Nation IN BRIEF : WASHINGTON, D.C. : First Lady Phoned Friend About Foster

Shortly after learning of Vincent Foster’s suicide in 1993, Hillary Rodham Clinton telephoned Hollywood producer Harry Thomason, a friend involved in the White House travel office affair that deeply troubled Foster during his final days. Thomason’s lawyer says there was nothing sinister about the call, but the Republican chairman of the Senate Whitewater Committee is questioning why it took the White House more than two years to disclose it. Mrs. Clinton made the call from her mother’s Little Rock, Ark., home. A lawyer for Thomason said the First Lady simply paid a “courtesy call” to inform Thomason of the death of a friend they both knew.