Leon Ritzenthaler

Right from the start, ever since a 54-pound gold nugget was discovered here in 1859, this tree-lined stretch of Eden has waxed ambivalent about its celestial claims to fame. At one extreme are the signs that greet visitors who roll in from Chico or Oroville: "You Are Now Ascending Into Paradise," one reads. "May You Find Paradise To Be All Its Name Implies," another declares.

Right from the start, ever since a 54-pound gold nugget was discovered here in 1859, this tree-lined stretch of Eden has waxed ambivalent about its celestial claims to fame. At one extreme are the signs that greet visitors who roll in from Chico or Oroville: "You Are Now Ascending Into Paradise," one reads. "May You Find Paradise To Be All Its Name Implies," another declares.

President Clinton has a previously unknown half brother born several years before their father met Clinton's mother, the Washington Post reported. The exhaustive story in the paper's Sunday "Style" section is accompanied by photos of Clinton, his purported half brother Henry Leon Ritzenthaler, 55, and their father, Bill Blythe, who died in an automobile accident several weeks before Clinton was born. Ritzenthaler took his adoptive father's name, just as Clinton took his adoptive father's name.

President Clinton finally caught up by phone Friday with the man who contends that he is the President's long lost half brother. They had a "warm conversation" and agreed to get together some time, the White House said. Clinton reached 55-year-old Henry Leon Ritzenthaler at his home in Paradise, Calif., and they talked for about 15 minutes. It was the first time the two had spoken.

President Clinton said Monday that he is trying to get in touch with a California man who claimed over the weekend that he is the President's half-brother, a relative the President apparently never knew about. Clinton, in an interview with WCBS radio in New York, declined to make a direct comment on the claims made by Henry Leon Ritzenthaler, 55, saying he wanted to talk with him first.

The Emergence of a California man who says he is President Clinton's long-lost half brother has thrown the spotlight on Clinton's family once again. Henry Ritzenthaler of Paradise says he and Clinton have the same father: W.J. Blythe. Until now, media accounts of Clinton's humble upbringing have said he was Blythe's only son. Here, incorporating Ritzenthaler's claims, is the Clinton family tree: William Jefferson Blythe (Clinton's father). In 1935, Blythe marries Adele Gash Coffelt.

President Clinton's father might have married Clinton's mother before his divorce to another woman was final, newspapers reported Saturday. The Kansas City Star and the Daily News of New York reported that Clinton's biological father, William Jefferson Blythe III, was married in 1941 in Jackson County, Mo., to a Kansas City woman.