Promised real power as Bill Clinton's vice president, Al Gore found he had a rival for that role: the First Lady. And when Hillary decided to run for the Senate, a tense competition got ugly.

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Eight days later, Bill appointed Hillary head of the health-care task force, which was charged with developing a plan to re-structure the health-insurance system. The move took nearly all his top officials by surprise, including Al Gore.

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David Gergen, counselor to the president in 1993 and 1994, called the "three-headed system" a "rolling disaster."

An account in The New York Times Magazine shortly before the inauguration set out the new interpretation, noting that "Al Gore hasn't yet realized there is going to be a co-presidency but he's not going to be part of the co," and that, according to the Clintons' close friend and adviser Susan Thomases, Gore "would have to adjust to a smaller role." The article came out of the blue, and the Gore camp detected the veiled handiwork of Hillary in its slant. It was an open secret that some of Hillary's advisers, Thomases in particular, nurtured dreams that Hillary, not Gore, would follow Bill in the presidency. "There are a great many people talking very seriously about her succeeding him," Betsey Wright, Bill's chief of staff in Arkansas, admitted during her former boss's first year as president.

The Clintons resented the Gores because they were products of Washington's prestigious private schools and its social network, on the A-list for elite Georgetown gatherings such as the annual New Year's Eve party hosted by former Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee and his wife, Sally Quinn. A friend of the Clintons' noted in a journal that Hillary once said with some bitterness, "Gore gets credit because he's a Washington insider and can play the game. Gore is not 'from someplace called Arkansas.'"

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As a sitting president, Bill was in a unique position to boost his vice president's candidacy by scheduling White House events to highlight his achievements. But in 1999 those resources were diverted from Gore to Hillary "in a big way," said one member of the Gore team. "The Clintons come first. That was their basic framework."

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Before Hillary officially established her exploratory committee, she began directly competing with the vice president for money, sometimes even at his own fund-raising events. When Tipper's friend Melinda Blinken and a group of women planned a Gore fund-raiser in Los Angeles, Hillary insisted on being invitedÑover the objections of the event's organizers. Hillary then shocked the vice president's supporters by soliciting donations for herself in front of Tipper.

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At a White House reception in late July for the winners of the Women's World Cup soccer championship, Hillary singled out "my dear friend Tipper Gore" as "a great athlete in her time." But by then Hillary had privately frozen out Tipper, who had given her steadfast support during the Lewinsky ordeal. Hillary never made clear her reasons for the snub, which became apparent once she started running for the Senate. Tipper was reported to be stunned, believing she had been cast aside because she was no longer useful.

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While Ronald Reagan had addressed a cheering G.O.P. convention in 1988, he quickly stepped into the wings in deference to his vice president's candidacy. But Bill Clinton couldn't resist occupying center stage and grabbing the limelight from Al Gore during a crucial moment in his presidential campaign.

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A more serious conflict arose from the schedule of events in which Bill and Hillary raised millions for themselves, distracting attention from the presidential race, siphoning off Democratic money, and further angering the vice president and his team.

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Bill told Sidney Blumenthal they had parted after "patching everything up," but in fact the mutual resentments among the Clintons and Gores persisted.