Blake Hall
It may not be the Zapruder film, but it is a priceless visual account of American history. Monica Lewinsky meets Hillary…
The following photograph was taken by staff photographer Ralph Alswang on December 17, 1996. At the time the negative was snapped (at a Christmas reception held in the Diplomatic Reception Room of the White House), Bill and his famous mistress/intern Monica Lewinsky were in the throws of their affair — a juicy morsel of celebrity gossip the likes of which hasn’t been topped since.
In the foreground? An innocent exchange. Just then-Federal Reserve chair Alan Greenspan clasping sweaty mitts with Bill.
In the background though? That’s where you put fannies in the seats. In the red dress — that’s Monica Lewinsky. She’s shaking hands with none other than former Madame Secretary herself: Hillary Clinton. Unfortunately Bill is blocking most of Hillary, but you can see her hair to the left of his back (the blonde mane) as well as an unidentified military man making a curious grimace in between the two nemeses, further into the background.
More from Gawker:
The images you’re looking at turned up thanks to a Freedom of Information Act request submitted by a recent Columbia graduate (and current Politico reporter) named Conor Skelding to the William J. Clinton Presidential Library in May 2014, “for photographs related to Monica Lewinsky from November 1995 through March 1997.” A year later, the library quietly uploaded grainy, low-resolution contact sheets of the responsive photos. Gawker later acquired the high-resolution versions that appear in this post. A brief survey of reporters intimately familiar with the Lewinsky episode, including Carney, turned up no recollections of the photo of Hillary and Monica together having been published.