Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, March 19, 1994                   TAG: 9403190017
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: A-4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium

CLINTON, GREENSPAN MEET; MARKETS FRET

"There were no messages given, no messages received" at the hour-long session, said Gene Sperling, a White House economics adviser. "There was a basic agreement that the fundamentals of the economy seemed sound."

Greenspan canceled an engagement in Texas to attend, fueling market concerns about the nature of the meeting.

Both Sperling and Treasury Secretary Lloyd Bentsen denied the session was an attempt to pressure the central bank against raising interest rates at next Tuesday's meeting of Federal Reserve policy makers.

Bentsen, speaking in Los Angeles, said that neither interest rates nor the Fed meeting came up. "They talked about jobs. They talked about the economy," Bentsen said.

Greenspan "spent a lot of time going through his analysis of the economy," Sperling said.

A handful of senior economic officials also attended the Oval Office session.

Clinton and Greenspan meet about once every other month. But usually such sessions are not publicized.

Word of Friday's meeting caused turbulence in markets, fanning worries that interest rates may be pushed higher. Bond prices fell and stocks tumbled before recovering later in the day.

Maury Harris, chief economist at PaineWebber Inc., agreed. "It showed clumsiness on the part of the White House," he said. "If the administration wanted to affect monetary policy, you ought to call him on the phone, don't invite him in person."

Greenspan avoided a cluster of reporters by leaving the White House by a side entrance. And Fed spokesman Joseph Coyne said, "We won't have anything to say about the substance of the meeting."

Sperling said the White House was not aware that Greenspan was forced to cancel another engagement to attend. But he added that it was not unusual "for people to cancel something to meet with the president."

Greenspan was supposed to moderate a panel discussion at a conference in Houston sponsored by the Dallas Federal Reserve Bank on the role of saving in economic growth.