Clinton to Endorse Free Trade Accord : Campaign: But he will call for extra environmental safeguards and job retraining, which could reopen treaty talks if he is elected. Stand puts him at odds with unions.

With an intensive series of debates looming as the campaign’s most crucial test, Bill Clinton hurried Saturday to conquer a more immediate hurdle by preparing to issue a qualified endorsement of the North American Free Trade Agreement.

In an announcement that could come either today or Monday, Clinton plans to declare his support for the controversial pact, as long as Congress takes extra steps to protect environmental standards and to offer retraining to Americans who might lose their jobs.

If Clinton becomes President, these conditions would add significant new barriers to an accord that the Bush Administration has sought to rush into effect. They would add to the costs of the accord and could force the United States and Mexico to negotiate new agreements reaching well beyond those already concluded.

But Clinton, who is expected to assert his strong support for the principle of the treaty, was to defend the extra steps as necessary to ensure that the nation’s economy and its environment are not harmed.

President Bush is scheduled to sign the accord during a meeting Wednesday in San Antonio with the leaders of Mexico and Canada.

Clinton, who has so far refused to take a public stand on the issue, appeared to be acting in part to silence Republican criticism that he has been indecisive on the agreement. The Bush campaign has pointed to the issue as an example of Clinton waffling on tough issues.

Even a lukewarm endorsement of the free trade pact would put Clinton at odds with the AFL-CIO and other Democratic loyalists who have vigorously opposed the new accord. At virtually every rally in recent days, he has been confronted with hand-scrawled placards warning that passage of the treaty would put American jobs in peril.

Clinton himself nevertheless insisted that he was “not worried about the politics of it.” Speaking to reporters at the airport here after a morning rally, the Arkansas governor said his decision would be based on “what I think is best for the average Americans and their economic future.”

But Clinton, who regards himself as a proponent of free trade, devoted much of his day Saturday to last-minute efforts intended to mute the criticism that could be provoked by his stand.

He met early Saturday with House Majority Leader Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.), perhaps the most prominent critic of the accord, and told reporters later that he intended to read a volume of reports, convene another meeting and devote “a few hours more” to reviewing the issue before making an official announcment.

The Democratic candidate would say only that there was “a chance” he would announce his intentions today, and he and his aides remained tight-lipped about the proposal. But Gephardt told reporters Saturday to “wait and see what he says tomorrow.”

As late as Saturday evening, Clinton and his aides continued to discuss the ramifications of the position he planned to take. “It’s a very complicated issue, and he wants to make sure he’s comfortable with all the details before he talks about it,” one aide said. “He doesn’t feel that way yet.”

The behind-the-scenes attention to the free trade agreement came as Clinton moved to begin the highly stylized political dance that seems likely to consume the week remaining before the first of three scheduled presidential debates.

The debate schedule, announced officially Saturday, calls for the presidential candidates to meet on Oct. 11, 15 and 19, and for the vice presidential candidates to face each other on Oct. 13.

Speaking at an outdoor rally at the historic Soulard Farmers’ Market here in the city chosen as the site of the first debate, Clinton exploited the coincidence. Several thousand roared their approval under clear autumn skies as Clinton proclaimed: “I can say to George Bush: Meet me in St. Louis!”

For all Bush’s feigned fear of the “Oxford debater,” Clinton went on to say, the President himself had attended a private school and Yale University and could certainly “take care of himself in a debate.”

And again and again he sought to inoculate himself from expected Bush attacks by portraying the debates not as clashes between individuals, but open exchanges about the nation’s future.

“This is not a debate between two people hurling charges,” he said, “it is a debate about the direction of the country.” His supporters, stirred into optimism by new polls showing Clinton holding onto solid leads, spent much of the rally chanting “Four More Weeks!” to mark the time left before an expected Clinton victory.

But Clinton aides, professing exaggerated awe at Bush’s attack-dog debate style, spent much of the day trying to reinforce the Arkansas governor’s warnings to voters and the media about paying too much heed to pre-scripted attacks.

“If it comes down to the best vicious one-liner,” complained strategist Paul Begala, “we lose.”

The Arkansas governor flew on to Washington, D.C., where he attended an annual Italian-American dinner.

In giving his qualified endorsement to the free trade agreement, Clinton will break with members of his own party who have called for Congress to reject the agreement altogether. However, the follow-up legislation on which he will insist would, in effect, change key provisions of the deal in ways the Bush Administration opposes.

The changes to be proposed by Clinton make clear that his top priorities will be to aid American workers who lose jobs because of the treaty and to take steps to reduce environmental problems caused by lax enforcement of anti-pollution laws in Mexico.

Clinton advisers conceded Saturday that the environmental measures he plans to urge would require Mexico to take some costly steps that the government of President Carlos Salinas de Gortari is likely to resist. But they reject the argument that Clinton’s proposals amount to a back-door way to kill the agreement.

“The Mexicans have a lot riding on this. They want this treaty badly,” said one senior Clinton adviser. “There’s nothing in this that would make agreement impossible.”

Clinton’s expected announcement comes after weeks of internal campaign debate over both the policy and the politics of the trade agreement. Opponents of the treaty--both labor unions and leaders of several environmental organizations--urged Clinton to join Gephardt and other Democrats in rejecting the pact. On the other side, free trade advocates within Clinton’s campaign argued strenuously that support of the agreement was a key to Clinton’s effort to portray himself as a “different kind of Democrat”--one free from the orthodoxies of the party’s past.

Clinton has been described by aides recently as a committed proponent of the free trade approach. But the candidate hesitated for weeks before making a final decision on both policy and political grounds.

On the political side, Clinton strategists feared that support of the treaty could undermine the Democrats in Michigan and to a lesser extent in Illinois and Missouri, all key electoral prizes where free trade with Mexico remains highly unpopular.

But Clinton has steadily gained in the polls in each of those states and his strategists now believe he has little to fear there from the free trade issue.