Options vast for Clinton on second-term Cabinet

Robert Burns

Wednesday, Oct. 23, 1996 | 11:59 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- If Election Day goes his way, President Clinton will face a winner's choice: to tinker with his Cabinet or rebuild it from scratch.

Indications are that several Cabinet members, including Secretary of State Warren Christopher and Defense Secretary William Perry, would leave. Among the few good bets to stay in a second Clinton term are Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt and Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala.

Few officials will offer even the broadest hint of their intention in these politically sensitive two weeks before the election.

"The president is very clear on this with all of us," presidential press secretary Mike McCurry told reporters recently. "Anyone who comes to him and starts talking about a second term ... the president will take a very dim view of that."

Yet Clinton has asked Evelyn Lieberman, deputy White House chief of staff, to quietly begin work on his transition. She is getting help from her predecessor, Erskine Bowles, and Washington lobbyist Vernon Jordan.

It is not unusual for a second-term president to ask for resignation letters from every Cabinet member as a formality to give him a clean slate.

Christopher, who turns 71 this month and is the oldest Cabinet member, is widely expected to leave. Who would replace him?

Speculation includes former assistant secretary of State Richard Holbrooke, United Nations ambassador Madeleine Albright, former Democratic Sen. George Mitchell -- now an envoy to Ireland -- and Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott, a longtime Clinton friend.

Senior aides said the president might turn to former Gen. Colin Powell or Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., in a show of bipartisanship.

The most interesting personnel moves could take place outside the Cabinet. Chief of staff Leon Panetta is expected to leave Washington and run for governor of California. Key Clinton adviser George Stephanopoulos will definitely leave for greener pastures, perhaps in the entertainment business.

Bowles, a North Carolina businessman who headed Clinton's debate preparation team, is the front-runner to replace Panetta. Deputy chief of staff Harold Ickes may be considered after heading Clinton's political effort.

Inside the Cabinet:

* Attorney General Janet Reno said a few weeks ago she would like to stay. Her doctors say her mild case of Parkinson's disease is not an obstacle to her continuing in the post.

She has upset the White House for her role in Waco and Whitewater, but aides say Reno would be tough to dump. She is a popular Washington figure and her boss wants women in top Cabinet posts.

* Mickey Kantor, who took over as Commerce secretary after Ron Brown was killed in a plane crash last April, wants to be attorney general or White House chief of staff. His best bet: Hope Reno leaves. Clinton pal Mack McLarty could replace Kantor.

* Perry, who moved up from the deputy secretary post at the Pentagon after Les Aspin resigned in January 1994, has led associates to believe he would return home to California after this year. But when pressed by reporters recently, he said he had not fully considered whether he would stay. Perry took a lot of heat from Congress for the terrorist attack in Saudi Arabia that killed 19 American airmen, but is generally viewed as a steady hand.

CIA Director John Deutch is widely believed to covet Perry's job. He was the deputy Defense secretary before he replaced James Woolsey at the CIA in 1995.

* At Transportation, Frederico Pena is expected to leave, although his aides insist he has not made plans. He came under fire for proclaiming ValuJet a safe airline following its crash last May in the Florida Everglades, only to have to ground the carrier a month later when maintenance problems came to light. The front-runner to replace him: Chicago's Bill Daley, brother of Mayor Richard M. Daley and a Democratic activist who was slotted for the job in 1992 until Clinton decided to fill it with a minority.

* Energy Secretary Hazel O'Leary has embarrassed the White House with miscues in accounting for foreign travel expenses. She's gone. Rep. Bill Richardson, D-N.M., is a White House dream pick, but his semiformal negotiations in Burma and North Korea "allows him to shoot higher," a senior official said.

* Labor's Robert Reich is an old Clinton pal who is considered effective, but officials expect him to return home to Boston. Laura D'Andrea Tyson, national economics adviser, has been mentioned as a replacement, though her current job may carry more weight. She would love to be Treasury secretary, but Clinton will stick with Rubin as long as the millionaire will stick around.

* Housing Secretary Henry Cisneros apparently wants to return to his native Texas. He is under investigation by an independent counsel for a possible conspiracy with his former mistress to conceal from the FBI details of his payments to her.

* At Health and Human Services, Shalala strongly urged Clinton to reject the welfare reform bill but earned political points by standing by him after Clinton signed it.

* Education's Richard Riley has won Clinton's public praise but it is unclear whether he wants to stay. If he goes, West Virginia's Gov. Gaston Caperton has the inside track.

* Interior's Babbitt wants to stay to position himself for a Supreme Court seat.

Christopher

Perry