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

DATE: MONDAY, October 24, 1994                   TAG: 9410250045
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: From The Washington Post and The Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium

BOOK SAYS ROOKIES IN CHARGE

It's enough to make even Mike Deaver, famed imagemeister of the Reagan era, blush: Aides tried to get President Clinton to jettison his baggy Donna Karan designer suits because real leaders don't dress that way. Aides tried to get Clinton to talk only from a lectern, not a chair, because a slumping, sitting Clinton looked unleaderlike. Aides tried to get Clinton to quit talking policy in jogging shorts because that looked unpresidential.

Those images come in the latest portrait of Clinton's first 18 months, ``On the Edge: The Clinton Presidency,'' by commentator and author Elizabeth Drew.

Drew - longtime former Washington columnist for The New Yorker magazine and television commentator - draws from a number of unidentified sources for an insider view of foreign-policy decisions, the death of Clinton's childhood friend and adviser, Vince Foster, and the recent reshaping of the White House after the appointment of Leon Panetta as chief of staff. It describes Clinton as almost pathologically avoiding making decisions or sticking by them.

As Clinton celebrates a rare stretch of rising public approval in his presidency, the Drew book offers numerous examples of policy gone awry.

For example, Clinton started getting cold feet about his Bosnia policy even as Secretary of State Warren Christopher was in Europe, trying unsuccessfully to sell it to the allies. Numerous policy changes, encouraged by different White House factions, followed.

Drew reports that CIA Director James Woolsey had so much trouble getting in to see Clinton about his concerns that he used William Crowe, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as a conduit. Crowe was close to Clinton because of his campaign endorsement.

The book reports that David Gergen, who was kept out of foreign-policy matters by national security adviser Anthony Lake, also went to the retired admiral with his concerns that Clinton was not getting good enough advice. Gergen suggested that Crowe ask Clinton for permission to sit in on national security meetings.

The book describes Christopher's quietly waiting for Vice President Al Gore to leave town so Christopher could sneak into the White House in his absence and complain to the president about Gore's militarism. (Gore had requested to be in on all foreign-policy discussions and was.) Gore's former aide, Roy Neel, spotted the maneuver and tipped off Gore, but the vice president could not get back in time.

Panetta made immediate and visible changes when he took his new post in June.

``Panetta started reducing the amount the public saw of the seriously overexposed president and increased the ratio of press conferences to other appearances because Clinton looked more presidential standing behind a podium,'' the book says.

``He emphasized to Clinton the importance of the stature of the office. Accepting the point, Clinton replied, `I've got to be more like John Wayne.'''

by CNB