President-Elect’s Team Still Lacks Players From the GOP Camp : Clinton said he wanted to move beyond partisan politics in picking aides. His opportunities are dwindling.

Franklin D. Roosevelt did it. Ronald Reagan did it. John F. Kennedy and Richard M. Nixon did it.

Will Bill Clinton?

Many of this century’s most effective presidents have tried to broaden their political coalitions, divide the opposition and widen their circles of advisers by bringing into their administrations senior figures from the opposition party.

In his first press conference after the election, Clinton said: “I intend to look beyond partisanship in bringing together public servants to help guide our nation for the next four years.”

So far, however, he has had a hard time translating that instinct into action. All of Clinton’s first 11 major appointments have been Democrats--although Rep. Leon E. Panetta (D-Carmel Valley), his choice as director of the Office of Management and Budget, is a former Republican.

With only a handful of top jobs remaining, he may be getting close to the point of no return. Indeed, says GOP consultant David M. Carmen, “in terms of the goal of trying to widen the Clinton voter base with Cabinet appointments, he has already thrown out that card.”

Yet history shows that benefits can be substantial for a President who gives his Administration at least a veneer of bipartisanship by appointing some of his opponents to high office.

BACKGROUND: The master of reaching into the other party was the President many around Clinton cite as their tactical model: Roosevelt. In his initial Cabinet, Roosevelt appointed three Republicans, including Chicago progressive Harold Ickes as Interior secretary. No Cabinet member throughout Roosevelt’s long tenure defended him with more partisan asperity than Ickes--whose son, also named Harold Ickes, serves as a top adviser to Clinton.

As World War II neared, Roosevelt sought to build bipartisan support for his rearmament policy by appointing to his Cabinet the Republican presidential and vice presidential nominees who opposed him in 1936: Alfred M. Landon and Frank Knox. That didn’t work out, but in 1940, Roosevelt pulled off a comparable coup--naming Henry L. Stimson, Herbert Hoover’s secretary of state, as his secretary of war, and Knox as his Navy secretary.

Appointing officials from the opposition party to top jobs hasn’t always worked out. Dwight D. Eisenhower’s stab at diversity failed when Democratic union official Martin Durkin felt isolated as labor secretary and unhappily left the Administration within months. Kennedy’s decision to retain Allen Dulles, Eisenhower’s CIA director, contributed to the fiasco at the Bay of Pigs--the aborted attempt to invade Cuba.

But the record of bipartisan appointments over the past 50 years counts far more successes. Kennedy’s liberal advisers initially viewed with apprehension his appointment of Republican Douglas Dillon--Eisenhower’s undersecretary of state--as Treasury secretary. But he emerged as a pillar of the Administration.

Likewise, Democrat Daniel Patrick Moynihan, now a senator from New York, emerged as one of Richard M. Nixon’s favorite advisers when he served as his domestic policy counsel in the White House.

Neoconservative Democrats, such as Jeane J. Kirkpatrick, Richard N. Perle, Paul H. Nitze and Eugene Rostow, provided Ronald Reagan with many of the key strategists for his national security policy, and the most articulate voices for his foreign policy.

OUTLOOK: Clinton has opportunities to reach out with appointments to three distinct groups of disaffected Republicans potentially crucial to his long-term political prospects: high-technology executives eager for a more assertive partnership with government than Reagan or President Bush could countenance; the younger “new paradigm” social-policy reformers in the GOP; and GOP moderates who favor abortion rights.

Some Clinton strategists believe that appointing high-profile Republicans to top Administration positions could likewise send a signal to moderate Republicans and independents--the key targets in Clinton’s efforts to reformulate the Democratic political coalition.

“There are a lot of interesting possibilities,” said Will Marshall, president of the Progressive Policy Institute, a Democratic think tank with close ties to Clinton. “It’s like the New Deal: It’s a time to experiment.”

In the campaign, Clinton brandished as a powerful symbol of moderation his support from Republican business leaders--particularly high-technology executives such as recently retired Hewlett-Packard Co. Chief Executive Officer John A. Young and Apple Computer Inc. Chairman John Sculley.

Young was considered a front-runner for appointment as commerce secretary. But with Republicans threatening a confirmation fight over his former firm’s sale of advanced equipment to Iraq before the Gulf War, he withdrew his name, citing potential conflicts of interest.

Sculley’s name has swirled in speculation for several jobs, including education secretary. But Sculley, although a visible spokesman for Clinton’s agenda at this week’s economic conference here, insists that he has no interest in leaving Apple.

Former New Jersey Gov. Thomas H. Kean is another Republican whose name has circulated for the education position, but a senior transition source said he was not under serious consideration.

Federal Appeals Court Judge Amalya L. Kearse is considered a serious contender for attorney general. Kearse’s partisan inclination is a bit murky. One senior Clinton aide said: “We all think of her as a Republican,” but an aide to the judge said she is not registered in either party.

The most serious Republican contender for a Cabinet position may be Clyde V. Prestowitz Jr., a former senior official in Reagan’s Commerce Department. Prestowitz is one of several serious candidates for U.S. trade representative and may also be on the list as a potential ambassador to Japan.

“If I had to bet on one Republican for the Cabinet,” said the ranking transition official, “I’d say Prestowitz is the most likely.”

But even if Prestowitz is appointed, it would not make much of a political statement: His tough views on trade have long found more support in the Democratic Party than the GOP.

Whatever the result of Clinton’s efforts on behalf of Republican appointees, his promise of bipartisanship may have more impact in other ways. Aides are mulling plans to create a new version of the commission on American competitiveness, which Young headed for Reagan.

By establishing such a commission, aides say, Clinton could institutionalize opportunities for interaction with business executives, economists and labor leaders, and provide a platform for supporters like Sculley and Young--whose pedigrees make them unusual spokesmen for a Democrat--to sell his programs.

Appointments below the Cabinet level could provide another opportunity. The transition has set up an aggressive effort to recruit Republicans for sub-Cabinet jobs under the direction of Bob Nelson, an Orange County corporate and political consultant. Hundreds of Republicans are now competing for sub-Cabinet jobs, Nelson said.

Sources say former Republican Rep. Claudine Schneider, who endorsed Clinton during the campaign, may be named an undersecretary of commerce, and that one of the Republican business people who endorsed Clinton will be named to a top position under Commerce Secretary-designate Ronald H. Brown.

But there are also hurdles at that level. After 12 years out of power, there is a long list of politically connected Democrats standing at the head of the line for jobs. And many in the transition see little advantage to installing Republicans who may agree with Clinton on some issues but are likely to disagree on others.

“It is hard for them to meet all of the various criteria,” said one high-ranking transition aide. “And besides, they have the wrong friends.”