Clinton Names Staff Chief, Looks Ahead on Bosnia

Three days after his election to a second term, President Clinton opened the door Friday to an extended deployment of U.S. troops in Bosnia, a step that he carefully avoided throughout his reelection campaign.

And moving publicly into the business of renewing his administration, the president accepted the resignation of Chief of Staff Leon E. Panetta and announced at a White House news conference that he had chosen Erskine Bowles as Panetta’s replacement.

The length of the Bosnia deployment was not mentioned in public by the president during the closing weeks of his campaign. Indeed, in his discussions of foreign policy matters, he spoke in only the broadest terms, avoiding the difficult details of such arenas of uncertain progress as the Balkans, the Middle East and Russia.

U.S. troops arrived in Bosnia last December to uphold the peace agreement reached a year ago, setting up buffers between the warring Muslims, Croats and Bosnian Serbs. At that time, Clinton and his aides said the deployment would last a year. They said later that some forces would remain until March 1997, to conduct an efficient, phased withdrawal.

“They’ve done their jobs very well,” Clinton said.

Now, he said, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, in which the United States plays a leading role, is considering whether to recommend to its participants a more limited, but extended, operation.

“It is conceivable that we could participate, but it depends upon exactly what the recommendation is,” the president said.

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The hourlong post-election news conference in the White House East Room was the president’s first such extended session with reporters since June 29. In addition to the announcement of Bowles’ appointment, he took time to speak kindly of Republican challenger Bob Dole, said he had been too tired after the election to talk with First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton about what role she will play during the next four years and suggested that--despite his criticism of the Republican-inspired welfare overhaul during the campaign--he does not foresee a major new effort to change the program.

“The welfare reform legislation is law now,” he said, adding that it is time to figure out how to make it “work for the children.”

Throughout the campaign, Clinton sought to ease the concerns of those who said the new welfare system would deprive poor families with children of an extended federal safety net. He had suggested that he would reopen the welfare debate after the election in an attempt to fix any shortcomings.

During the last four years, Bowles, 51, has been head of the Small Business Administration, a Panetta deputy at the White House and, most recently, an investment banker in North Carolina.

The new chief of staff, whose job does not require Senate confirmation, was credited in 1994 with forcing a sense of discipline on the ungainly White House staff. Bowles, who only met Clinton midway through the 1992 campaign, is a relative newcomer to the White House, but one on whom the president has relied as a trouble-shooter and confidant.

“He was one of those most responsible for bringing focus and direction” to the administration, Clinton said of Bowles’ tenure as deputy chief of staff.

Clinton offered effusive praise and a hug for Panetta, the former House member from Carmel Valley who gave up his congressional seat to become the administration’s first budget director and then became chief of staff in 1994.

“He has become my great friend, more than my countryman, more than my fellow Democrat, more even than my fellow worker,” Clinton said. “In the language of his people, he is my paisan.”

Panetta is returning to California, as is Laura D’Andrea Tyson, who as head of the National Economic Council has been one of Clinton’s closest economic advisors.

Clinton also addressed the Middle East conflict during the news conference, saying the next major hurdle for negotiators is that posed by Hebron. The West Bank city is still occupied by Israeli soldiers despite the agreement reached between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization to turn it over to security forces of the Palestinian Authority.

“I think the first and most important thing we can do is to nail the agreement on Hebron,” Clinton said. “If we can clear the Hebron hurdle--it has such emotional significance to both sides, as well as such practical significance--I believe that will open the door to go on and fulfill all the other challenges that are there before us.”

For the 50-year-old president, it was a rare public performance. He joked with reporters whose questions in the past have caused him to take umbrage. He remained unrattled while his honesty was questioned. And he displayed none of the ill effects of the wearing final days of his cross-country campaign.

Vice President Al Gore watched the performance from a front-row seat as Clinton conceded that he had slept in on Thursday, until sometime after the noon hour.

As for Dole, the president said, it is time to give him and his wife, Elizabeth Hanford Dole, “a little space and let them get rested up and think about their lives and what they want to do.”

Then, Clinton said, there would be time to talk about whether there is a government role for the 73-year-old veteran of the Senate and Republican politics, and what that role might be.

“To be fair to him, even though I am standing up here on both feet giving this press conference today, after a campaign like this, you need time to decompress, whether you win or whether you lose,” Clinton said.

The president said he has been thinking about the potential pitfalls of second presidential terms. In recent history, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan each ran into disparate crises in second terms.

To avoid overstepping his mandate or running out of steam, he said, he recognizes that he must “work together with the Republicans [and] have a driving agenda.”

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Profile: Erskine Bowles

Born: Aug. 8, 1945

Hometown: Charlotte, N.C.

Education: University of North Carolina, bachelor’s degree in business, 1967; Columbia University, master’s degree in business administration, 1969.

Career highlights: Worked as an associate for Morgan, Stanley & Co. 1969-72, vice president of Interstate Securities 1973-75. In 1975, founded Bowles Hollowell Conner & Co., a Charlotte-based investment banking firm that specializes in arranging mergers and acquisitions of small to medium-sized companies. Helped arrange Clinton’s 1993 economic summit. Appointed in 1993 to run the Small Business Administration, where he was credited with reducing bureaucracy. In 1994, named White House deputy chief of staff, a position in which he took control of Clinton’s schedule and helped bring order to the White House staff. Returned to Charlotte in 1995 to found Carousel Capital, another investment banking firm.

Interests: Family, golf, college basketball, community service.

Personal: Known to close friends as “Erv.” Son of North Carolina entrepreneur and former state senator Hargrove “Skipper” Bowles. Married to Crandall Close Bowles, whose family founded the Spring Industries textile firm. Three college-age children, Sam, Ann and Bill.