Flowers to Market Tapes of Conversations With Clinton : Arkansas: Phone calls include discussions on deflecting inquiries from media about rumors of womanizing. President has denied alleged affair.

Gennifer Flowers, the Arkansas woman who claimed to have had a long-running affair with then-Gov. Bill Clinton, today is releasing for sale what she calls “the complete and unedited” tapes of four telephone conversations with Clinton she recorded in 1990-91.

Clinton has steadfastly denied having an extramarital affair with Flowers, a one-time Little Rock nightclub singer and former state employee.

A preview of the tapes found extensive discussions between Clinton and Flowers about how to deflect persistent media inquiries into rumors of Clinton’s womanizing, but little evidence that would settle the controversy.

Flowers has scheduled a press conference in New York today to announce plans to market the tapes, along with a 70-page transcript and booklet titled: “Setting the Record Straight,” for $19.95.

“I don’t have much money left,” Flowers said in an interview here. Flowers was paid by the Star tabloid in 1992 for her story, and also posed for a Penthouse feature later that year. She has since been living in Dallas in a leased apartment.

The tapes were made during four separate telephone conversations from December, 1990, when Clinton had just won reelection as governor, to December, 1991, the early weeks of the presidential campaign.

In the months since the first excerpts were released, the Flowers story has gained some corroboration from a group of Arkansas state troopers, some of whom said they took Clinton to rendezvous with Flowers. One former Clinton bodyguard also said he was present when the governor used his car phone to call a state official for help getting Flowers a state job. Clinton has denied that he did so.

In a conversation recorded on Oct. 21, 1991, shortly after Clinton had announced he was seeking the presidency, Flowers warns:

“Bill, what I’m afraid of is that if somebody in the press finds out that I’m working for the state, they’re gonna make a big deal of it.”

A few moments later Clinton acknowledges: “Yeah, I never thought about that, but as long as you say you’ve just been looking for one . . . If they ever asked if you’d talked to me about it, you can say no.”

In another exchange a month earlier, Clinton appears to be enlisting Flowers to help trap Republicans who he suspects are offering money for her story.

“I tell you what--it’d be extremely valuable . . . to have an on-file affidavit explaining that, you know, you were approached by a Republican and asked to do that.” Flowers said that she wasn’t sure she could do “cloak-and-dagger” work.

Periodically, throughout the tapes, Clinton advises Flowers to “hang tough” and deny any involvement with him. What is not explicitly clear in the context of the tapes, however, is whether he is advising her to deny an actual relationship or a rumored affair.