Interview: 'So people might understand why'

0 Comments | USA TODAY, June, 2004 | by Bill Nichols and Bob Minzesheimer

CHICAGO -- Bill Clinton isn't sure he would have ever told his wife and daughter about his affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky if Whitewater independent counsel Ken Starr hadn't uncovered it.

"I think that whether I would have ever said anything to my family or not, I don't know," Clinton said Monday in his first newspaper interview about his memoir, My Life, which is out today. "I know that I would have done my best to make it up to my family because I stopped having any kind of contact with her months and months before it ever came out. . . . (Infidelity) happens to a lot of people every day, and it shouldn't have come out."

The interview, after a taped session with Oprah Winfrey that will air today, came as the 42nd president is re-emerging on the...