
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, December 15, 1993                   TAG: 9312150233
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-8   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: NEW YORK                                LENGTH: Short

REPORT: CLINTONS GOT HELP WITH DEBT

The operator of a failed Arkansas savings and loan helped relieve his friends Bill and Hillary Clinton of a $50,000 personal debt that was entwined with Clinton's 1984 campaign for governor, a published report said.

The Clintons borrowed the $50,000 from a small Arkansas bank in the closing week of the 1984 campaign, and the money became part of the campaign debt that Clinton later asked James McDougal to take care of, The New York Times said in today's editions.

The newspaper quoted McDougal as saying that Clinton, who left the governorship after winning the presidency last year, "asked me to knock out the deficit" from 1984 as Clinton prepared to seek re-election in 1986.

In the spring of 1985, McDougal held an early evening fund-raising event at the Little Rock office of his S&L, Madison Guaranty.

There, McDougal told the Times, he delivered about $35,000 in checks to Betsey Wright, who had managed the 1984 campaign.

McDougal's fund-raising efforts were known previously. What hadn't been known is that part of that debt entailed a $50,000 personal debt owed by the Clintons to the Bank of Cherry Valley, which was owned and run by a senior aide to the governor.

Bruce Lindsey, a senior presidential adviser, told the Times the relationship between the Clintons and McDougal had been entirely proper. But he said he was unable to answer specific questions about the $50,000 loan or its repayment.

by CNB