton’s campaign.

Airing just after the Super Bowl in most television markets, the show will place Clinton before a vast audience--a possible 24 million households--one far larger than any politician other than President Bush normally can command. And it will provide him with a made-to-order forum for presenting his basic campaign themes.

At the same time, however, the show will open up Clinton to lengthy public questioning of his personal life. “It’s a serious risk, but an important opportunity,” said Clinton pollster Stanley Greenberg.

Clinton and his staff decided to make the appearance after a supermarket tabloid, the Star, published allegations Thursday by an Arkansas woman, Gennifer Flowers, that she had a 12-year affair with Clinton. Clinton denied the charge. It was the second time in a week that the tabloid had printed accusations of infidelity and forced Clinton into a public denial.

Some party professionals warned Friday that Clinton’s presidential bid might be finished if he did not find a way to break out of the cycle of tabloid charges and denials.

Clinton’s strategy will be to try not only to put the most recent rumors to rest, but also to close off the subject for good by tapping into the widespread public discomfort with the intrusion of personal-life questions into politics, his aides and advisers said.

“Somebody’s got to stand up and say ‘enough is enough.’ We’re destroying the political process, and somebody’s got to put a stop to it,” said Clinton strategist Frank Greer.

“Bill and Hillary’s hope is that in talking directly to the American people, they can show that you can have a problem and deal with it frankly and honestly and come through stronger,” said Mickey Kantor, a Los Angeles attorney who is chairman of the campaign’s national executive committee.

If so, Kantor said, “this controversy can be helpful.”

The interview, to be conducted by CBS correspondent Steve Kroft, will be taped Sunday morning and edited by CBS before broadcast, “60 Minutes” executive producer Don Hewitt said. The interview will be packaged with other stories to make up a full one-hour program. In most markets, the show will air directly after the Super Bowl although stations on the West Coast will have the option of airing their local news programs first, “60 Minutes” spokesman Roy Brunett said.

Meanwhile, additional details surfaced Friday that called further into question Flowers’ credibility.

Flowers has claimed that she was Miss Teenage America in 1967, but Linda Bernson, a promotion and marketing assistant for TEEN Magazine, which owns the pageant, said records show she was not.

“I can tell you for sure she did not win the title in 1967--or in the 1960s,” Bernson said. “I went through everything we have here, and I am not coming across her name at all.”

Flowers also claimed she had worked as a backup singer for country & western entertainer Roy Clark and that she had worked on the “Hee-Haw” show in Nashville.

Both Clark’s personal secretary and his publicist denied that Flowers had sung with him. “I have never heard of her,” said Julia Staires, the secretary. “I’ve been getting calls on this, and I’ve checked around, and no one’s heard of her.”

Carol Anderson, a former backup singer for Clark who is now his publicist, said, “I’ve been with this organization for 12 years, and I’ve never met anyone named Gennifer Flowers.” Clark, she said, had used the same group of backup singers for many years, and “Gennifer Flowers was not one of them.”

At “Hee-Haw,” Sandy Liles, an official at the show’s production office, said she had “never heard of her.”

“I’ve been around here a long time. If she was on the show, I feel sure I would remember the name,” Liles said.

A year ago, Flowers herself denied that she had an affair with Clinton. She hired a lawyer to threaten suit against a Little Rock radio station for having “wrongfully and untruthfully alleged an affair” between her and Clinton.

Star editor Richard Kaplan said in a news conference in Tarrytown, N.Y., Friday that the publication is keeping Flowers in an undisclosed location. He declined to say how much she had been paid for her story, describing it only as “a considerable sum.”

Clinton campaign staffers cited recent poll results from New Hampshire as proof that a direct confrontation of the Star’s accusations would work. After Clinton was asked during last Sunday’s televised debate in New Hampshire about charges of womanizing, the campaign’s surveys showed that voters were aware of the issue but that Clinton nevertheless gained ground on his rivals, Greenberg said.

Interviews with New Hampshire voters provided some support for that view.

“It’s amazing how all this stuff comes out as soon as someone emerges in the lead,” said Glenn Ouellette of Nashua, an unemployed computer engineer who voted for Bush in 1988 but now says he is “leaning” toward Clinton.

“You can find something on anyone if you look, and these people have plenty of money to look,” he said. “If I think this guy can fix things,” he added, “these stories won’t stop me.”

Laurence Radway, a former Democratic state chairman, retired Dartmouth professor of government and Clinton supporter, took a similar stance. “It’s hard for me to see that anybody facing a mortgage foreclosure on his home is going to be shaken” by allegations about past infidelity, he said.

Times staff writers Robert Shogan in Washington, J. Michael Kennedy in Little Rock and Jane Hall in New York contributed to this story.