Clinton to Chart Options Before Map Room Face-Off

While the White House announced Friday the logistics of President Clinton’s long-awaited testimony about his relationship with Monica S. Lewinsky, speculation continued to rage over just what he would say about the alleged dalliance with the former intern.

At 1 p.m. EDT on Monday in the White House Map Room, Clinton will become the first president targeted by a criminal investigation to testify before a grand jury.

The Map Room, no stranger to history, is where President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill planned Allied victory in World War II.

On Monday, however, the room will be the staging area for a different kind of conflict. The president, accompanied by private attorneys David E. Kendall and Nicole Seligman and White House Counsel Charles F.C. Ruff, will face representatives of his longtime nemesis, independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr--and perhaps Starr himself.

Charles G. Bakaly III, Starr’s spokesman, declined to say who would question the president and would not specify whether Starr would be at the White House.

“I’m not going to do ‘Clash of the Titans,’ ” he said.

Members of the federal grand jury that has been hearing evidence in Starr’s seven-month investigation will hear the president’s testimony via a live, closed-circuit television feed at the federal courthouse several blocks away. The military personnel who comprise the regular White House television crew, the White House Communications Agency, will film the testimony.

In the meantime, the president is expected to spend the weekend holed up with his attorneys in intense preparation. The crush of international crises over the last couple of weeks has kept the president busier than his lawyers would have liked, said White House spokesman Mike McCurry.

First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton and Mickey Kantor, the former Commerce secretary whom the president has retained as a personal attorney, also are expected to be sources of last-minute advice, White House officials said.

But logistical details and hints of a heavy cramming schedule were all McCurry and other senior White House officials would offer reporters Friday.

McCurry said that the country would have to remain in suspense until after the testimony over whether the president would make a public statement about it.

Clinton’s advisors have floated several possible strategies for how he might answer the prosecutor’s questions.

While some have insisted that he will stick to his previous denials of a sexual relationship with Lewinsky, others said that he might revise his story. One strategy calls for him to admit that he had inappropriate encounters with her, while refusing to discuss graphic details.

But even if Clinton were to admit an intimate relationship with Lewinsky, he still would have to explain his earlier denial under oath in the Paula Corbin Jones sexual harassment lawsuit of having had “sexual relations” with the former intern. Some advisors said the president could assert that he believed the term “sexual relations” did not cover oral sex.

That tactic was derided as “lawyerly dissembling” by Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

“If he tries to dissemble and rely on lawyering semantic games, that won’t go over. He will make himself the laughingstock of the country,” Hatch said in a telephone interview. “If her story is true, he needs to face up to it and acknowledge it and level with the American people.

“The common feeling is he is a lovable rogue. The American people don’t want an impeachment,” said Hatch, who would lead the Senate effort if the House votes to try the president. “If he threw himself on the mercy of the American people, they would forgive him. But in my opinion, playing word games won’t work.”

White House advisors refused to confirm a New York Times report that the president was engaged in extensive discussions about whether he would acknowledge sexual encounters with Lewinsky but little more.

“We don’t know what the outcome is going to be on Monday,” McCurry said. “You should take it all with a grain of salt.”

But if Lewinsky’s alleged account of a dozen or so sexual encounters with the president is true, the “limited admission” approach might allow the president to steer clear of lying before the grand jury.

Some knowledgeable attorneys in Washington interpreted the New York newspaper’s account as a trial ballon by the Clinton team to see how the public would react.

“It’s better than going in there lying,” a lawyer involved in the case said. He contended that the White House now is trying to gauge public reaction to such possible testimony by conducting opinion polls. But, he said, he had no details of who was doing the polling or what questions were being asked. Senior White House officials said that they had no knowledge of polling.

In a new Gallup poll, more than two-thirds of the respondents, 71%, said that they “would not lose confidence in Clinton if he says he did have sex with Lewinsky.” But 60% said that they would “consider removing Clinton from office if he lies to a grand jury.” The poll was sponsored by Cable News Network and USA Today.

As for media speculation about the president’s testimony, McCurry said that he had been told by the president’s lawyers that they had not revealed their strategies to the media.

White House officials similarly expressed skepticism about reports that the White House had asked television networks for air time Monday evening.

“If the president chose to do something like this, we wouldn’t have to ask for time from the networks,” senior advisor Rahm Emanuel said. “My guess is they’ll be there.”

Times staff writers Ronald J. Ostrow and Ronald Brownstein contributed to this report.

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