Mikva, ‘Out of Gas,’ to Resign as White House Counsel : Administration: Source says he was also out of the policy loop, on the opposite side of key decisions. He was on the job for less than a year.

Abner J. Mikva will resign as White House counsel after less than a year in the job, making him the third lawyer to surrender leadership of the legal office during the 2 1/2-year-old Clinton Administration.

Mikva, former chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington and a former Illinois congressman, said that he had not appreciated the workload of a job that has involved him in the Whitewater controversy, selection of federal judges and Administration personnel and other politically charged matters.

“I underestimated how enervating this job is,” Mikva said in an interview. “It uses up energy in 12- to 14-hour days, six or seven days a week. I’m running out of gas.”

He will depart officially Nov. 1, to be replaced by Jack Quinn, chief of staff to Vice President Al Gore.

In a statement, President Clinton praised Mikva’s “special combination of legal acumen, wise judgment and uncompromising integrity” and called him a “caring, passionate and devoted public servant.”

Mikva, 69, said he originally told Clinton that he would stay until the end of his first term, but amended that in mid-July, telling the President that he wanted to leave sooner. He agreed to remain until congressional hearings ended this summer on the Clintons’ Whitewater real estate deal and related matters and a replacement had been found.

Mikva said that he will now retire, though he plans to write and do some teaching, including a short stint at Stanford University that already has been scheduled.

Bernard Nussbaum, the first Administration White House counsel, resigned the office amid criticism that he had been politically tone-deaf in handling aspects of Whitewater and the aftermath of the July, 1993, suicide of his former deputy, Vincent Foster. Clinton then turned temporarily to Lloyd N. Cutler, an Establishment pillar who ran the office with the title of special counsel to the President.

One source close to the Administration portrayed Mikva’s departure as the result of his weariness, combined with a decline in his influence in senior Administration policy-making councils.

This source said that the former judge had found himself on the opposite side of other officials on several key issues. He argued against those who thought the Administration should be looking for a compromise on tort reform and was overruled by Clinton when he advised against supporting efforts to reform habeas corpus rules, this source said.

“He wasn’t showing an ability to deal with the reality of the new Republican majority in Congress,” this source said.

Also diminishing his influence was the fact that Mikva had chosen to delegate key responsibilities in the Whitewater matter to subordinates, he added.

As a five-term congressman representing parts of Chicago and its suburbs, Mikva earned a reputation as a champion of the liberal wing of his party.

But in the interview, he said he was always comfortable with Clinton, even as the President moved to the right after the 1994 midterm election.

“I was very pleased and enthusiastic about [Clinton’s] initiatives, from welfare to taxes to domestic policy overall,” he said. “I didn’t feel like a voice in the wilderness.” But Mikva acknowledged that he was not always on the winning side of policy discussions in the White House.

Immediately before taking the White House job, Mikva was chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. The appeals court has a substantial slice of cases involving the government and has been called the nation’s second most important court.

Quinn, 45, has been a top adviser to Gore, and also has been in on top White House meetings on a variety of subjects. He has wide contacts, including on Capitol Hill.