White House provides no crumbs for hungry and waiting press corps

President Clinton has returned to Washington from a fund-raising trip to intensify preparation for his testimony to the grand…

President Clinton has returned to Washington from a fund-raising trip to intensify preparation for his testimony to the grand jury next Monday.

Media reports that he would refuse to answer questions about his private sex life but would answer all other questions were put to a White House spokesman who repeated the President's statement of two weeks ago that he would testify "truthfully and completely".

As the time for Mr Clinton's testimony approaches, there is a huge appetite among the White House press corps for any crumb of information but Presidential aides can offer no help.

Even details about the logistics of the President's testimony on closed circuit TV from the White House have not yet been released. It is expected that the testimony will be spread over six to eight hours.

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Tomorrow, Mr Clinton will take time to attend a ceremony marking the return of the bodies of 10 Americans who were killed in bomb blasts last week at the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Yesterday he was given a full briefing by his national security staff on the investigations into who was responsible for the bombings.

The Independent Counsel, Mr Kenneth Starr, has been continuing to take testimony from Secret Service officers working in the White House. It is reported in some media that he is trying to clear up a discrepancy in varying accounts given by two uniformed officers about an incident in early 1996 concerning the President and Ms Lewinsky.

According to one version, the Secret Service agent Mr John Muskett found President Clinton and Ms Lewinsky in a small study off the Oval Office after a phone call came for Mr Clinton and he could not be found. She immediately left the office Mr Muskett says, according to the report in the Washington Post.

But another Secret Service officer, Mr Gary Byrne, has allegedly said that he was told by Mr Muskett that he found the President and Ms Lewinsky in an intimate situation. Mr Byrne is said to have soon afterwards complained to a senior aide that Ms Lewinsky was hanging around the West Wing of the White House too much and she was then transferred to the Pentagon.

It is also being reported that Mr Starr's report to Congress will deal only with his investigation into the President's relations with Ms Lewinsky and whether he has committed perjury as part of a cover-up or tried to get others to commit perjury.

The results of Mr Starr's much longer investigation into the failed Whitewater property development in Arkansas and other White House controversies dealing with FBI files and the dismissal of the travel staff may be included in a later report.

If Mr Starr is going to concentrate on the Lewinsky aspect of his investigation, he would be able to submit his report sooner than had been expected and possibly some time next month.

Mr Clinton has been through lonely times before, but these days may be the loneliest for this most gregarious of presidents. A man who likes to pour his heart out to people, Mr Clinton is in many ways an isolated prisoner in what he likes to call "the crown jewel of the American penal system" - the White House.

He is limited in what he can say to others about the Lewinsky investigation. He cannot talk about the investigation to many of his top aides, who could be subpoenaed to give sworn testimony as well. In preparing for his testimony, he is able to talk about it only to his personal three-member team of lawyers, Mr David Kendall, Ms Nicole Seligman and Mr Mickey Kantor, because those conversations are protected by attorney-client privilege.