Key Clinton Strategist Quits Amid Controversy

Dick Morris, the controversial on-again, off-again Democratic strategist who inspired President Clinton to adopt a more moderate, family-values message, resigned abruptly Thursday in response to reports he had shared campaign secrets with a $200-an-hour prostitute.

Even though many Democrats resented Morris’ influence over the president, they were nevertheless distressed that the resignation would overshadow the final night of the Democratic National Convention and detract from an otherwise successful effort to capture favorable publicity.

The president issued a statement describing his departed aide as a friend and saying that he was grateful for the help Morris had given him.

Morris quickly checked out of his room at the convention headquarters hotel and left town. He refused to discuss the story, saying only that he was resigning to save his family from “the sadistic vitriol of yellow journalism. I will not dignify such journalism with a reply or an answer. I never will.”

White House officials made clear that they were not denying the account of Morris’ activities in the tabloid weekly Star. The paper’s story was buttressed not only with the statements of the woman involved, who was paid by the paper, but also with a picture of a check Morris had signed over to her.

Asked about whether the story was true, White House Press Secretary Mike McCurry said that when he talked to Morris, he had deliberately avoided asking him that question. “I very carefully said--focused my conversation on him, on how he wanted to proceed, and what he was going to do,” McCurry said. “I did not want to be in a position to respond on his behalf as to the specific allegations.

“I don’t make any judgment as to the truth or untruth of the specific allegations.”

According to the Star, Morris, who is married, had carried on a yearlong affair with Sherry Rowlands, a high-priced call girl, and had permitted her to listen in on his telephone conversations with Clinton and had recently showed her a confidential draft of First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton’s convention speech.

The story immediately became the talk of the convention.

“Everyone’s terribly upset about the timing,” said Bob Bloom, 60, of Mesa, Ariz., echoing the sentiments of many delegates here.

Glee on Other Side

Bob Dole, the Republican presidential nominee, predicted that Morris’ departure would hasten Clinton’s shift back to the left. “Morris has been trying to make President Clinton a Republican, now maybe he’ll revert to the liberal Democrat that he really is,” Dole told reporters in Santa Barbara, where he had been vacationing.

“It says something about who you surround yourself with, doesn’t it,” Dole told a supporter after a rally later Thursday in San Luis Obispo, then stopped talking after noticing a microphone.

Officially, Republicans tried to maintain a hands-off posture. Privately, however, Dole’s advisors were as gleeful as Clinton’s were upset.

“Character and integrity will certainly be issues in this campaign, but we are not drawing any direct connections [to Morris]. Voters will draw their own conclusions,” said a senior GOP campaign aide.

Clinton aides familiar with Morris’ stormy relationship with the president and the first lady over the last 20 years were not surprised that he had caused Clinton public embarrassment at a crucial point in his career.

Morris’ defenders--let alone his critics--describe him as manipulative, self-absorbed and an opportunist who had no compunction about switching back and forth between the Democratic and Republican parties. Morris has worked for liberal Democrats and for such Republicans as Sens. Jesse Helms of North Carolina and Trent Lott of Mississippi.

An Oz Figure

Until recently, Morris’ role in the Clinton campaign was not widely known to the general public. But a cover story in Time magazine earlier this week titled “The Man Who Has Clinton’s Ear,” served to reinforce a growing view among Democrats that he was a sort of Wizard of Oz figure--pulling levers from behind the scenes.

White House officials concede Morris has had a remarkable impact on Clinton’s political message. He is the author of what political analyst Kevin Phillips calls “the $48 programs”--small initiatives, such as Clinton’s advocacy of school uniforms, that cost the government little or nothing but appeal to American parents concerned about raising their children in a difficult world.

But officials insist that Morris’ influence has been exaggerated. They note that Clinton’s victory in last December’s budget fight came after the president rejected Morris’ advice that he compromise with Republicans. In addition, Clinton is known to have rejected Morris’ more recent proposal to make a broad capital-gains tax cut a centerpiece of the campaign.

Earlier this week, Democratic sources said that party leaders had rebuffed Morris’ efforts to persuade Democrats to attack Dole in key convention speeches, such as those delivered by the first lady, Vice President Al Gore and party Chairman Christopher J. Dodd.

