President’s New Strategy of Public Dialogue Poses Risks

Seeking to convey the clearest possible contrast with the hunkered-down, closed-in White Houses of scandals past, President Clinton has embarked on a potentially risky strategy of public exposure--clearly demonstrated Tuesday in one of the longest press conferences of his tenure.

With his new White House counsel, Lloyd N. Cutler, standing by his side, Clinton responded to questions in the White House briefing room for about 45 minutes, remaining relaxed and smiling and avoiding the sort of testy defensiveness that has often marked his public question-and-answer sessions.

The display marked a sharp contrast with the approach the White House has taken on the Whitewater controversy in the past, which generally has been to try to keep Clinton from answering questions.

Asked if the back-to-back press conferences of the last two days stemmed from a change in strategy, one senior aide said: “Yes, absolutely.”

“The President today stayed and answered every single question,” the aide said. “This is the President’s strong feeling, that we have nothing to hide and should show that. That’s what happened today and I hope you’ll see more of it.”

Not everyone in the White House agreed.

Officials originally scheduled Clinton to appear in the White House briefing room, where he would meet with the roughly 200 members of the White House press corps. They then changed plans to have the President make the announcement before a small number of reporters in the more controlled environment of the Roosevelt Room. In the end, however, they reverted to the earlier schedule and put Clinton before the larger group.

Those who have doubts about the new approach could point to one clear potential downside--someone answering dozens of questions on a complicated matter is almost certain to provide new information that leads to new questions.

Monday, for example, Clinton revealed that in October, before the matter became public, he was informed that the Resolution Trust Corp., a subsidiary of the Treasury Department, had made a criminal referral to the Justice Department in a matter related to Whitewater. Contacts between the White House and Treasury have been the center of the renewed controversy in the last two weeks and Clinton’s words quickly were treated as a new revelation that triggered headlines Tuesday.

Despite that risk, a majority of White House aides and advisers hope for a more important payoff--a public perception that Clinton wants to clear the air. As he said repeatedly: “I’m cooperating. I’m not doing what some people have done in the past. I am cooperating. I’m being open.”

Indeed, in case people were not getting the message, Clinton repeated words to that effect six times during the press conference.

“We’re open, not closed; there’s no bunker mentality,” he said at one point.

“You have to understand, I am very relaxed about this,” he said at another. “I did not do anything wrong. There is nothing here.”

Afterward, in a White House staff meeting, Clinton repeated his message, telling aides that--if they had made any mistakes--they should “own up.”

Clinton entertained the staff with a children’s story he said he had once read to Chelsea, the point of which was that sometimes bystanders can unintentionally become participants. Aides quickly retold the story to reporters.

The purpose of all those moves was to try to distinguish this White House from the one so many Americans remember--the grim memory of Richard Nixon avoiding reporters and hunkering down in a White House that by all accounts was very much besieged during the Watergate scandal. With polls showing that the vast majority of Americans are still quite unsure of what to make of Whitewater, Clinton’s advisers believe that the image they convey is important to what Americans come to believe about the matter.

Another set of images Clinton’s advisers would like to avoid are those from Clinton’s own presidential campaign, when he often appeared beleaguered, surrounded by mobs of reporters and often ill-at-ease in responding to questions. The campaign appearances gave many Americans an unfavorable image of Clinton that his advisers would like to avoid now.

This time, by contrast, Clinton’s demeanor backed up his words about openness. Clinton maintained a relaxed smile throughout, guaranteeing that Americans tuning in their nightly television news programs would see him as the very picture of calm.

Times political writer Ronald Brownstein contributed to this story.