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By Mark Hosenball
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The day before she giggled and teared up for Barbara Walters, Monica Lewinsky met for a final strategy session with her handlers in the dining room of her mother and stepfather's Manhattan penthouse. Team Monica included her mother, Marcia Lewis; her aunt, Debra Finerman; New York public-relations expert John Scanlon; Lynn Goldberg, another PR specialist, working for the publishers of Lewinsky's book, "Monica's Story," and Richard Carlson, who ran the Voice of America under Reagan and has been the family's chief media adviser since October.
The formidable crew were prepared to grill Lewinsky for as long as it took, running through questions they thought Walters might ask. Are you glad you saved the dress? Do you still love him? Why did you wear the thong? But she impressed everyone so quickly with her poise and fluency that they quit after barely two hours. Monica Lewinsky was finally ready for her close-up.
Last week, in front of 70 million people, Lewinsky described her near-suicidal depression, her lifelong struggle with her weight, an abortion and her obsessive sexual attraction to the president. Despite the meticulous preparations, however, the "20/20" interview was not an unqualified success; Lewinsky frequently veered off message, coming across sometimes as a lovestruck adolescent and other times as the wounded victim of a cruel prosecutor. At least one member of the inner circle told NEWSWEEK the family was surprised by her giggly demeanor--a sharp contrast to her composure during her Senate deposition. In the NEWSWEEK Poll, only 8 percent of those surveyed said they had a better opinion of Lewinsky after the program; 21 percent thought worse of her. Many viewers pronounced her narcissistic and vapid (while carefully dissecting the impact of her stiff hair and slick makeup).
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As overnight ratings demolished the conventional wisdom that the world was sick of Lewinsky, customers were also lining up to buy "Monica's Story." The account is readable, like a Harlequin romance without the happy ending, but booksellers expect sales to taper after the initial rush. In one tender moment, Lewinsky recounts how Clinton tried to soothe her anxiety about her weight by telling her that as a small boy he was so fat and ran so slowly that he always wound up empty-handed in the annual hunt for chocolate Easter eggs.
Still, Lewinsky's coming out will undoubtedly prove profitable. The book brought her a $1.5 million advance. An exclusive overseas deal with Britain's Channel 4 News delivered $660,000 (half of which was an advance on Lewinsky's 75 percent share of any money Channel 4 gets from peddling the footage elsewhere). As of last week, Channel 4 had taken in more than $1.6 million from sales of the interview to 38 other countries. Much of the nearly $4 million Lewinsky gets up front from these deals will go to pay off her lawyers and advisers, but she'll probably negotiate an agreement with them that will leave her a nest egg.
One retainer who won't be getting any more of Lewinsky's money is her former principal spokesman and media adviser, William Ginsburg. The bow-tied, gravelly-voiced medical-malpractice lawyer was a friend of Lewinsky's father's, but his propensity for schmoozing with media grandees still rankles. A source close to the family calls his remark about kissing her inner thighs when she was a baby a fabrication; Ginsburg first met her years later. The family are still upset because they believe he regularly denounced her behind her back. According to one source, curiosity seekers approached him at an event in Philadelphia. When they asked where his famous client was, he replied: "She's upstairs in the room, adjusting her tits." Reached by NEWSWEEK, Ginsburg declined to comment.
Ginsburg's public statements about Lewinsky became so confusing that, at one secret hearing, the judge overseeing the grand jury allowed prosecutors to put him on the witness stand and grill him. Soon afterward, the family dumped him and hired the two savvy Washington defense lawyers who would eventually broker Monica's immunity deal, Plato Cacheris and Jacob Stein. They also hooked up with Judy Smith, a former White House official, to help get Lewinsky's story out to the media and lay the groundwork for book and interview deals.
Though the new lawyers were publicly mum, considerable explicit--and accurate--details of her testimony leaked rapidly, suggesting a new sophistication in dealing with the media on Lewinsky's behalf. The Starr Report intensified interest in Monica. But initial efforts to cut deals failed. Negotiations with Oprah Winfrey fell apart after a squabble over foreign rights. A potentially lucrative book deal evaporated. Finally, in October, the family hired Carlson, a Republican media consultant and an old friend of Lewinsky's stepfather, Peter Straus. Carlson signed up New York lawyer Richard Hofstetter, an expert in media and entertainment deals.
Hofstetter and Carlson began talking with ABC News president David Westin and foreign broadcasters. The biggest obstacle to closing those deals was the agreement with Kenneth Starr, which prohibited Lewinsky from giving interviews without the prosecutors' approval. Carlson cornered Starr at a party over Christmas and chatted with him privately in a bedroom of their host's home. Starr expressed sympathy for Monica's situation but wouldn't make any commitments. Later, he passed a couple of friendly messages through Carlson to Lewinsky.
As the Senate trial ground to a conclusion, Lewinsky's team grew concerned about getting the independent counsel's approval for the media appearances. Carlson hired Washington lawyer Ted Olson, a former Justice Department official who is one of Starr's closest friends, to make a pitch to Jackie Bennett, Starr's principal deputy. Starr's office eventually gave in, with the understanding that Lewinsky would not question the good faith of Starr's investigation. Prosecutors never approved the book deal.
As of now, Lewinsky's future prospects are murky. In the NEWSWEEK Poll, 37 percent thought she might make a good actress, while only 12 percent thought she could succeed as a lawyer--a career she has said she's considering. Luckily, she'll be busy for a few months. This week she begins a whirlwind book tour of Britain. She'll jet back to L.A. for an Oscar party (her publisher won't say whose; rumor has it that it's Vanity Fair's). At the end of the month, she'll start her European tour in Germany. "She's a great enthusiast," says her publisher, Michael O'Mara. "Often someone with that big a name won't bother with Norway. But if I say she should go to Oslo, she goes to Oslo." Last week the French paper Le Figaro announced the next chapter in the Lewinsky saga: APRES LE SEXE, LE BUSINESS. A buck is a buck, even when it's a euro.
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