President Clinton and his wife, Hillary, both tried yesterday to quell the furore raised by her interview in which she appeared to say that his marital infidelities were a result of emotional abuse he suffered as a child.
In his first public comment on the controversy, the President told reporters in the Rose Garden of the White House that "I didn't have a bed of roses as a kid".
"The most important thing is that every child needs to know growing up that he or she is the most important person in the world to somebody and I knew that . . . and I have no complaints," Mr Clinton said.
The President said that like everyone else he did ponder his upbringing.
"It had its really tough moments, but I always knew I was well-loved," he said.
In the interview published in the new Talk magazine, Mrs Clinton when asked about her husband's philandering said that "he was so young, barely four, when he was scarred by abuse that he can't even take it out and look at it". She was referring to a "terrible conflict" between his mother and grand mother.
President Clinton yesterday said "I don't believe that anybody could fairly read the article and think that she was making any excuses for me. I haven't made any excuses for what was inexcusable and neither has she, believe me."
Mrs Clinton who was campaigning yesterday for a Senate seat in upstate New York refused to comment any further on her interview. "This is an issue that the country has put behind us and I have as well. I've said all I'm going to say," she told reporters in Jamestown.
The author of a new book on the Clintons, Chris Anderson, has claimed that Mrs Clinton hired a former FBI agent in 1982 to investigate her husband's extramarital activities, only to discover that he was seeing eight women, according to the New York Post, citing the book.
She insisted that he be tested for AIDS in 1988. The tests were negative.
The book was published on the same day that Mrs Clinton revealed in Talk magazine how she feels about her husband's infidelities.