Mrs. Clinton Behind Travel Office Firings, Memo Says

After meeting with Hollywood producer Harry Thomason, Hillary Rodham Clinton became the driving force behind the firing of White House travel office employees, according to a newly released draft memo by a former presidential aide.

The nine-page memo by David Watkins reveals that he was told repeatedly by White House officials--and once by Mrs. Clinton--in early 1993 that the travel office staff should be dismissed immediately and replaced with a Little Rock, Ark., travel agency.

“We . . . knew that there would be hell to pay if . . . we failed to take swift and decisive action in conformity with the first lady’s wishes,” states Watkins’ memo, which is marked “Privileged And Confidential.”

Then Deputy White House Counsel Vincent Foster “regularly informed me that the first lady was concerned and desired action--the action desired was the firing of the travel office staff,” Watkins’ memo adds.

Written in the fall of 1993, months after the travel office controversy erupted, Watkins’ bluntly worded memo states that this “is my first attempt to be sure the record is straight, something I have not done in previous conversations with investigators.”

When talking with investigators, “I have been as protective and vague as possible,” Watkins says in the memo.

The undated memo is not addressed to anyone, but it appears to be written for Watkins’ boss at the time of the travel office controversy, then-White House Chief of Staff Thomas “Mack” McLarty.

While never describing the events with such candor to investigators, Watkins in the past has disclosed a conversation with Mrs. Clinton, saying she urged action to get “our people” into the travel office.

“The first lady’s concern about financial mismanagement in the travel office--a concern that in the end proved fully justified--has already been well-documented,” White House spokesman Mark Fabiani said Wednesday night.

The document says that “the first lady took interest in having the travel office situation resolved quickly, following Harry Thomason’s bringing it to her attention.”

“Thomason briefed the first lady on his suspicion that the travel office was improperly funneling business to a single charter company, and told her that the functions of that office could be easily replaced and reallocated,” the memo says.

In a conversation with Mrs. Clinton, Watkins says she “mentioned that Thomason had explained how the travel office could be run after removing the current staff--that plan included bringing in World Wide Travel” of Little Rock “to handle the basic travel functions.”

Thomason and a business partner, Darnell Martens, owned an aviation consulting company, which Thomason touted to President Clinton.

Watkins’ memo is among the documents the White House is producing to the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee, which is investigating the travel office controversy, which erupted on May 19, 1993, when the White House said that it was firing all seven employees in the office because of poor management.