The Clinton Tapes: Wrestling History with the President. Taylor Branch. Simon & Schuster. 663 pages. $35.

If President Bill Clinton hadn't challenged House Speaker Newt Gingrich's penny-pinching, tax-relieving budget proposals in 1995, allowing the federal government to shut down several times, there might have been no Monica Lewinsky scandal.

That's how historian Taylor Branch sees the story in his weighty distillation of eight years of taping Clinton in the White House. After winning the election in 1992, Clinton sought out Branch, whom he knew from when he and Hillary did Democratic campaign work in Texas. Branch, best known for his stellar biographies of Martin Luther King Jr., would be a sort of historian/sounding board for the president in after-hours taping sessions on whatever was on the president's mind.

Clinton wanted a living record of his presidency, a clever decision that was far more edifying than other secret taping activities at the White House.

The Clinton Tapes is Bill Clinton writ large. It's not quite Clinton in the raw -- he knew the tape recorder was on, after all. It's Bill Clinton medium-rare, say. He seldom held back with the self-effacing historian, who has done a masterful job of sorting through eight years of tumult, bare-knuckle politics, scandals -- manufactured and real -- and tense international machinations (Mideast peace talks, the Bosnian wars, Northern Irish peace, Aristide's return to Haiti) to bring us a vivid account of a modern American presidency.

But back to Lewinsky. During the government shut downs, White House personnel (and by default Clinton minders) stayed home while volunteer interns worked there instead. Unfettered by his usual attending staff, the president was able to engage with the young, star-struck Lewinsky in at least two encounters, says Branch.

But the Lewinsky scandal didn't erupt until Clinton's second term. His willingness to play ``chicken,'' as Clinton described it, with Gingrich and Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole over the federal budget in 1995 was one of the highlights of the Arkansan's first term. As government offices opened, then closed, then opened again, Clinton's poll numbers soared while Gingrich and his ``Contract with America'' cohorts lost popularity.

Yet, Clinton negotiated with Gingrich and Dole to get Congress to give the president line-item veto power in the midst of their '95 budget showdown. In a ploy that aptly demonstrates his political skills, Clinton tells Branch that he simply did some horse trading. In exchange for the line-item veto, Clinton agreed not to use it in 1996, allowing Republicans, who then held the House, to slip in their pork items for one year to gain political points back home.

The Clinton Tapes will appeal to two types of readers: Those interested in all things Clinton and students of the U.S. presidency. Fascinating details emerge. If Clinton's tenure is typical, there is more communication with so-called ``enemies of the state'' than could be imagined. One example: Clinton has practically a running dialogue with Syrian President Asad via phone calls to promote Mideast peace talks. Even at the height of his wars with Republican lawmakers, he talks to them.

Off the record, Clinton says the Cuban embargo was ``a foolish, pandering failure'' and that ``anybody with half a brain'' could see that it was counterproductive. Still, like presidents before and since, he felt his ``dead-end policy'' was hostage to Cuban exile voters in two states -- Florida and New Jersey.

Being a garrulous soul, Clinton would stray from the mighty to the mundane. From the U.S. peacekeeping role in Bosnia he would launch into an enthusiastic description of his latest golf game or his feelings about Chelsea.

He doesn't shy from the Lewinsky scandal, though it's clear from the tapes that Clinton hedges with Branch for as long as he does with Hillary and the U.S. public about ``having sex with that woman.''

The president never doubted that his impeachment trial would fizzle. He told Branch that the case hadn't been ``real'' from the start. In one of many surprise revelations, Republican senator Richard Shelby from Alabama told him that, as a former prosecutor, he thought the Senate's case didn't stand a chance.

Such glimpses behind the D.C. political curtain as well as the overarching historical perspective make Branch's Tapes a worthwhile, if long, read.

Kathleen Krog is a member of The Miami Herald's Editorial Board.

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