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Time - Man of the Year
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1993-04-08
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THE WEEKNATION, Page 18Above the Fray
The White House wasn't involved in the passport scandal . . .
technically
Chief of Staff James Baker may not have "orchestrated" the
fishing trip made by State Department officials through Bill
Clinton's confidential passport records four weeks before the
election. But he knew about it, as did his political aide Janet
Mullins, says a report by Sherman Funk, the department's
inspector general. And neither did anything to stop it.
The dirty tricks began in September, when Bush partisans,
including White House aides, began circulating unsubstantiated
rumors that Clinton had contemplated renouncing his citizenship
to avoid the draft during the Vietnam War. Funk found no
"conspiracy" to damage Clinton. But he said Steven Berry, the
department's Acting Assistant Secretary for Legislative Affairs,
coached Republican Congressman Gerald B. Solomon on how to word
a Sept. 29 letter that would provide State with a fig leaf of
official justification for a search of Clinton's files. The next
day Elizabeth Tamposi, Assistant Secretary for Consular
Affairs, seized on Solomon's "request" and a handful of press
inquiries to justify a rushed two-day hunt through 10 sets of
confidential records in Washington, London and Oslo. Funk's
report makes clear that Mullins informed Baker of the searches
on or around Oct. 1. When the searches proved futile, Tamposi
and her colleagues suggested Clinton's files had been "tampered
with" -- a claim that took the FBI seven days to dismiss. But
those were seven days in which Clinton had to endure a new round
of stories speculating on his character and his patriotism --
just what the White House wanted in the first place.
Tamposi lost her job, and is back home in New Hampshire.
As he released the 100-page report on the affair, a visibly
agitated Acting Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger
anguished, "Our reputation has been tarnished," and disclosed
that Bush had rejected his offer to resign. Baker, ever the
master of fingerprint-free hardball tactics, stayed out of
sight.