Long-simmering tensions between President Clinton and the man he named to head the FBI, Louis Freeh, boiled over into an unusually bitter public row yesterday after quotes began circulating from Mr. Freeh’s forthcoming book, “My FBI.”

“The problem was with Bill Clinton – the scandals and the rumored scandals, the incubating ones and the dying ones never ended. Whatever moral compass the president was consulting was leading him in the wrong direction. His closets were full of skeletons just waiting to burst out,” Mr. Freeh wrote in the excerpts, which were released to promote an upcoming interview with CBS’s “60 Minutes.”

In his book, Mr. Freeh also accuses Mr. Clinton of being more concerned with fund-raising for his library than with pressuring Saudi Arabia to cooperate with an investigation into the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing that killed 19 American servicemen. The former FBI director, prosecutor, and federal judge said Mr. Clinton refused to ask Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah to allow American agents to interrogate suspects the Saudis were holding. “Bill Clinton raised the subject only to tell the crown price that he understood the Saudis’ reluctance to cooperate and then he hit Abdullah up for a contribution to the Clinton Presidential Library,” Mr. Freeh wrote.

A spokesman for Mr. Clinton, Jay Carson, charged that the former FBI director fabricated that story and many others in an effort to distract from his agency’s failure to prevent the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. “This is clearly a total work of fiction, written by a man who’s desperate to clear his name and sell books. It’s unfortunate that he’d stoop to this level in his desperate attempt to rewrite history,” the spokesman said.

“Louis Freeh wasn’t even present in the meetings he describes during which President Clinton repeatedly and firmly pressed the Saudis for their cooperation on the Khobar Towers investigation – pressure which led to the eventual indictments,” Mr. Carson said. Asked about the claim that Mr. Clinton solicited a donation for his library during one such session, the spokesman for the former president said, “Freeh’s claims about library fund-raising are more untruths from a book that’s chock-full of them.”

Mr. Freeh, who resigned in June 2001, two years before his term was up, said he deliberately waited until Mr. Clinton left office. “I was going to stay there and make sure he couldn’t replace me,” Mr. Freeh said.

While Mr. Clinton was president, the two men clashed repeatedly over a series of matters, including an FBI probe into alleged Chinese efforts to funnel campaign donations to America. In his memoir, Mr. Clinton acknowledged that he was rankled by Mr. Freeh’s refusal to brief top administration officials on the probe. According to a biography of the former president, “The Survivor,” Mr. Clinton exclaimed, “That bastard was trying to sting us.”

Mr. Clinton’s allies noted yesterday that all the recorded political donations Mr. Freeh has made since he left the government have been to Republicans.

Mr. Freeh, now a top executive at a financial firm, MBNA, is scheduled to appear on “60 Minutes” Sunday. Mr. Clinton declined an offer to appear in the same story, and the news program refused to tape interviews with former Clinton administration officials who disagree with the former FBI director’s allegations, according to people familiar with the situation.