As the White House was enveloped in the Monica Lewinsky scandal in January 1998, aides offered advice to President Bill Clinton’s speechwriting team on how to use the State of the Union address that month to rebuild public confidence in the president.

“Please recognize, I am in no way suggesting that he use his speech to discuss our current situation head-on,” Minyon Moore, the president’s public liaison, wrote in a memo. “I am simply stating that we cannot take his supporters for granted, nor his detractors, and they need to be reassured on several fronts.”

Ms. Moore suggested that Mr. Clinton invoke God “as the underpinning for his policy and thought process.”