ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, June 24, 1996 TAG: 9606240103
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
SOURCE: The New York Times
NOTE: Below
White House visits to Hillary Rodham Clinton by a New Age psychologist were nothing more than ``a brainstorming session'' for the first lady's book, President Clinton's spokesman said Sunday.
``Nothing mysterious here,'' said Mike McCurry, the White House press secretary, commenting on a detailed account of one meeting in which Dr. Jean Houston, a human-potential-movement psychic, proposed that Clinton imagine morale-building conversations with famous figures she admires, including Eleanor Roosevelt.
She did so, McCurry said, as ``a graceful first lady who enjoys listening to women with ideas and perspective that differ from her own.''
Two White House meetings with Houston are described in a new book by Bob Woodward, an assistant managing editor and reporter for The Washington Post, which devoted two front-page articles Sunday to the book. Newsweek magazine, which is also promoting the book, ``The Choice'' (Simon & Schuster), characterized the visits as seances, a term McCurry criticized as far from factual.
``I think that's very, very unfortunate,'' he said, adding, ``Hillary's recollection is that it was, in fact, nothing more than brainstorming'' for her book, ``It Takes a Village.''
Clinton's deputy chief of staff, Melanne Verveer, said of Houston, ``She is neither a spiritual adviser nor a policy adviser. Any suggestion that emerges from the book that she is a central figure in the first lady's activities or world view is inaccurate.''
The Woodward book is about the Clintons and Bob Dole, the Republican candidate for president.
Houston has described herself as a ``sacred psychologist'' and ``global midwife'' who in 30 years of research, world travels and practice has studied trances, hypnosis and drugs as tools of therapy. The Woodward book stresses that none of those was employed in the White House visits, only self-help conversation.
Administration officials, mindful of the controversy that engulfed the White House after it became known that Nancy Reagan as first lady regularly consulted an astrologer, described Houston's visits as far from occult.
``There's a lot less here than the people marketing the book would have you believe,'' said George Stephanopoulos, senior adviser to the president. He said it was as common for White House figures to ponder history and imagine what their predecessors might have done in trying situations as it was for ``titillating'' exaggerations to be offered in the marketing of books about the White House.
Present at the session with Houston was Mary Catherine Bateson, an anthropologist, who considered the meeting ``a kind of meditation, reflection or even prayer,'' according to the Woodward book.
A similar self-help lesson was attempted in imagining guidance from another of Clinton's heroes, Mahatma Gandhi, the book said, but the first lady drew the line at a suggestion that she imagine a conversation with Jesus, saying such an exercise would be too private.
In her newspaper column two weeks ago, Clinton cited both Houston and Bateson in a list of female writers, historians and thinkers she praised as creative and provocative. She described Houston as an expert on philosophy and mythology who had ``shared her views with me on everything from the ancient Greeks to the lives of women and children in Bangladesh.''
Clinton wrote: ``As women, talking can be our greatest friend. I don't always agree with what I hear.''
Houston and Bateson had been members of a group of self-help authors and leaders of the New Age human-potential movement invited by President and Hillary Clinton to Camp David as they sought to come to grips with the loss of Congress in 1994 and other political setbacks. That visit was previously reported, just as Clinton had earlier noted how she regularly felt the need for an inspirational chat with Eleanor Roosevelt.
In her column two weeks ago, written as the Woodward book was near publication, Clinton noted: ``I occasionally have imaginary conversations with Mrs. Roosevelt to try to figure out what she would do in my shoes. She usually responds by telling me to buck up or at least to grow skin as thick as a rhinoceros.''
Asked whether Clinton had expected Houston's White House visits to remain private, McCurry replied that ``normally, friends keep confidences,'' but that, in any case, Clinton had advised Houston to simply ``tell the truth'' if the subject arose. ``The sad truth now is the first lady expects people to mischaracterize things,'' McCurry said.
President Clinton had no direct comment on the visits. His chief of staff, Leon Panetta, said the book excerpts merely showed that Hillary Clinton reaches out regularly to friends and experts to draw strength from other experiences in order to bear up under White House pressures. Speaking on the CBS News program ``Face the Nation,'' Panetta said, ``I can't tell you how many Hail Marys I've said since I've taken this job.''
LENGTH: Medium: 92 linesby CNB