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White House aides have lobbied to get President Clinton this year's Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to broker peace in the Middle East, Fox News Channel reported yesterday.
White House officials denied the report, and said nobody in the Clinton administration contacted any public-relations firms or Norwegian politicians involved in awarding the prize.

But a member of Norway's parliament told Fox News he was contacted in May by a White House official and asked to help campaign for Clinton. And two Norwegian PR executives say they were contacted by a member of their country's parliament and asked if they were interested in conducting a discreet campaign on Clinton's behalf.

One of the executives said he got a second phone call about two weeks after the first, in which he was told that another PR firm would be working on Clinton's behalf for a six-figure sum.

Nominations for the prize come from academics, university professors and scientists from around the world. This year, the six Nobel Prize winners - in economics, physics, chemistry, medicine, literature and peace - will split $9 million in prize money.

Deliberations over the Nobel prizes are shrouded in secrecy, and Norwegian PR people and parliamentarians threaten their jobs by actively campaigning for a particular candidate.

There's been speculation in the last few months that Clinton was pursuing a Mideast peace accord in an effort to win the prize and secure his legacy as president.

Clinton is among 144 individuals and organizations "being unofficially bandied about" as candidates for this year's prize, a Norwegian newspaper reported earlier this year.