Net revives Hillary's `affair'

RUMOURS RESURFACED over the weekend that Bill Clinton was not alone in breaking his marriage vows, but that his wife, Hillary, was also involved in at least one extra-marital affair.

Reports that Mrs Clinton had a liaison with Vincent Foster, a colleague when she worked at the Rose law firm in Little Rock, Arkansas, have circulated since the Clintons arrived at the White House in 1992. They escalated almost to fever pitch in July 1993, after Mr Foster, then a senior White House legal aide, committed suicide in Arlington cemetery. But there has never been any independent confirmation of a relationship; his suicide was attributed to depression.

The latest purveyor of the report is a former Little Rock state-trooper, LD Brown, a member of the then Governor Clinton's security detail for seven years. He appeared at an anti-Clinton rally in Washington at the weekend and then on a Fox television programme, Drudge, presented by the Internet gossip-monger, Matt Drudge. While Drudge is shunned in conventional Washington journalist circles, he often published reports on the Lewinsky scandal ahead of the mainstream media - and was rarely wrong.

Mr Brown claimed Hillary Clinton "confided to him that she felt the need to get certain things outside of her marriage", and said her relationship with Mr Foster was "of a sexual nature". Mr Brown said he went public because he felt Mr Foster's relationship with Mrs Clinton should have been investigated. He also alleged Mr Clinton's private lawyer, David Kendall had intervened with another US television network to prevent an earlier interview being aired.

Mr Brown's veracity is not unquestioned. He is aligned with the anti- Clinton camp and may have scores to settle.

The revival of allegations about the Hillary-Foster connection occurs on the weekend before the US mid-term congressional elections, at a time when Mrs Clinton's approval ratings are higher than they have ever been.