Justice Dept. Nominee Qutting Little Rock Club : Ethics: Hubbell is a longtime friend of Clinton’s. Three White House officials also say they are resigning due to perception of insensitivity.

Webster L. Hubbell, longtime friend of President Clinton and his nominee to be associate attorney general, and three White House officials said Wednesday they are resigning from the nearly all-white Country Club of Little Rock to avoid perceptions that they lack sensitivity.

Hubbell is stepping down even though most members of the Senate Judiciary Committee appeared satisfied Wednesday that he had acted to integrate the club. He offered his resignation after Sen. Carol Moseley-Braun (D-Ill.) signaled she would vote against him if he didn’t quit, Administration and Senate sources said.

The White House officials--Chief of Staff Thomas F. (Mack) McLarty; Vince Foster, deputy counsel to the President; and William Kennedy, an associate counsel, also are resigning from their hometown club, said Ricki Seidman, White House deputy director of communications.

“Mack has been very involved in efforts to integrate the club” and wrote a letter last year urging club officials to “move quickly to broaden their membership,” she said.

“He felt very proud of his efforts” but decided to resign because “he didn’t want to create a perception of insensitivity,” Seidman said.

The Little Rock club did not respond to a request for comment.

Moseley-Braun, the Senate’s only black member, gave no hint at the committee hearing that she had indicated to Hubbell earlier that she would oppose him unless he left the club. Instead, she praised Hubbell’s decision, saying it was “no admission of guilt” but a “demonstration of his sensitivity.”

Hubbell told committee members he had not disclosed his decision earlier because, “I wanted each of you to have an opportunity to judge my efforts in the past without consideration of my future plans.”

“However, I’ve come to realize that there remains in the minds of some people the perception that my continued membership in the club reflects some lack of sensitivity,” he said.

Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.), committee chairman, told Hubbell he would be “very surprised if you’re not overwhelmingly approved” for the post.

Hubbell decided last week to resign, an Administration source said, but then felt caught between the conflicting views of Moseley-Braun and Sen. Howard M. Metzenbaum (D-Ohio), who contended Hubbell could do more for bringing additional blacks into the club by remaining. “I wish you had opted to remain within the club, where you were a force for change,” Metzenbaum said at the hearing.

In a letter to Biden dated Tuesday, Hubbell noted that he had worked inside the club “to encourage the inclusion of African-Americans in its membership, by approaching individual potential members, by speaking with club officials and by encouraging similar efforts by other members.”

Hubbell said the recruitment last December of Howard Reed, the club’s only black, “marked a significant turning point.” Reed is now a special counsel for finance and investment policy in the office of U.S. Trade Representative Mickey Kantor.

In 1990, the Senate committee passed a resolution declaring that it was inappropriate for nominees to belong to clubs where business is conducted that discriminate intentionally on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, disability or national origin.

But the committee made an exception for individuals “who are actively engaged in bona fide efforts to eliminate the discriminatory practices.” Several Democratic and Republican members said Hubbell’s activities clearly satisfied the exception.

Times staff writer David Lauter contributed to this story.