Bill Clinton opened his presidential library in his native Arkansas yesterday, where memories of Whitewater, welfare reform and Monica Lewinsky will all reside under one roof.

For Clinton, the gleaming, futuristic building is a reminder a small-town boy with outsized ambitions can attain America’s highest office.

The Clinton Presidential Center was built a cost of $165 million – the most expensive of the 12 presidential libraries – and features a box-like structure extending over the Arkansas River. It was designed to evoke Clinton’s oft-expressed goal of “building a bridge to the 21st century.”

Reviews of the building have been largely favorable, but the British magazine The Economist described the library as “trailer-home chic.”

“I very much wanted this library in Arkansas and turned down massive sums of money offered by two other states to locate it there. I thought I owed it to the people of this state,” Clinton told a standing-room audience of the Little Rock business community on Tuesday.

“I don’t think anybody could come to this library and leave with the impression that cynicism is a proper response to the problems and opportunities we face,” Clinton said.

The library will reflect “the good and the bad” about the Clinton years and will not shy away from the Whitewater investigations and the Lewinsky scandal that led to Clinton’s impeachment and acquittal, officials said.

One section of the library will feature details and documents of the impeachment, while other sections will feature the major economic and diplomatic achievements of Clinton’s 1993-2001 administration.

When the ribbon is cut on the facility, President George W. Bush, and former Presidents George Bush and Jimmy Carter will join Clinton at the podium. Gerald Ford, the country’s only other living president, said he could not attend.

<B>Steve Barnes</B>