Panetta Reassigns Several Top White House Officials : Presidency: Chief of staff avoids any firings. Press Secretary Myers’ job is saved after she lobbies Clinton.

White House Chief of Staff Leon Panetta on Friday announced a long-awaited White House staff reshuffle in which a number of top officials were reassigned, while Press Secretary Dee Dee Myers won the added title of assistant to the President with a daring end run around Panetta.

After 88 days of White House suspense, intrigue, leaks and rumors of rolling heads, Panetta rendered his final verdict on Friday. Yes, he admitted, the Clinton White House had made errors, but he and President Clinton agreed that the solution was not to fire anyone.

Clinton in June replaced former Chief of Staff Thomas F. “Mack the Nice” McLarty with former California congressman and budget director Panetta, whom he gave a broad mandate to clean up the sloppy White House operation.

But when it came time to use the whip hand, Clinton and Panetta appear to have flinched, settling for an organizational shuffle rather than the wholesale house cleaning that many inside and outside the White House had recommended and expected.

And Panetta was undercut by Clinton himself, who responded to Myers’ direct appeal to save her job by creating a more influential role for the first woman White House press secretary.

Many of the players involved in the shuffle are virtually unknown to the public, so much of the speculation before Friday’s announcement centered on Myers.

After weeks of rumors that she would be forced out in an effort to solve Clinton’s perceived communications problems, Myers engaged Thursday night in a bit of last-minute bureaucratic legerdemain to save her job by appealing over Panetta’s head directly to Clinton, who rewarded his loyal aide with greater access, a bigger office and more money. She reportedly threatened to quit if she were demoted, as Panetta was proposing.

Several White House aides said Thursday that Panetta had decided that Myers should be replaced by the chief State Department spokesman, Michael D. McCurry, a veteran of numerous Democratic presidential campaigns and Senate offices.

Panetta denied those reports on Friday, saying that he and the President have “full confidence” in Myers.

Many of the younger staff members at the White House were delighted that the 33-year-old Myers, a hip and sassy Valencia, Calif., native, was not to be replaced by yet another white male.

“This was seen as a huge win for Dee Dee,” one staffer crowed Friday.

However, Myers’ fate may not yet be settled. Officials said her newly enhanced status may be only a temporary face-saving move and that she may depart around the end of the year and be replaced by McCurry or someone else.

Panetta said her job was “permanent as far as the President and I are concerned.”

For his part, McCurry said he was delighted and relieved to be remaining at the State Department, where he said he enjoys “one of the very best jobs in Washington.”

In announcing the changes, Panetta lauded the dedication, hard work and long hours of the White House staff, but said that in addition to some noteworthy achievements, the staff had been responsible for quite a few foul-ups.

Although he didn’t cite any specifics, the chief of staff may have been thinking of the botched travel office firings, the use of a White House helicopter for a golf outing, questionable contacts between the White House and Treasury Department over the Whitewater investigation and several legislative near-disasters.

“It was . . . clear at the time I took this job that additional steps needed to be taken to improve the efficiency and the effectiveness of the White House,” Panetta said Friday.

Panetta promised that the reorganization will bring more “discipline,” better “judgment” and greater “focus” to the Clinton White House.

A chief goal of the staff changes appears to have been to limit access to the Oval Office, which until now has been enjoyed by several senior staffers and longtime Clinton loyalists.

George Stephanopoulos, for example, will no longer be senior adviser to the President but rather executive assistant to the chief of staff, reporting to Panetta rather than Clinton. It was unclear whether his actual duties will change, because his political and policy advice is highly prized by the President.

Bruce Lindsey, a longtime Arkansas friend and former law partner of Clinton’s, has been reassigned from a nebulous adviser’s job to the White House counsel’s office, where he will be a deputy. But nothing will prevent Clinton from picking up the phone to pick Lindsey’s brain, as he does regularly.

Most other White House aides will likewise find their chain of command altered by Panetta, reporting to him through one of two deputies. Harold M. Ickes, currently deputy chief of staff, will become deputy chief of staff for policy and political affairs.

The White House officials responsible for political and Cabinet affairs, public and intergovernmental liaison and paperwork flow will report to Ickes.

A new appointee, Erskine Bowles, will move from the directorship of the Small Business Administration to become deputy chief of staff for White House operations. The offices of scheduling, administration and personnel will report to Bowles, as will the new director of Oval Office operations.

Bowles replaces deputy chief of staff Philip Lader, who is taking Bowles’ old job at the SBA.

Mark D. Gearan, formerly director of communications, will become coordinator for communications and strategy, reporting directly to Panetta. He’s yielding his spacious West Wing office to Myers, who becomes a full assistant to the President, a promotion from her previous title of deputy assistant.