A Vast West Wing Conspiracy at Play?

First the W keys were missing from some computer keyboards. A symbolic flak jacket was missing from the press secretary’s office. And in much of the West Wing, chaos reigned. Welcome to the first couple of days in the Bush White House.

President Bush’s aides now are trying to determine how much of the chaos was the result of pranks, how much was malicious and how much was attributable to a hasty weekend renovation.

Presidential Press Secretary Ari Fleischer denied that an investigation is taking place. “What we are doing is cataloging that which took place,” he said.

He would not say exactly what had happened, although rumors abound: graffiti in the lavatories, sliced phones lines, desks stacked in precarious positions, copiers filled with paper displaying unflattering pictures of the new president, file drawers glued shut, telephone faceplates rearranged to confuse new users, obscene voicemail greetings and teasing signs about the new president’s history of mangled pronunciation, such as “Office of Strategerie” and “Office of Subliminable Cyber Space.”

Fleischer would neither confirm nor deny any of this. “I choose not to describe what acts were done that we found upon arrival, because I think that’s part of changing the tone in Washington. I think it would be easy for us to reflect and to discuss these things and to be critical. President Bush chooses to set a different tone.

“The president understands that transitions can be times of difficulty and strong emotion, and he’s going to approach it in that vein.”

One Bush ally who has worked on Republican White House staffs--and has been long critical of former President Clinton--grumbled: “What do you expect from a White House led by a guy who thought it was cool to pull an all-nighter on his last night in office? It’s kind of sophomoric.”

Some desk-stacking was not just related to the cleanup. One former White House aide said that incoming Clinton staffers encountered similar pranks and chaos when they moved in after the administration of President George Bush and simply had tried to replicate it.

The Washington Post reported that in 1993 new Clinton staff members found pencils cut into inch-long pieces, photos of former President Bush laminated to certain desks and notes looming in desk drawers with the message, “We’ll be back.”

New Bush team members drifted into their offices over a three-day period: some Saturday, moments after Bush was inaugurated, more Sunday and a full complement Monday. And while they were arriving, workers were scurrying about to complete a 48-hour make-over of the work space. Desks and chairs were carried from room to room as workers scraped, painted, ripped up and installed carpets, removed hard disks from computers and put in new ones.

For more than a day, it appeared that the flak jacket was gone. It is a garish brocade vest first given by Ron Nessen, Gerald R. Ford’s press secretary, to Jody Powell, his successor under Jimmy Carter, to ward off the flak that reporters often hurl at presidential spokesmen. It has been handed down from spokesman to spokesman ever since.

The General Services Administration official in charge of the West Wing had taken it during the post-Clinton cleanup, not realizing that it was an item of historic value. It was returned.

The departed Clinton staff member said that before removing W keys from White House keyboards, his colleagues experimented with their home computers to make sure they would not damage government property.

He added that when large stacks of blank paper are emptied from high-speed copiers, Bush staffers might find a bumper sticker or two affixed to paper trays proclaiming “Gore 2000.”

Reports that Tipper Gore had called Lynne Cheney to apologize for the condition of the vice president’s office are false, former Vice President Al Gore said in a telephone interview.

Indeed, Gore said, he and his wife had a nice chat with Vice President Dick Cheney and his wife on Inauguration Day, first at the White House and then in the limousine to the Capitol for the swearing-in ceremony, but had not spoken since.

Of the missing W keys, Gore said in a serious tone: “I don’t condone that kind of thing.”