Starting Monday, Abner Mikva leaves behind what he describes as the "very orderly life of a judge" to plunge into the chaotic, pressure cooker role of White House counsel.
"It's very, very daunting," says the 68-year-old federal appeals judge, who will be at the White House part time for the next week or so, easing into the job as Lloyd Cutler phases out.
As if continuing the Whitewater cleanup were not enough, Mikva heads into a White House that is on a war footing and scrambling to articulate a legal justification for invading Haiti without a congressional declaration of war.
But one reason Mikva was picked was that as a former Illinois congressman and a federal judge for 15 years, there are few issues he'll be hit with that will come as a surprise - including the war powers issue.
And as a congressman in 1973, Mikva recalled, "I was very much pushing for" the War Powers Resolution, which sought to compel presidents to consult with Congress when committing troops overseas.
But that doesn't mean Mikva now disagrees with the White House's contention that congressional approval is not needed to invade Haiti.
"I'm not in the loop" on the war issue yet, he says, so he hasn't rendered an opinion on Haiti.
What if Mikva did have an opinion that differed from those of the president and his advisers?
Mikva sees no problem.
"The president didn't hire me to be his pollster or political adviser," says Mikva. "My role, always, is to give him the best legal and constitutional advice I can give him. . . .
"He is the president. Nobody elected me to anything," he says. "My role is not to second-guess him."
Mikva also sees no irreconcilable tension in the job of White House counsel. After Clinton's first counsel Bernard Nussbaum resigned, some commentators said the position was untenable because it serves twin masters - the president and the presidency.
"The White House counsel is not the president's private lawyer," says Mikva. "He has an institutional obligation. It's not altogether different than the kind of responsibility a lawyer has to a corporation."
Mikva has pledged two years to Clinton, and he seems confident that Whitewater will drop off his to-do list before then. "I'm hoping it will not be there for long." Mikva says he is confident that Whitewater independent counsel Kenneth Starr, a one-time colleague on the federal appeals court, will conduct a fair probe.
"We'll do whatever needs to be done" to resolve the situation, Mikva says.
So far, Mikva says he has seen nothing sinister in the White House handling of Whitewater or the aftermath of the suicide of deputy counsel Vincent Foster.
"People out there always look for conspiracies," he says. "I've learned from all my years here that most of the things that happen are much more coincidental."
Mikva won't criticize what went on at the White House before Cutler arrived. But as a general rule, he says, the youthful enthusiasm of any new president's staff can be a "strength and a weakness."
"You need young blood," he says. "If all the decisions were made by us graybeards, nothing would get done."
But he adds, "The more I've been around this town, the more I've learned that experience does make a difference."
