Lewinsky’s Pentagon Lover Paid for Her Abortion, Columnist Reveals
Monica Lewinsky revealed a new personal tidbit in her television interview — that she two-timed Bill Clinton, got pregnant and had an abortion. This columnist has learned that her lover, Thomas Longstreth, paid for the abortion — despite Monica’s insistence that her aunt Debra Finerman (her mother Marcia Lewis’ sister) had helped her out with the payment. Mr. Longstreth, a very private man, has a senior Pentagon job (deputy under secretary) advising Secretary of Defense William Cohen on American military readiness. Before that, Mr. Longstreth was the point man for U.S. operations in Iraq, Somalia, and Bosnia. Monica and her beau spent private time together in Bosnia while both were on Pentagon assignments. Mr. Longstreth, 40-something, is apparently over his love affair with Monica; he recently married and lives in a townhome in Arlington, Va. Of course, Mr. Longstreth is pleasant looking, in a kind of Dan Quayle way, but looks like any other Washington bureaucrat who blends in with background. Before getting his current appointment last November, he was deputy assistant secretary of Europe and NATO. He’s Ivy league educated and cultured, travels internationally quite a bit as well as to New York. He knows Bill Clinton and even worked for Senator Ted Kennedy as a military legislative assistant in the mid-1980s.
Packed bars throughout the Nation’s Capital tuned televisions to the long-awaited interview Wednesday night. But most of official Washington wouldn’t admit to rushing home early from the obligatory formal events to watch Barbara Walters interview Monica. Some reluctantly admitted setting their VCRs to capture the drama. Even members of Congress and cabinet secretaries, dishing up their favourite recipes at the annual March of Dimes Gala at the National Building Museum, found excuses for a pre-dinner exit strategy. “I have to rush home to walk my new Portuguese water dog, oh, and I’m having a few friends over,” said Donna Shalala, the health and human services secretary, who was serving tabbouleh. Rodney Slater, the transportation secretary, showing off his favourite recipe for fried oysters, said “the babysitter needs to go home.” He rushed home to the TV as well. Monica watched her Barbara Walters interview with her dad and friends in Los Angeles.