Time-Warped Clinton Delays Play

It is no longer surprising when President-elect Bill Clinton is late for a press conference. But on Monday, he took tardiness to a new extreme: He decided to show up late for his own vacation.

With a chartered plane at his disposal, Clinton had planned to fly with his family to Hilton Head, S.C., sometime Monday morning. But he postponed the departure until late afternoon, then early evening and finally decided to put the trip off altogether until today.

Jeff Eller, a Clinton spokesman, said that the President-elect had spent a long day wading through personal effects in preparation for his move to Washington and simply wanted to avoid traveling late at night.

Clinton, along with his wife, Hillary, and daughter, Chelsea, had chosen Hilton Head primarily to participate in the annual “Renaissance Weekend” retreat. The five-day conference will bring together about 515 leaders from business, communications, academics, politics and sports for discussions of public policy.

Those expected to attend with their families this year include at least two other men who once sought the Democratic presidential nomination: North Carolina Sen. Terry Sanford and South Carolina Sen. Ernest F. Hollings. The guest list also includes Supreme Court Justice Harry A. Blackmun, former John F. Kennedy adviser Theodore C. Sorensen, Knight Ridder Corp. Chairman James Batten, track star Edwin Moses, humorist Art Buchwald and former Miss America Phyllis George.

Clinton has described his visit as part of a working vacation that is to include time for reviewing option papers summarizing the decisions he must make in a number of key policy areas.

But the trip also is intended to provide Clinton with a hefty dose of golf and sunshine, and its abrupt postponement left even some close aides shaking their heads. It forced the rescheduling of a separate chartered flight for reporters accompanying Clinton on the trip and required cancellation of dozens of hotel rooms set aside for staff and members of the press.

After a month in which tardiness has become a hallmark of the incoming Administration, the episode may at least have made clear that Clinton is as willing to keep himself waiting as he is others.

Since Election Day, the late-arriving Clinton has forced Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist to cool his heels for 45 minutes before a scheduled afternoon tea and required more than 1,000 guests to wait 90 minutes for dinner at an evening gala sponsored by the Democratic Leadership Conference.

Clinton also has turned up for press conferences as much as an hour late, confounding Cable News Network and others planning live broadcasts.

But it was a lesser-known well-wisher who proved the most disappointed Monday morning when Clinton’s dislike of schedules meant postponing his regular early morning jog until late afternoon.

Gail Franz, a Little Rock native who lives in Columbus, Ga., had hoped to present Clinton with a red-white-and-blue quilt, and had been advised by the Secret Service to arrive early at the gates of the Arkansas governor’s mansion if she wanted to hand the gift to him in person. She said that she was making the delivery on behalf of Hubert Bassett, a Columbus man who had donated the heirloom, adorned with emblems representing each of the 50 states, to the town’s Clinton campaign headquarters.

But the President-elect unknowingly left Franz waiting in the cold for more than four hours until she took matters into her own hands and flagged a car that was emerging from the grounds of the mansion.

By chance, the car turned out to be carrying Virginia Kelley, Clinton’s mother, and she proved sympathetic. Gathering the quilt in her arms, she marched back up the driveway to deliver the present herself.