WASHINGTON INSIGHT

VETS UP IN ARMS: A political fireball as hot as the controversy over homosexuals in the military may be White House-bound. Veterans are furious over reports that the Clinton Administration is moving toward lifting the economic embargo on Vietnam. . . . The American Legion is mobilizing its troops and lining up other groups for a massive telephone and letter-writing protest to President Clinton and members of Congress. “This is an unprecedented grass-roots effort for us,” said Phil Budahn, a spokesman for the American Legion, which has 3.1 million members in 16,000 posts. . . . Some officials say easing of the embargo is justified by recent Vietnamese efforts to determine the fate of missing Americans. Business groups are also pushing for access to Vietnamese markets. But many veterans want to keep pressing Vietnam to account for prisoners of war and those missing in action. . . . Warming to the debate ahead, American Legion National Cmdr. Bruce Thiesen wrote Clinton: “It’s ghoulish that American business, in its thirst for making a buck, will be allowed to make the final decision on our POWs.”

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OUT OF THE LOOP: For better or worse, President Clinton likes to be Micro-manager Clinton. So the boss was not pleased when he found out in a newspaper that his Administration was going to require states to pay for abortions for poor women in cases of rape or incest. . . . Clinton previously had said publicly that states would have flexibility on this. But he wasn’t consulted when a unit of the Department of Health and Human Services declared that Medicaid would pay for these abortions no matter what. The ruling conflicted with laws in up to 30 states. Clinton went ballistic when he found out, sources say, but decided not to reverse the policy. But he ordered his aides never to let this sort of thing happen again.

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LESS THAN A HOME RUN: Czech-born Madeleine Albright, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, was trying to persuade skeptical East Europeans to accept Clinton’s offer of association with NATO instead of full membership in the security body. Insisting membership was still in their future, Albright told the officials that “the ball is on the field . . . and it’s up to them now to pick it up and move to score.” But, she said in a PBS interview, she is not sure the analogy worked “because they don’t play football. . . . They’re more into soccer.” Touching the ball with your hands is a foul in soccer. If you pick up the ball, you don’t score; you lose possession.

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WHOSE FAULT?So why was it that Justice Department officials were unconcerned that a New York State Police evidence-tampering scandal might hurt the nomination of the agency’s superintendent, Thomas Constantine, as head of the Drug Enforcement Administration? Partly because it was the Justice Department’s fault that Constantine didn’t get wind of the scandal until a year after it began. It happened like this: A State Police investigator bragged during a CIA employment interview three years ago about faking fingerprints to help solve a crime. The CIA gave the information to the FBI, which relayed it to the Justice Department. But it ended up in the computer of a paralegal who left the department, and it wasn’t uncovered until the employee’s superiors got around to seeing what work had been left behind.

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NAME GAME: Notoriously contaminated with plutonium but trying to clean up, the Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant outside Denver is looking to buff its image with a new name. Probably something environmental--like Green Flats? The Energy Department is soliciting suggestions, which may be faxed to its plant office, 303-936-6633.