President Bush heatedly denounced as "a lie" a published report that he and a female aide spent a night together in a Swiss cottage in 1984 while he was vice president.
Asked about the account in the book "The Power House" by Susan Trento and prominently featured in Tuesday's New York Post, Bush replied: "I'm not going to take any sleazy questions like that from CNN."Bush and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin were holding a news conference at the president's summer home when CNN reporter Mary Tillotson asked about the Post report.
"You've said that family values, character are likely to be important in the presidential campaign," she said. "There is an extensive series of reports in today's New York Post alleging that a former U.S. ambassador, now deceased, had told several persons that he arranged for a sexual tryst involving you and one of your female staffers in Geneva in 1984."
"I'm outraged," Bush responded. "I don't like it and I'm not going to respond other than to say it's a lie."
The book identified the aide as Jennifer Fitzgerald, now State Department deputy chief of protocol. An aide in the Office of Protocol, said Fitzgerald was out of the country on official business.
The tabloid featured a front-page headline: THE BUSH AFFAIR bracketed by pictures of the president and Fitzgerald.
Trento's book is an account of lobbying and public relations in Washington and focuses on Robert Keith Gray, one of the city's most prominent lobbyists.
The allegation about Bush is contained in a footnote to Chapter 14. It originated in an interview Trento's husband, Joseph, a former investigative reporter for CNN, did with Louis Fields in 1986.
Fields, who died of cancer in 1988, was quoted in the footnote as saying that while he was ambassador to disarmament talks in Geneva, he arranged for Bush and Fitzgerald to use a guest house.
"It became clear to me that the vice president and Ms. Fitzgerald were romantically involved and this was not a business visit," Fields was quoted as saying.
"I am not a prude," the account quoted Fields as saying. "But I know Barbara (Bush) and I like her."
According to the book, Mrs. Bush was on a book promotion tour at the time.
"Fortunately, I did not see the New York Post," Barbara Bush said after Tuesday's news conference.
Mary Matalin, deputy Bush-Quayle campaign manager, was asked about the allegation on CBS's "This Morning" and replied, "It is beyond a flatout lie. It is total trash."