That's me in the picture: Graydon Forrer gets a bird's-eye view of that Monica Lewinsky and Bill Clinton hug

http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2014/oct/04/bill-clinton-monica-lewinsky-hug-photograph

Version 0 of 1.

This is my Zelig moment; the gift that keeps on giving. Every time I forget about it, some American politician gets his or her hand caught in something and they flash the footage up again. There must be people whose faces end up caught in tragic situations – at a fire or a bombing. This is just fun.

It was taken in the autumn of 1996, just after President Clinton was re-elected. I was a political appointee in the US Department of Agriculture, and I'd taken a leave of absence to work as a field organiser for the Clinton campaign. I went to two very Republican counties in southern Ohio, rallying the vote, getting as many people out as we possibly could. On election night, I jumped in the car and drove back to Washington DC, where I live. This event came a couple of days later, to welcome the president and the first lady home to the White House.

Everybody invited had worked on the campaign or in Clinton's last administration. We gathered on the South Lawn, where the helicopters land, and were handed T-shirts emblazoned with something like "Welcome Home Mr President": that's why we're all wearing white. A marine band was playing; we were all very excited and a little starstruck. The band played Hail To The Chief, out came the Clintons, and everybody waved and cheered. Then Hillary went one way, Bill the other, and they worked the line towards the middle.

It was then, while we were waiting to shake the president's hand, that a young woman in a beret pushed past me to get to the front. I had no idea who she was, but I thought she was pretty rude and aggressive; my colleagues and I rolled our eyes at each other. Right before Clinton got to us, he came upon this young woman, whom we now know to be Monica Lewinsky, and gave her a big hug. She introduced him to a couple of people, they all shook hands, then he moved on to the rest of us.

Sources later claimed their affair began in November 1995, a year before this picture was taken; in April 1996, Lewinsky had left the White House for the Pentagon. I didn't notice any real intimacy between them: the picture makes it look as though the hug lasted a long time, but it was really just a few seconds. I didn't think much about it until early 1998, when the scandal broke, and suddenly this footage was all over the news. I was just back from the pub, lying on my couch watching CNN, when I first saw it. The next morning, everyone I knew in American politics was calling, saying, "Is that you on the TV?"

An FBI agent working for Kenneth Starr, the judge who led the inquiry into the affair, even telephoned me while I was out in Arizona caring for my ill father. He wanted to know if I'd overheard Clinton and Lewinsky say anything to each other as they embraced. For me, that encapsulated the ridiculousness of the whole situation. Was she whispering, "Bill, save the world?" or, "Do the correct education policy" or some other sweet nothing? I mean, really: what were they going to say in the middle of a massive rope-line?

I left the government in 1997. I never met Lewinsky again, but I remember she had very sharp elbows: she really was determined.

At this distance, the whole scandal seems quite comical, a storm in a teacup. But it does mean I've always got a great cocktail party story.

• Interview by Laura Barnett

Are you in a famous photograph? Email thatsme@theguardian.com