WASHINGTON INSIGHT

BYE-BYE DEE DEE: The long-rumored departure of presidential Press Secretary Dee Dee Myers is now “a virtual certainty,” according to a senior White House official. Myers was expected to lose the post in a White House shake-up after Labor Day, but made a last-minute personal plea to President Clinton and was allowed to keep the post. Myers is now expected to leave by the end of the year and be replaced by Michael McCurry, the State Department’s chief mouthpiece. If McCurry should turn down the White House podium, former Gary Hart press secretary Kevin Sweeney is a candidate for the post. Myers is weighing a number of lucrative career moves, including television, the entertainment industry and public relations.

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TRADE TURNOVER: The small office of the U.S. trade representative has enjoyed perhaps its most successful two years ever. But in the midst of the Clinton Administration’s effort to open more foreign markets to U.S. products, the team that has been at the center of the effort, led by U.S. Trade Representative Mickey Kantor, is undergoing a major turnover. Kantor’s deputy, Rufus Yerxa, who played a crucial role in the completion of the North American Free Trade Agreement and in the end game of the seven-year negotiation of the redrawn General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, is about to head off to the private sector. So too is Thomas Nides, Kantor’s chief of staff. And there is much speculation about Kantor’s future. The Los Angeles lawyer who was chairman of Clinton’s presidential campaign is a likely candidate to play a major part in the President’s reelection drive.

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MARION COME LATELY: As Wall Street weighs whether to loan the District of Columbia $250 million so that the financially strapped city can pay its bills, municipal officials are hoping punctuality isn’t among the criteria. It seems Mayor-elect Marion Barry didn’t make it to the airport in time for the 6:45 a.m. shuttle to New York for the meeting on Tuesday, according to the Washington Post. District Council Chairman David Clarke, whom Barry was to accompany to the meeting, was on board the flight and went ahead without him. Barry caught a 7 a.m. shuttle, but it landed at a different La Guardia Airport terminal. So Clarke hopped a cab to that terminal in an attempt to meet up with the incoming mayor, but Barry had the same idea. Their cabs passed in the frosty morning air. The meeting began 20 minutes late.

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TRAITOR SALE: Spy-lovers, ghouls and just plain bargain-hunters are expected for an auction today of clothing and other personal belongings once owned by convicted turncoats Aldrich H. Ames and his wife, Rosario. Perhaps the General Services Administration will find more buyers for the couple’s clothing and stereo equipment than it has had for their half-million-dollar home, which is still on the market. Aldrich Ames, perhaps the most damaging traitor in CIA history, was convicted earlier this year of selling secrets that obliterated the U.S. spy network in the former Soviet Union and led to the deaths of at least 10 agents. He is serving a life sentence in prison, and Rosario Ames, who played a minor role in the affair, was given a term of about five years. At an auction of the Ameses’ jewelry collection earlier this month, the government took in $30,000 as bidders snapped up items that included Tiffany boxes, a Lalique glass fish, a Cartier watch--and a chain adorned with a pendant featuring a red-eyed Russian bear.