Key to Clinton’s Success Rests on Work of ‘Clusters’ : These technicians have begun meeting with Republican counterparts to ensure as smooth a handoff as possible.

In the 36 days since President-elect Bill Clinton won the White House, massive attention has focused on his efforts to choose Cabinet officers.

Outside the spotlight, however, other agents of the Clinton transition have moved quietly into Washington’s bureaucracies to survey the terrain they plan to occupy on Jan. 20.

Like advance scouts of an invading army, the members of these “transition clusters” are working in the shadows--but their efforts will help determine whether the new Administration’s first steps succeed or stumble.

From the moment he walks into the Oval Office, Clinton will face potential international crises, from the U.S. military intervention in Somalia to a gathering flotilla of Haitian refugee boats intent on reaching Florida. At the same time, he hopes to launch an ambitious program of domestic economic reconstruction and social improvement.

Thus the work of his transition technicians--in identifying the first decisions the new Administration needs to make, and the most critical jobs they need to fill--will be key to Clinton’s chances of making a quick start.

The process got under way in earnest only last week. From the White House to the Pentagon, Democratic victors met with Republican vanquished--and received their dubious reward: dozens of three-ring binders filled with organization charts and policy papers.

In most cases, it was a jittery encounter. Some aides to President Bush, faintly resentful over their impending loss of power, described their first meetings with the new crowd in tones of undisguised disdain. The Clinton people are jumpy for a different reason: With incoming Cabinet officers unnamed, the transition teams are as uncertain of their own futures as the Bush appointees whose offices they are measuring.

“These guys don’t have any better idea of what’s going to happen than we do,” a White House official gibed.

But Clinton aides say they are moving as fast as they can--and add that their goals are modest. “It’s really just a reconnaissance mission,” said transition spokesman Marc Ginsberg. “We’re trying to identify the issues that will have to be dealt with as soon as President-elect Clinton comes to office.

“There’s never been such a thing historically as a clean handoff (from one Administration to another). We need to know what the baton looks like before we get it.”

In foreign policy, for example, Ginsberg said the transition teams have begun digesting the binders provided by the State and Defense departments--measured at more than eight “shelf-feet,” for the amount of space they take on a bookshelf--and have bravely asked for more.

Indeed, the foreign policy team began work earlier than most. Comparable groups at the Interior Department and the Environmental Protection Agency got started only this week.

In any case, scholars--and some officials--note that this early round of bustle is far less important than the work that will come later, after the President-elect names his Cabinet.

“The most important thing Clinton can do now is get people named to key positions as soon as possible,” said historian Carl M. Brauer, who wrote a book called “Presidential Transitions.”

Moreover, the people doing transition work won’t necessarily be appointed to the departments they are examining. In 1981, for example, the incoming Administration of Ronald Reagan fielded a massive transition staff of almost 1,500 people, most of them conservative campaign activists. It sent most of them home on Jan. 21.

Still, the hesitant first steps of the Clinton transition may reveal some of the character of his Administration-in-waiting. Clinton’s agents are secretive and well-disciplined. They are also insiders: lawyers, lobbyists, think-tank scholars, mostly Washingtonians. They are bureaucrat-friendly: “We’ve known most of them for years,” said a pleased State Department official.

Times staff writers Rudy Abramson, John M. Broder, Melissa Healy, Ronald J. Ostrow and Art Pine contributed to this story.