White House Debates Its Next Moves : Policy: Officials must decide whether to act on key issues or be caretakers. Mideast talks, Vietnam ties, Bosnian aid, USAir deal are still on table.

With their window of opportunity quickly closing, senior officials in the Bush Administration are considering whether to move aggressively to push through last-minute policy measures or to opt for a caretaker operation until President-elect Bill Clinton takes over.

The debate is not an idle one among political losers whose opportunities for shaping government policy are about to end. In both foreign affairs and domestic policy, President Bush, although a lame duck, still has a number of significant opportunities. Forceful action could present Clinton with a series of fait s accompli that would be difficult to reverse.

Included are issues as intensely emotional as improving relations with Vietnam and as politically difficult as allowing British Airways to buy a major stake in USAir--a step Clinton has opposed.

In addition, the Pentagon is considering a risky major foreign policy initiative to send aid to the troubled former Yugoslav republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina through Belgrade, a move that could saddle the new President with a military operation from which it would be difficult to withdraw.

And, apparently with Clinton’s blessing, the State Department is pressing ahead with efforts to move the Middle East peace talks forward without waiting for the new Administration’s senior leadership to take over.

Not since Jimmy Carter replaced Gerald R. Ford in the White House 16 years ago has there been a comparable transition period. When Bush took over in 1989, he was slipping into a White House in which he had played a part for eight years as vice president under Ronald Reagan. There were few issues on which the outgoing and incoming administrations had serious disagreements.

And in the period between Carter’s defeat in 1980 and Reagan’s inauguration, the Iran hostage crisis kept Carter deeply involved in the most pressing business of the presidency until the last minutes of his term--to the point of catching only catnaps in the Oval Office on at least one night.

Even before all the election returns were counted Tuesday night, Bush pledged that his team would cooperate with Clinton. “I want the country to know that our entire Administration will work closely with his team to ensure the smooth transition of power,” he said.

But just how smooth has yet to be worked out.

“We could say: ‘Let’s stamp our position on things, and let Clinton unstamp it,’ ” said a senior White House official. Or, he said, the rest of the Administration could follow Bush’s command, in effect putting major and minor policy decisions on hold. “That will be debated next week,” he said. “The general posture of being aggressive versus not making waves will be debated.”

But while some policy measures working their way through government are important enough to warrant direct involvement by Bush or senior aides, many other issues do not rise to that level--a reality that gives lower-level officials power to act forcefully in the final days, even if top members of the Administration advocate a low-key approach.

This weekend, senior Administration figures are, for the most part, recuperating from their losing campaign effort. Bush was in the midst of an extended visit to Camp David, Md., and a notice to reporters at the State Department on Friday said the two most senior officials had no official appointments and only one assistant secretary of state was listed with anything on his schedule: a meeting with the ambassador from Chad.

White House Chief of Staff James A. Baker III, who until August was the secretary of state and was deeply involved in the Middle East negotiations, was hunting in southern Texas, and a White House spokesman said he would return to the White House next week to “focus on a plan of action” for the remaining 10 weeks of the Administration.

“They haven’t taken inventory” of the issues open for presidential action, said Deputy Press Secretary Laura Melillo.

Among the pending items, the question of taking steps to lessen the suffering of Bosnian citizens under attack by Serbian forces is perhaps the most pressing. Administration officials said that unless an expanded plan for the delivery of humanitarian aid is put into place soon, starvation will be rife in Bosnia-Herzegovina this winter.

Their plan would open a pipeline for humanitarian assistance through Belgrade, capital of Serbia and seat of the government whose irregular forces have terrorized Bosnia. Diplomats and military officials of NATO, led by Bush Administration officials, have been trying for several weeks to establish a foothold there for their deliveries and win Serbian government assurances that delivery of the aid will not be hindered.

The prospects for improved ties to Vietnam grew brighter as the campaign ended and the Communist regime in Hanoi began turning over photographs and other evidence that may help answer questions about American soldiers missing since the Vietnam War. Bush called the new cooperation a breakthrough and recently dispatched a team of U.S. officials to Vietnam to work on the MIA issue.

The United States is under considerable diplomatic pressure to ease its longstanding efforts to isolate Hanoi. Japan just announced, for example, that it is restoring its aid program to Vietnam, after years of going along with a U.S. trade embargo.

Bush is unlikely to go so far as to establish full diplomatic relations with Vietnam. But if things go well, he could lift the 17-year-old embargo. Or, at the very least, he could open the way for American companies to sign contracts for future business in Vietnam, leaving to Clinton a decision on lifting the embargo.

The British Airways question became a point of contention during the presidential campaign.

Clinton has expressed concern that giving the British carrier a larger presence in the U.S. market could end up sending aircraft business to the European aircraft consortium, Airbus Industrie, at the expense of U.S. jet manufacturers Boeing Co. and McDonnell Douglas Corp.

The Transportation Department has set in motion a process under which it will decide by Dec. 24 whether to approve the deal that calls for the British carrier to pump $750 million into USAir in exchange for 44% ownership and 21% of the voting stock.

Another sensitive issue into which the Bush White House could delve involves the ongoing dispute over the nation’s wetlands, a matter that has dogged the Administration since its first day in office.

At the heart of the dispute is the definition of a wetlands area. The definition, part of a new government environmental manual being prepared by Administration officials, will be a key element in determining which properties can be developed and which must be left in their natural state.

The Middle East peace effort carries with it the least risk of dispute with Clinton but also questionable prospects for early success. To boost the effort, a State Department official who had played a central role in the talks and then stepped aside to join Baker at the White House returned to his original post Friday.

The official, Dennis Ross, was Baker’s top Middle East strategist, and the peace talks that began a year ago are scheduled to resume Monday in Washington.

Times staff writers Melissa Healy, Jim Mann and Norman Kempster contributed to this story.

U.S. TO PUSH TALKS: Bush wants Mideast results before Clinton takes over. A4