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

DATE: FRIDAY, May 27, 1994                   TAG: 9405270122
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: The Washington Post Note: above
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                 LENGTH: Medium

WHITE HOUSE AIDE OUSTED

A senior White House official was forced to resign Thursday after he and a colleague took the presidential helicopter, Marine One, from Washington to a private country club near Camp David, Md., for an afternoon golf game Tuesday.

David Watkins, director of the White House Office of Administration and one of the Arkansas friends President Clinton brought with him to Washington, submitted his resignation after his outing with Alphonso Maldon Jr., director of the White House Military Office, became public.

A picture of the White House officials was published Wednesday in the Frederick (Md.) News-Post, making the quiet trip a public embarrassment.

Clinton announced the resignation when asked about the trip at a White House news conference Thursday afternoon. He said he knew nothing of the trip, which the press office Thursday morning had described as a routine effort to check out the course for Clinton's later use. The president said taxpayers would be reimbursed the cost of the helicopter trip, from Washington to New Market, Md., and back. If previous Pentagon estimates of the cost of military helicopter use hold true, that could be about $10,000.

Clinton said he was ``very upset'' when he heard about the trip, and officials said Watkins had virtually no defenders in the White House. Last year, he had been disciplined for his role in the firing of the seven employes in the travel office.

The White House on Thursday night said Maldon, a political appointee, ``has been reprimanded and will be reassigned,'' probably outside the White House.

The White House on Wednesday night and Thursday morning put out what officials now realize was a cover story for the trip. It asserted that Watkins and Maldon were checking out the course for security and other reasons in advance of a possible presidential trip.

A statement drafted by the White House military office and released to reporters described the helicopter trip as a ``training mission'' to familiarize the crew with the layout of the course, which is an hour away by car.

Clinton generally travels by motorcade on his frequent golf outings rather than by military helicopter, which costs between $5,000 and $8,000 an hour to operate. There are at least three of the white-top helicopters in the presidential fleet; whichever one the president is in is designated Marine One.

The helicopter has been so sacrosanct in previous administrations that highest-ranking officials requesting to use it, such as former chief of staff Donald Regan to visit Ronald Reagan in the hospital, have been turned down.

by CNB