Clinton Ends Vacation With Golf, Meetings

President Clinton wound up the longest vacation of his White House tenure on Wednesday, staving off his return to work one more day with two final rounds of golf and a last wistful look at the towering serenity of the Grand Tetons.

The notoriously workaholic President surprised some of his own aides this year by indulging wholeheartedly in his 17-day vacation and resisting all temptations to cut it short.

But Clinton’s leisure--which included camping, horseback riding, whitewater rafting and an estimated 171 holes of golf--had a serious purpose, aides said: to recharge his batteries before he plunges into his reelection campaign.

Despite earnest attempts to be lazy, however, by the end of his vacation the President was already succumbing to the siren temptations of work. He met with a delegation of ranchers to talk about the management of federally owned grazing lands, an issue that blew up in 1992 when Clinton’s new Administration briefly attempted to increase grazing fees and was accused of waging a “war on the West.”

He took part in a long political lunch with a group of sympathetic oil and gas executives led by Truman Arnold of Texarkana, Tex., who headed the Clinton campaign’s energy advisory committee in 1992.

And he read briefing papers for his stay in Hawaii this weekend for ceremonies celebrating the 50th anniversary of the victory over Japan in World War II.