Bangla2000 | International News - Hillary didn’t utter the words,” Jew bastards”

Senate candidate first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton addresses the media at a news conference Sunday, July 16, 2000, outside of her home in Chappaqua, N.Y. Clinton firmly denied allegations from a forthcoming book that she once used an anti-Semitic slur 26 years ago. The new book contends that Clinton used the slur against Paul Frey, who had worked on Bill Clinton's unsuccessful Congressional campaign in Arkansas in 1974. (AP Photo/Suzanne Plunkett)

CHAPPAQUA, New York (AP) - A tense moment the night Bill Clinton lost a Congressional bid in Arkansas 26 years ago has returned to embroil Hillary Rodham Clinton in controversy.

A book due out this week accuses the first lady and Senate candidate of using an anti-Semitic slur that night - an allegation Mrs. Clinton firmly denied.

"I wanted to unequivocally state it never happened," she said during a news conference outside her home Sunday.

The accusation is in the forthcoming book, "State of a Union: Inside the Complex Marriage of Bill and Hillary Clinton," by former National Enquirer reporter Jerry Oppenheimer. The National Enquirer is a weekly mass-circulation tabloid newspaper that often focuses on scandals and celebrities.

Oppenheimer quotes Paul Fray, who worked for Bill Clinton's unsuccessful Congressional campaign in Arkansas in 1974, as claiming that Mrs. Clinton called him a "Jew b------" after Clinton lost the election.

Fray's wife said she witnessed the incident, and a third person, Neil McDonald, claimed to have heard the slur as he stood outside the room. Previous biographies have mentioned the argument but none mentioned any slur.

A visibly angry and emotional Mrs. Clinton questioned the credibility of Fray and the others cited in the book. Heò¿iampaign released copies of a handwritten letter, dated July 1, 1997, that Fray allegedly wrote Mrs. Clinton.

In the letter, Fray states: "I have wronged you. I ask for your forgiveness because I did say things against you, and called you names, not only to your face - but behind your bqC... names that are unmentionable."

Fray adds: "At one time in my life, I would say things without thinking, without factual foundation ... I beg your forgiveness."

Mrs. Clinton said she was releasing the letter to show that "there's a history of these kinds of charges coming from the people in question. They've been false in the past. They're false now."

She wouldn't comment on what sort of statements Fray was apologizing for in the letter.

In Monday's New York Times, Fray acknowledged writing a l%ÍÍCr of forgiveness to Mrs. Clinton but said he would have to see it first to determine if what she released was what he wrote.

The Clinton campaign also released a statement from the president in which he said, in part: "I was there on election night in 1974 and this charge is simply not true. It did not happen."

"She might have called him a b------," Clinton told the newspaper. "I wouldn't rule that out. She's never claimed that she was pure on profanity. But I've never heard her tell a joke with an ethnic connotation."

Oppenheimer on Sunday defended his claim. He told CNN that his research found that "Mrs. Clinton, who says she's never used such language, heard that kind of language while growing up."

Mrs. Clinton indicated that her advisers had debated the best way to respond to the allegations. Before her news conference, the allegation had not been widely reported outside of local newspapers.

"We had a lot of difficult conversations about it, because my policy for the last eight years has largely been just to absorb whatever insult, whatever charge, whatever accusation anybody says, and not respond because they are so outrageous and so unfair," she said.

She said she decided to issue a full-force denial to ensure that "anyone who tries to get someone else to believe this will at least have to say, 'Well, she says it's not true."'

Rep. Nita Lowey, who is Jewish, stood next to Clinton during the press conference and told reporters she came to offer support because "there's no way Hillary could make a statement like that."

Mrs. Clinton's Republican opponent in the New York Senate race, Rep. Rick Lazio, declined to comment on the issue.