Dodd not only rejected Morris’ advice, but used his speech to announce that Democrats would avoid negative campaigning during the fall campaign. These events were widely interpreted, both inside and outside the White House, as evidence that Morris’ influence on Clinton was declining.

Morris has many enemies within the Democratic Party, particularly Deputy White House Chief of Staff Harold M. Ickes, an old-line liberal who often opposed the direction that Morris was recommending to the president. The feud dates back to the 1960s, when the two young college students, both up and coming politicians, struggled for control of the Democratic Party on the West Side of New York City.

In 1977, Morris, apparently in search of clients for his political advice, visited then-Atty. Gen. Bill Clinton in Little Rock, Ark., and the two men became fast friends.

As Morris recalled it in a 1992 Times interview, it was a picture of a scantily-clad Dolly Parton taped inside Clinton’s office bathroom that convinced him that the two men had common interests.

But the relations were not always friendly, and there were stories that the pair once even came to blows--something Clinton denied.

Morris later began counseling Republican candidates and offered savage assessments of Clinton and his vulnerabilities. Morris and Clinton rekindled their association after the 1994 Republican midterm victories left the president casting for a new strategy.

Paid for Her Story

During the campaign, Morris has been living at the Jefferson Hotel in Washington, using an office in the White House, and commuting home on weekends to Connecticut, where he lives with his wife, lawyer Eileen McCann. The Star reported that Rowlands and Morris first met after she was dispatched to his hotel room by the escort service for which she worked.

Rowlands reportedly took her story to the Star in July, providing the tabloid with diaries and photographs to corroborate her story.

In Washington, an employee of the Jefferson said Morris often stayed in Room No. 205, a $440-a-night, nonsmoking suite overlooking 16th Street, about four blocks north of the White House.

“It’s a small hotel,” the employee said. “We know all of our guests’ histories very well. He used to come here with his wife. We were surprised.”

Times staff writers Judy Pasternak in Chicago, Faye Fiore in Washington, Kenneth R. Weiss in Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo, and William C. Rempel in Los Angeles contributed to this story.

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Political Gun for Hire

The evolution of Dick Morris’ political consulting career:

* At age 12, he knocks on doors at his Manhattan apartment building to get out the vote for John F. Kennedy. In 1968, he works on the anti-Vietnam War presidential campaign of Minnesota Sen. Eugene J. McCarthy.

* As he carves out his niche in the 1970s, his clients include such Democratic liberal stalwarts as Rep. Bella Abzug of New York and Sen. Howard M. Metzenbaum of Ohio

* In 1977, he meets Arkansas Atty. Gen. Bill Clinton, helps him win the governor’s office in 1978. Once in office, Clinton lets Morris go; two years later, Clinton loses his reelection bid.

* Morris helps Clinton regain the governorship in 1982 while freelancing for other candidates--increasingly Republicans, including Pete Wilson of California in his winning Senate race that year.

* In the 1988 presidential campaign, Morris vacillates between Democrat Michael S. Dukakis and Republican George Bush, ultimately siding with Bush. His notoriety as a rogue grows, with each party suspecting him of loyalty to the other.

* During a 1990 meeting at the governor’s mansion in Arkansas, Clinton complains that Morris is spending too much time with GOP clients. Morris walks out, leading to a possible physical alteration between the two, though accounts of this incident vary. They remain at odds as Morris is hired by various GOP clients, including conservative Sens. Jesse Helms of North Carolina, Dan Coats of Indiana and Trent Lott of Mississippi.

* After the GOP captures Congress in 1994, he begins secretly advising Clinton, formally joining his staff a few months later. He persuades Clinton to adopt the so-called “triangulation” strategy--separating himself from both Democrats and Republicans in Congress--as well as taking stands on issues that transcend left/right categorization. In the time he’s with the Clinton team, the president’s job approval rating in the Gallup Poll rises from 39% to a recent figure of 52%.

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DICK MORRIS PROFILE

Age: 48

Education: B.A., Columbia University

Residence: West Redding, Conn.

Family: Married to Elleen McGann, a lawyer

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His Clients Have Included . . .

Jesse Helms

Eugene McCarthy

Source: Times staff