WASHINGTON INSIGHT

SUBDUING CONGRESS: Hillary Rodham Clinton was basking in relief Monday that hostilities with Haiti had been averted at the last moment--with her husband recalling an invasion force of 82nd Airborne paratroopers who had been en route to the Caribbean when the deal with Haitian military leaders was struck. . . . In a chance White House hallway encounter, Mrs. Clinton was asked whether the Haiti “victory” would carry over into her efforts to get a health care reform bill through Congress. She noted that time was running out in the current legislative session, then said wistfully, “I wish I had the 82nd Airborne to send up to Capitol Hill.”

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NO APPEAL: The appointment of former Solicitor General Kenneth W. Starr to investigate the Whitewater affair apparently will not be challenged after all by Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.). Levin had argued that Starr, an active Republican, should not have been picked by a special three-judge panel because he was too partisan. . . . But the senator has since decided he won’t quarrel with the appointment. Instead, he will ask the Senate to amend the law governing independent counsels so that the court must select appointees who have no actual or apparent conflict of interest--on political, personal or financial grounds.

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STRATEGIC DELAY: The Pentagon, ever sensitive to the politics of defense spending, has quietly postponed until after the November elections any decisions on its proposal to curtail or cancel 10 major weapons programs. Deputy Defense Secretary John M. Deutch disclosed the move to the Senate Armed Services Committee after senators whose states house large defense contractors criticized the Pentagon’s possible cuts. Deutch also said the cuts would not even be proposed formally until January, when the fiscal 1996 budget is sent to Congress and that some of the cutbacks wouldn’t have any real impact until the end of the decade. . . . Military officials have been grumbling since Deutch issued a memo in August ordering them to submit proposals for revising the 10 programs--and replacing them with less-expensive alternatives. The list included the Army’s Comanche helicopter; the Air Force’s joint primary aircraft training system and a new precision-guided missile system; the Navy’s new attack submarine and the Marine Corps’ V-22 Osprey helicopter, and an advanced amphibious assault vehicle. Pentagon officials aren’t saying how many of the programs actually might be axed.

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NOVEL TRUTH: Much has been written about the array of three-ring notebooks in the office of Ira Magaziner, who played a leading role in designing President Clinton’s massive and complex health care reform plan. Those notebooks, the senior presidential adviser has boasted, held “all the answers” that any skeptic could pose about Clinton’s 1,342-page plan. In retrospect, however, some Washington wags note that another book on Magaziner’s shelves perhaps more accurately describes the Administration’s now-stalled quest to overhaul the health care system: a medical thriller by Robin Cook titled “Fatal Cure.”

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WORRIED WHITES: The Central Intelligence Agency, responding to concerns over actions taken to correct under-representation of women and minorities in important posts, has formed a study group to look at the spy agency’s “worried white male,” CIA Director R. James Woolsey disclosed at a hearing this week. Rep. Julian C. Dixon (D-Los Angeles) wondered if it constituted “a support group.” Woolsey replied, “Not yet.”