Hillary Clinton says anti-Semitic slur 'did not happen'

July 17, 2000
Web posted at: 6:48 p.m. EDT (2248 GMT)

NEW YORK (CNN) -- U.S. Senate candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton on Monday flatly rejected claims she made an anti-Semitic slur 26 years ago and told New York voters of the election-year invective: "There's going to be a lot more of this. Just get ready."

"I have a lot of confidence in the fundamental good judgment of New Yorkers to see through these kinds of charges," Mrs. Clinton added. "Look, it's only July. There's going to be a lot more of this. Just get ready."

Hillary Rodham Clinton spoke Monday at an event on Ellis Island.

"This is a very important election to a lot of people who know that there is a lot at stake as to the future of the Senate," she said.

But her Republican opponent in the Senate race, Rep. Rick Lazio, wouldn't let her off the hook.

"I don't know who to believe, quite frankly," he said.

The first lady, who was campaigning on Ellis Island in her bid for the Senate seat being vacated by Democrat Daniel Patrick Moynihan, reiterated the denial she issued when the allegation first arose Sunday.

"It did not happen," she said. "I think it is regrettable that there is an accusation of that venality that is made, and I can only state, unequivocally, it did not happen."

The charge is described in "State of a Union: Inside the Complex Marriage of Bill and Hillary Clinton," a book by former National Enquirer staffer Jerry Oppenheimer. The book, which goes on sale Tuesday, quotes Clinton's 1974 campaign manager and two witnesses as saying Hillary Rodham -- then Clinton's girlfriend -- called him a "Jew bastard" following Clinton's defeat in a race for Congress.

"It's going to be obvious that the statement was made," the former campaign manager, Paul Fray, said Sunday night. "Because it was made to me, my wife heard it. The point is that if she refutes it, that's fine. She can't refute it, because in fact it was made."

President Clinton, who also was there, backed up his wife's denials, and others involved in that campaign expressed skepticism she would have made such a remark.

"This is sort of a 'he said, they said' situation," Lazio said during a campaign stop in Harlem. "Three people say Mrs. Clinton said one thing; Mrs. Clinton is saying she did not say it."

"I don't know who to believe, quite frankly. I think one of the things that is disappointing about this is that New Yorkers don't know who to believe."

The split extended to Jewish leaders.

"We, the Jewish people, always remember -- for thousands of years, mind you -- what people have said about us, and we will not forget what Hillary said," Joseph Frager of the Jerusalem Reclamation Project told a news conference outside Mrs. Clinton's campaign headquarters. State Assemblyman Dov Hikind, an anti-Clinton Democrat, also attended the event.

But David Harris, executive director of the 100,000-member American Jewish Committee, was skeptical.

"There have been no similar allegations that have surfaced in the last 26 years and this story itself suddenly surfaces in the middle of a very heated Senate campaign in which the Jewish vote becomes a very important factor," he said.

At a "Save America's Treasures" campaign event, the first lady said Monday: "I'm committed to running a campaign on issues, not insults. I can only say that any reasonable person looking at the evidence in this case would conclude that there's no credibility on the other side."

Accuser once apologized for statements

Oppenheimer's book reports the insult was hurled during a heated conversation that took place shortly after Clinton lost his first bid for public office, a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, in November 1974. According to Oppenheimer's account, it happened during a post-mortem attended by Clinton, Fray and Fray's wife Mary Ann.

Mrs. Clinton released a letter dated July 1, 1997 addressed to her and signed by Fray in which the writer apologized for statements he had made to her and about her over the years.

"At one time in my life, I would say things without thinking, without factual foundation and without rhyme or remedy unless it furthered my own agenda," Fray wrote.

Referring to the 1974 campaign, Fray wrote that he had "conducted myself as a fool." He added, "I beg your forgiveness."