Probe to Target British Search for Clinton Data

Acting Secretary of State Lawrence S. Eagleburger ordered a departmental investigation Monday to determine whether any U.S. officials were involved in a British government search for information that might have damaged Bill Clinton’s presidential campaign.

Department spokesman Richard Boucher said Inspector General Sherman Funk was told to determine whether employees of the State Department, White House or President Bush’s campaign organization “requested or were otherwise involved” in the early October search by the British Home Office.

The British reviewed immigration and naturalization files to determine if Clinton, as a Rhodes scholar at Oxford University, had inquired about obtaining British citizenship to avoid military service in Vietnam.

Boucher said Funk’s investigation would be limited to possible U.S. involvement because the inspector general has no mandate to look into the activities of an agency of the British government.

Funk reported Nov. 18 that mid-level State Department officials conducted an intensive search of Clinton’s passport records on Sept. 30 and Oct. 1 in an effort to find politically damaging information. No such information was ever discovered but the inspector general said the search was improper because it drew the State Department into the political campaign.

At the time he issued the report, Funk said he would keep his investigation open in case other leads turn up. The State Department said earlier the inspector general was investigating new leads of possible White House involvement.

In his written report, Funk said White House Chief of Staff James A. Baker III, the former secretary of state, was informed of the search almost immediately and that White House political director Janet Mullins also was well aware of the activity but no evidence was found indicating the White House “orchestrated” the search.

The British Home Office search, originally reported by the Washington Post, was conducted a few days after the State Department search. British officials said they found no evidence Clinton had ever considered applying for British citizenship.