Had No Dealings With Failed S&L;, Clinton Says : Presidency: He also distances himself from Whitewater management and asserts he’ll release late ‘70s tax returns.

President Clinton, in a cool and confident defense of his conduct, declared Thursday that he had “nothing to do” with a failed Arkansas thrift institution or with the management of the Whitewater real estate venture that have bedeviled his Administration.

In a nationally televised press conference, Clinton said he will today release his 1977, 1978 and 1979 tax returns to lay to rest questions on the Whitewater affair, and he insisted that the matter had not interfered with his efforts to reform health care and enact anti-crime legislation and other initiatives.

“The American people should know that I and my Administration will not be distracted,” Clinton said.

Clinton acknowledged that the Whitewater affair had begun to erode his popularity among voters but said he was actually surprised that the effect had not been worse.

The press conference came amid a renewed White House effort to dispel accusations that the First Family was holding back information on the murky Whitewater events.

The Clintons are to leave today for a weeklong vacation in Texas and California, and the White House did not want to leave an impression that they were turning their back on the questions that continue to boil up daily about the affair. With his further explanations, the President also hoped to offer more support for Democratic lawmakers who must face their constituents during the spring break that begins today.

Clinton answered questions for 40 minutes in the East Room--the majority of them on the Whitewater matter--and made a clear effort to offer the broadest defense possible to continuing charges and disclosures.

He disavowed any knowledge of the land venture’s management, which he said was handled by his business partner, James B. McDougal. He declared he had no knowledge of any money from McDougal’s Madison Guaranty Savings & Loan flowing into either his Arkansas political campaigns or the Whitewater business accounts--two of the chief allegations in the matter.

In the one new detail, Clinton revised downward his estimate of the amount of money he lost in the venture to build vacation homes in the Ozarks. He said he now believes that he lost roughly $22,000 less than the $68,900 he has claimed for the last two years.

Saying he could shed no light on the continuing reports of abuses and deceptions, he said, “We didn’t keep the books or records. We were essentially passive investors,” Clinton said.

He said that when history judges this affair it will shrink to insignificance next to what he has accomplished in his first year in office.

The President looked at ease and smiled frequently, radiating an appearance intended to demonstrate his avowed confidence that the allegations will be shown to be baseless.

He also tried to forcefully deny allegations, raised again Thursday by Republican Rep. Jim Leach, that the Administration tried to keep federal officials from moving toward a criminal investigation of the savings and loan. “I have had absolutely nothing to do, and would have nothing to do with any attempt to influence an RTC regulatory matter,” Clinton said.

Leach, ranking Republican on the House Banking Committee, released documents showing that an RTC official had met with a regional investigator in Kansas City on whether Whitewater could be found blameless in Madison Guaranty’s losses.

Clinton said Leach had not made accusations about any political appointee of the Administration, and asserted that Leach “may be talking about an internal dispute within the RTC from career Republican appointees, for all I know.” He said the people involved were in government before his Democratic Administration arrived.

Although Clinton offered that he overstated his earlier estimate of his losses from Whitewater, he said he did not think he would be found liable for additional federal income taxes. But he said that if it is determined that he has a tax liability, he will pay it.

The lower figure for losses widens the gap between what Clinton invested and lost in Whitewater and what his supposedly equal partners, James and Susan McDougal, lost. The Clintons estimate McDougal’s loss at about $95,000; McDougal says he sunk more than $150,000 into the failed project.

The Clintons have never explained why the McDougals ate a far greater share of Whitewater’s losses than the Clintons did, even though the two couples were supposed to be 50-50 partners in the deal’s profits or losses.

Clinton said that he changed his estimate of his Whitewater losses after discovering that $20,700 in payments he thought were made on Whitewater loans actually went to help buy a cabin for his mother and stepfather. He said he was reminded of this when proofreading the manuscript of his late mother’s autobiography.

“I noticed that she mentioned there something that I had genuinely forgotten, which is that I helped her to purchase the property and what was then a cabin on the place that she and her husband, Dick Kelly, lived back in 1981, and that I was a co-owner of that property with her for just a few months,” Clinton said. “After they married, he bought my interest out.”

He said that he made an additional $1,500 payment for the Kelley property that he had earlier attributed to Whitewater losses. That sum has been subtracted from his previous estimate of losses from the land deal, as well.

Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.) immediately said Clinton had been “credible” and had “helped himself” with his remarks.

Clinton said he expected special counsel Robert B. Fiske Jr. to question both him and his wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton, about their investments, and he promised they would “cooperate with him in any way he decides is appropriate.”

Clinton also said he would cooperate with congressional hearings, and did not rule out the possibility that he would testify in Congress on the issue.

Clinton held back-to-back news conferences during office hours two weeks ago, and Hillary Rodham Clinton has also fielded questions on the matter this month, though her responses dealt with her feelings about the matter rather than details of the family’s actions.

Aides have indicated that they would not be unhappy if Thursday’s press conference left an impression that while the press was preoccupied with Whitewater, the President was eager to get on with the people’s business.

But as Whitewater related events have continued to bubble each day in Washington, Clinton clearly faces a deepening public relations challenge.

An ABC News-Washington Post poll indicated Clinton’s job approval rating has slipped 11 points in less than a month and fallen below 50% for the first time this year. A new poll from the Time Mirror Center for the People & the Press found 67% holding the view that the Clintons were guilty of some wrongdoing.

Clinton defended his initial investment in Whitewater as “perfectly honorable . . . perfectly legal.”

“I don’t think that we did anything wrong in that at all, and I think we handled it in an appropriate way,” the President said. “We were like a lot of people; we invested money and we lost.”

And he staunchly defended his wife’s role as a lawyer for the failed thrift when it was seeking state approval of sell preferred stock to shore up its shaky capital position. He cited a New York University law professor as calling Mrs. Clinton’s representation of Madison Guaranty within the bounds of legal ethics.

Clinton noted that Mrs. Clinton took no money from her law firm for work done with the state of Arkansas, saying she “wanted to bend over backward to avoid the appearance of conflict” of interest.

Clinton bristled and rose to his wife’s defense when asked whether the Whitewater affair had eroded his wife’s moral authority to speak for the Administration on health care reform and other issues.

“People should not be able to raise questions and erode people’s moral authority in this country. There ought to have to be evidence and proof,” Clinton said.

He said that in her 20 years of practicing law, her ethics and ability have never before been questioned.