Probe watch temporarily heats up Clinton’s Pacific trip

Monday, Nov. 18, 1996 | 11:59 a.m.

The president prepares to fly to Australia just as a wayward Russian spacecraft comes crashing toward -- where else? -- Australia.

It is carrying plutonium-powered generators that could release -- what else? -- a lethal cloud of radioactivity.

Oddly enough, it's all true.

But Sunday's big news was destined to become today's footnote as the space probe overshot Australia and fell to Earth in the Pacific Ocean 1,800 miles west of Chile.

First word that the seven-ton spacecraft was hurtling downward at 17,000 miles an hour came from White House aides traveling with President Clinton as he vacationed in Hawaii.

One minute, aides were briefing reporters on Clinton's expected schedule for the day -- "hanging on the porch" -- and debating whether he could be quoted in praise of the hula dancers at an off-the-record luau. (No.)

The next minute, top national security aides in Washington were being patched through by telephone to brief reporters clad in shorts and flip-flops on the potential radioactive threat. (Low, they insisted.)

The U.S. Space Command tenaciously tracked the space craft's orbit from its Cheyenne Mountain command post in Colorado. Phone lines buzzed between Washington and Honolulu and foreign leaders around the globe. And the president's plan to hang out on the porch at his beachfront guest house evaporated.

"He's been consumed by this," said deputy press secretary Mary Ellen Glynn. "He did not have a very restful day."

Then, just as quickly as it had begun, it was all over.

Crisis averted, administration officials assured.

The ill-fated spacecraft "is believed to have re-entered the atmosphere over the southern Pacific Ocean, in a broad ocean area west of Chile," the Space Command announced.

And with that, the White House paged reporters with a new message: The president was going out to dinner.

Clinton was leaving for Australia this afternoon, making his first trip down under after a soggy weekend in Hawaii.

Heavy rains produced mud slides and flooding before Clinton had even arrived on Oahu, and the rains continued for much of his visit. The golf-crazed president played rain or shine -- and it didn't appear to hurt his game.

Gov. Ben Cayetano, who played with Clinton through intermittent showers Saturday, said the president had shaved three strokes off his game since they last played.

Clinton will get in more golf once he gets to Australia. The official purpose of the visit is to promote economic and defense ties, but he also has a tee time with PGA pro Greg Norman.

From Australia, Clinton travels to the Philippines for a meeting of 18-nation Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, then on to Thailand for a state visit before returning to Washington on Nov. 27.