She Said, He Said

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Once she got to the EEOC, Hill said, the overtures from Thomas resumed. If that was true, Senators wondered, then why in the years since she turned to teaching had she remained in touch with Thomas? Hill said she saw little harm in maintaining cordial relations with Thomas now that she no longer worked with him and no longer felt threatened by him. "I did not feel that it was necessary to cut off all ties or to burn all bridges or to treat him in a hostile manner," she said. "If I had done that, I would have had to explain this whole situation that I've come forward with today."

Specter made much of the fact that while at Oral Roberts University, Hill remained friendly enough with Thomas to volunteer to drive him to the airport on one occasion. She suggested that the university's founding dean, Charles Kothe, had asked her to do so. (Kothe was not only her boss at that time but a good friend of Thomas' as well.) She visited Thomas another time after she left the EEOC, she explained, to get a recommendation from him. And what of the 11 phone calls she made to Thomas over a six-year period, publicized earlier in the week by Thomas' Senate champion, Republican John Danforth of Missouri? Those, she explained, were work-related calls, and each "was made in a professional context."

Specter questioned the validity of her memory eight to 10 years after the events, given that her recollections had changed in recent weeks. As an example, he cited the fact that when she spoke to the FBI agents in late September, she recalled telling only one friend about the alleged sexual harassment. Now, he said, she had two witnesses lined up to testify that she had complained at the time. "If you start to look at each individual problem, then you won't be satisfied that it's true," she said. "But the statement has to be taken as a whole." Then she added forcefully, "There is no motivation to show I'd make up something like this."

On that point, Hill seemed particularly persuasive. Each time committee . members tried to probe her possible motivations for denouncing Thomas publicly, they came up dry. It became clear that it was members of various Senate staffs who had approached Hill, not the other way around. She maintained her silence publicly until her FBI statement fell into reporters' hands on Oct. 5. At that point, she said, "I felt I had to tell the truth. I could not keep silent."

Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy confronted the issue of motive and asked if she stood to gain in any way from coming forward. "I have nothing to gain here," she said soberly. "This has been disruptive of my life, and I've taken a number of personal risks." She said she had been threatened, though she did not elaborate on the nature or source of the threat. "I have not gained anything except knowing that I came forward and did what I felt that I had an obligation to do," she said. "That was to tell the truth."