Trude Feldman, a second-string member of the White House press corps whose insistent approach to seeking access and asking softball questions won her exclusive interviews with American presidents and other world leaders, died on Jan. 23 in Washington. She was 97.

Ms. Feldman interviewed every president from Lyndon B. Johnson to George W. Bush. For McCall’s magazine, she wrangled the first interview with Richard M. Nixon and his wife, Pat, after the president resigned in 1974. She went on to be granted the final presidential interviews with Presidents Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan and George Bush. She had the first interview with Bill Clinton after he publicly apologized in 1998 for covering up what he admitted was an inappropriate relationship with the White House intern Monica Lewinsky. In their talk, Ms. Lewinsky’s name never came up. Instead, Ms. Feldman and Mr. Clinton discussed the implications of repentance on the coming Jewish Day of Atonement.

Ms. Feldman wrote for an array of newspapers, wire services, women’s magazines and local Jewish journals; many of her articles were syndicated. Her opinion pieces appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The Jerusalem Post, The Washington Post, The Associated Press, and the New York Times.

She insisted that her interviews be one-on-one without aides present. When in the 1980s, she showed up to question Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger, she was escorted to the office by a young brigadier general, who proceeded to sit down with his own pad and paper to take notes. But this would not do. So Brigadier General Colin Powell had to take his notebook and leave.