3 Reportedly on Final List for Job of Atty. General

President Clinton has narrowed his list of attorney general candidates to three--federal judge Kimba M. Wood, Washington lawyer Charles F. C. Ruff and former Virginia governor Gerald L. Baliles, government sources said Wednesday.

While Clinton hopes to make his final decision by the end of the week, the need for routine preliminary FBI background checks could delay an announcement until sometime next week, the sources said.

All three candidates offer Clinton an opportunity to choose respected legal minds with seemingly unimpeachable records and considerable experience in the kinds of matters that come before the Justice Department.

However, only the appointment of Wood is likely to satisfy women’s groups, who have criticized the President for, in their view, having too few women in his Cabinet. His original choice for the job, Zoe Baird, withdrew her nomination amid sharp criticism for having hired undocumented immigrants as household workers, a violation of federal law. Baird, general counsel of Aetna Life & Casualty Co., also drew some criticism because most of her legal experience involved corporate matters.

A number of other women, including several judges, are known to have been interviewed for the job by Clinton or his aides. Among them were Rya Zobel, a highly regarded federal judge in Boston, and Andrea Ordin, the former U.S. attorney in Los Angeles during the Jimmy Carter Administration and head of a major division of the California Justice Department under former Atty. Gen. John K. Van de Kamp. Ordin has asked that her name be withdrawn from consideration for the top position but expressed interest in another senior Justice Department post.

Wood came to public attention--and generated some controversy--in the sentencing of former junk bond king Michael Milken in 1990. Initially, Wood, who presided over the case in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, sentenced Milken to 10 years in prison, by far the harshest sentence imposed in a chain of Wall Street scandals during the late 1980s.

In meting out the heavy sentence, Wood declared it would make an example of Milken, who had pleaded guilty to six felony securities law violations.

Later, however, Wood reduced the sentence to two years, saying she had done so because of Milken’s “cooperation” with federal prosecutors. Critics opposed the move, contending that his cooperation actually had been minimal. Milken has since been released to a halfway house in Hollywood.

Wood, 49, and a Democrat, was appointed to the bench by President Ronald Reagan in 1988. She is a graduate of Harvard Law School and specialized in antitrust law at the New York firm of LeBoeuf, Lamb, Leiby & MacRae before being appointed to the bench.

Ruff, 53, a widely respected attorney and now a partner at Covington & Burling in Washington, had been expected to become deputy attorney general had Baird been confirmed.

He has honed his legal skills on numerous high-profile cases. As a Justice Department trial lawyer in the early days of his career, he was the chief prosecutor in the illegal campaign contribution case of former United Mine Workers President W.A. (Tony) Boyle.

As a U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia from 1979 to 1982, he supervised the prosecutions of members of Congress involved in the Abscam bribery investigation. And from 1975 to 1977, he served as the fourth and final prosecutor in the Watergate scandal of the Richard M. Nixon Administration.

Recently, as a private defense attorney, he has represented several well-known public figures, including Democratic Sen. John Glenn of Ohio in the so-called “Keating Five” case and Democratic Sen. Charles S. Robb of Virginia on illegal wiretapping charges stemming from his dispute with Virginia Gov. L. Douglas Wilder. In addition, he represented the Exxon Corp. in the Exxon Valdez oil spill and Unisys Corp. in the Pentagon procurement scandal known as Ill Wind.

Ruff is confined to a wheelchair as a result of a viral infection he contracted while with the Peace Corps in Africa.

During a stint at the Justice Department in the Carter Administration he served as a top aide to Deputy Atty. Gen. Benjamin R. Civiletti. He also was deputy inspector general at what was then the Department of Health, Education and Welfare.

Baliles, 52, is an attorney specializing in international law at the Richmond-based firm of Hunton & Williams. Before being elected governor in 1985, he served a four-year term as attorney general of Virginia.

The first in a series of Virginia governors considered to be progressive Southerners, he was a supporter of abortion rights and attempted, unsuccessfully, to persuade Virginia Military Institute to change its male-only admissions practice.

Baliles was an early backer of ex-Arkansas Gov. Clinton. The two became friends during their tenures as governor. He is a graduate of the University of Virginia Law School.

CAMPAIGN REFORM MEETING: Clinton goes over possible changes with Democrats. A14