"I wouldn't dream of asking Chelsea and Mrs. Clinton to forgive me, but I would ask them to know that I am very sorry for what happened and for what they've been through," Lewinsky tells Walters in her long-awaited sitdown with the ex-White House intern whose affair with the President led to his impeachment.

The Daily News yesterday obtained an unedited audio tape of the first 60 minutes of the three-hour conversation. Excerpts of the talk will air tomorrow from 9 p.m. to 11 p.m. on ABC, offering viewers the opportunity to watch Lewinsky unspool the story of her secret life with the President.

Speaking for the first time publicly about the First Family, Lewinsky said she had warm feelings for Chelsea and "wanted good things for her" — mostly because President Clinton loves her so much.

"This is sort of a hard thing to explain, but because I cared so much about the President, and [Chelsea] means the world to him — I mean, she is the most precious thing to him — I had a very strong affinity for her," Lewinsky said.

When Walters asked if Lewinsky ever thought about the First Lady while carrying on an affair with her husband, the 25-year-old said she did "a lot," but assumed Clinton's infidelity never would be exposed.

"I never thought she would find out," Lewinsky said.

"I knew that I was never going to talk about this publicly," she said.

Walters asked Lewinsky about her parents' divorce, her high school affair with a married teacher, her weight problems, her low self-esteem and how a flash of thong triggered an affair that almost toppled a President.

When Walters asked Lewinsky where she got "the nerve" to perform the now-infamous presidential thong flash, the ex-intern dismissed it as "a small, subtle flirtatious gesture."

Walters hinted at a "revelation" in Lewinsky's upcoming book concerning something that happened during her affair with a single man at the Pentagon, but Lewinsky cut her short, saying she had not yet told her father about the "hot-button" issue.

In a whisper, Walters counseled the young woman: "You better do that. This book's gonna come out."

The Daily News' raw tape almost certainly includes material that will not be broadcast.

The unedited nature of the audio tape is unmistakable. For example, at several moments, Lewinsky stumbles over her words and asks Walters, "Can I take that over?"

ABC News was unhappy with the leak but confirmed the tape's authenticity.

During the interview, Lewinsky, who appeared for the taping in a dark suit and slicked-back hair, often sounded girlishly enthusiastic, giggling easily. At other moments, she seemed mature, self-confident, wounded — and frequently embarrassed.

Often, she came across as simply defiant.

Lewinsky still carries a grudge against "the meanies" who banished her to the Pentagon from the White House because she was getting too close to the 52-year-old President.

"I don't think that my relationship hurt the job he was doing. It didn't hurt the work I was doing. It was between us," she said. "I don't think it was their business, actually."

She refused to take "complete responsibility" for the country's year-long ordeal and remained unashamed of the sparks that she said drew her and Clinton together.

"From the beginning there was a very intense sexual attraction, and I don't necessarily think a sexual attraction is a bad thing," she said. "I didn't feel that way — and I still don't."

On the other hand, when Walters asked her if she worried about "doing something wrong" for the President or the country, Lewinsky said she "feels bad" that she had no qualms at the time.

"I was enamored with him. I was excited, and I was enjoying it," she said.

But Lewinsky told Walters she had learned her lesson.

"I hope I never will have — I know — I never will have an affair with a married man again. I have to pray about that," she said.

Lewinsky shot down the notion that she came to Washington with designs on the President.

"I did not come to Washington with an agenda," she told Walters. Her notorious "presidential kneepads" remark actually was a joke she made about someone else at the White House, she said.

Lewinsky said her liaison with Clinton was both "the most amazing experience of my life" and a very painful time.

As she did before the grand jury, Lewinsky described the relationship — which has been a year-long staple of bawdy late-night TV jokes — as more a matter of love than lust.

"This was about a man and a woman, and not a President and an intern," she said.

"We would talk, we would laugh, we would tell jokes. He was very tender with me. He was very affectionate."

She said she told Clinton she was in love with him. "He said, 'That means a lot to me.' "

Lewinsky acknowledged that Clinton never said he loved her, but she added that "there were times" when she believed he felt that way — especially after their 18-month sexual affair had ended.

Walters pressed her for why she thought so. "It was the way he looked at me and the way he held me and the way he touched me," Lewinsky said.

Lewinsky said Clinton's present of Walt Whitman's "Leaves of Grass" is the "sort of gift that you wouldn't give someone that you didn't hold in a certain place in your heart."

She quoted one line that she said sustained her throughout the headlines and hounding of the last year, during which she has been muzzled by her immunity deal with the independent counsel's office: "All the meanness and agony without end/ I sitting here look out upon sea here/ And am silent."

But Lewinsky seemed taken aback when Walters confirmed for her that the book was one of the first gifts Clinton gave his wife.

