Sen. John Danforth said he's not trying to prove in a new book whether Anita Hill told the truth when she accused Clarence Thomas of sexual harassment.
"What it will show is that when a person is destroyed it's not a good thing," the Missouri Republican said. "It's a very, very awful thing to see."Danforth, who as Missouri attorney general in 1974 hired Thomas out of Yale Law School and later made him a top Senate assistant, said the book will be a minute-by-minute, highly personal account of Thomas' 1991 Supreme Court confirmation hearings.
"It's a recounting of the experience of the last three weeks before the vote as we lived it - meaning, Clarence and his friends," Danforth said in a interview. "It just is what we did, and thought, and lived through."
Thomas narrowly won Senate confirmation despite allegations by Hill, a University of Oklahoma law professor, that he had sexually harassed her when they worked together at the Education Department and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The bitter hearings touched off national debate about sexual harassment.
The book will show how Thomas personally "returns to life" after winning confirmation and being sworn in as a Supreme Court justice, Danforth said.
Danforth, who is retiring this year after three Senate terms, said he got no advance for the book and hopes to have a draft ready for his editors by the end of the winter congressional recess.
Congress will reconvene on Jan. 25.