"I guess it's something he gave to people that meant something to him, but at the same time it takes away the genuineness of the gesture," she said.

Lewinsky portrayed the much-discussed sexual encounter between herself and Clinton while the President spoke about Bosnia on the phone with a congressman as thrilling.

"The truth is that obviously there is an element of excitement and a little bit of danger that was involved," she said.

Asked if she felt cheap, Lewinsky flatly said she did not.

Lewinsky said Clinton tried to reassure her when she complained she was feeling like a sex object.

"You'd probably find it hard to believe, he started to tear up and he told me that he never wanted me to feel bad and that that's not what this relationship was about," she said.

During their late-night chats, when they weren't having phone sex, "we had conversations like normal people. He is a human being. He is a regular person," she said.

Lewinsky said Clinton made every effort to compliment her figure.

"I think because he knew I was so self-conscious about it he would make an effort to say to me, 'Oh, you look like you lost weight' or, 'You look skinny today' or something like that. It was very sweet. It may not have been true, but it was sweet," she said.

Lewinsky called Clinton her "sexual soul mate" and said their chemistry clicked from their first kiss.

"We instantly felt very familiar with each other, and we were very comfortable with each other, and it was amazing," she said. "He's a good kisser."

Walters did not ask graphic sexual questions. The closest she came was asking whether Clinton did things to make Lewinsky "happy and content."

Lewinsky answered yes, and added no more.

She called Clinton "a very sensual man who has a lot of sensual feelings" that conflict with his deep religious beliefs.

"I think he tries to hold himself back and then he can't anymore because it's an energy you cannot, can't ignore."

As to her own hangups, the psychology major said her parents' divorce left her "the type of girl who needed a lot of affection and attention." Her father's "Germanic upbringing," she said, made her seek out "someone who could be very free and giving with their love."

Walters repeatedly brought Lewinsky back to the question of her lover's wife, asking whether she knew that Hillary Clinton was home during some late-night phone calls.

"I think he tended to call more when he was alone," Lewinsky replied.

Walters asked whether Clinton ever discussed his marriage with his young mistress. Lewinsky said he did not.

When Walters asked for Lewinsky's opinion of the Clinton marriage, the ex-intern said: "I don't really think that's appropriate for me to characterize it."

Walters then asked: "Monica, did you feel that you're in competition with Hillary Clinton?"

Lewinsky responded, "Sometimes. Sure.

"She was the wife of this man that I was in love with — certainly not competition with her in terms of her being the First Lady."

Walters asked why Lewinsky didn't just "walk away" after Clinton dumped her, instead of trying to keep the relationship alive.

"There were forces, like people who might have had other reasons for wanting this relationship to continue, who influenced me," she said, referring to the way ex-pal Linda Tripp encouraged her relationship with Clinton — even before she knew about their affair.

"[Tripp] would say things to me like, 'Oh, you're just the type of girl the President would like, and you should think about going back to the White House. I bet you could have an affair with him,' and I thought, 'Oh, this lady's kind of kooky,' " Lewinsky said.

Lewinsky said her ego problems kept her trapped in the dangerous liaison.

"I think I have self-esteem and I'm self-confident in some ways, but I don't have the feelings of self-worth that a woman should have. And that's hard for me, and that's been the center of a lot of my mistakes and a lot of my pain."

Walters asked Lewinsky about her high school relationship with married teacher Andy Bleiler, who has accused Lewinsky of stalking him.

But Lewinsky had only good things to say about the man.

"Andy came into my life during a very difficult period for me. I have always had issues with my weight. . . .

"Andy brought to my life a feeling of beauty and sensuality and being wanted and being comfortable with myself and it was very powerful for me."

Lewinsky also provided new insight into the endlessly replayed snippet of video tape showing her in a black beret hugging the President at an event Nov. 6, 1996.

That day, according to Lewinsky's story, was the real beginning of the end.

It was because Clinton didn't call her as she expected after that meeting, that Lewinsky became upset enough to confide in Tripp. The older woman betrayed and taped her, leading ultimately to Clinton's impeachment and Lewinsky's national humiliation.

Lewinsky said, "That was the starting event . . . that led me to be susceptible to making a bad judgment in confiding in Linda Tripp. That was the start of it. It was devastating, devastating for me . . . that he didn't call. . . .

"This unexplainable behavior in my mind meant: 'It's over. He didn't really care about you.' "

The ex-White House intern has testified under oath 23 times about her escapades with Clinton. She has been grilled by FBI agents, prosecutors and Congress.

Walters was a cakewalk in comparison. "This isn't as hard as I thought it would be," Lewinsky told the veteran newswoman.

"You've had much worse happen to you," Walters replied.

-- Eric Mink and Helen Kennedy - 3/01/99