All the President's Men

Five years into an Administration sculpted to ``look like America''--where more women have been appointed to senior agency and department posts than at any other time in history--the only woman in Bill Clinton's closest circle of White House advisers is Hillary Rodham Clinton.

The phrase ``all the President's men,'' which was used to describe Richard M. Nixon's team a quarter-century ago, still applies today. At the top of Clinton's male pyramid are Vice President Al Gore and the President's chief of staff, North Carolinian Erskine B. Bowles, the third man to hold the job. The President's senior policy adviser is Rahm Emanuel, who took over where George R. Stephanopoulos left off. Clinton's ever-present aide-de-camp is Arkansas friend and deputy counsel Bruce R. Lindsey. And the President's chief economic adviser is Treasury Secretary Robert E. Rubin.

Ask any woman among the 39 per cent of the White House staff who are female why they think Clinton--a President who preaches diversity and claims to practice it--has not done more to shatter the historical barrier around the Oval Office, and they will tell you they are baffled. Some will offer vague explanations about his comfort level with men and women's newly minted portfolios. And after a brief pause, they will defensively tick off a list of publicly obscure women at the White House whose titles put them just outside the prized circle.

``It is still mostly men,'' concedes White House communications director Ann F. Lewis in an interview, ``but there are quite a few women. This President has made two lifetime choices. The first time, he chose Hillary Rodham. The second time, he chose Al Gore. He's a secure guy who chooses people who are smart and articulate and bring ideas and energy, and that's what he wants in the people he's going to spend most of his time with.''

Lewis, an unabashed feminist who has spruced up her windowless West Wing office with artwork celebrating groundbreaking women, includes herself among a small number of women making inroads at the White House. There are only seven women who hold the prized title of assistant to the President, and Lewis is one of them. In contrast, there are 17 men with the title, and two others with the more senior rank of ``counselor'' to Clinton. Lewis, who was deputy campaign manager handling communications for Clinton-Gore '96 and a former political director for the Democratic National Committee, is surrounded by five male advisers to the President who have overlapping responsibilities within her shop.

The group includes outgoing communications director Donald A. Baer, who is leaving to undertake a variety of private-sector media projects; newly promoted chief speechwriter Michael A. Waldman; journalist-turned-Big Thinker Sidney Blumenthal, who arrives this month; Paul Begala, who managed Clinton's 1992 campaign with James Carville, and will soon become a salaried government employee; and senior adviser Emanuel, who likes to keep his hands in the message department. ``Yes, isn't this interesting?'' Lewis said, when asked about the crowd of Y chromosomes around her. ``It's going to be a challenge.''

Although titles at the White House do not always indicate who has real influence, they suggest who has authority. These days, the woman other than Mrs. Clinton who gets the most prominent attention is 32-year-old deputy chief of staff Sylvia A. Mathews, who is one of Bowles's two deputies. Mathews, a former Rhodes scholar who was Rubin's chief of staff before Bowles stole her away in December, manages many White House operations and is one of just four or five women who attend the Wednesday evening political meetings with Clinton in the White House residence. Her sharp instincts and judgment about a wide variety of issues are tapped by her bosses as well as by her colleagues. The youthful Mathews is only the second woman to hold the deputy chief of staff's job in the Clinton White House; the first, in 1996, was Evelyn S. Lieberman, 53, a former deputy to White House spokesman Michael D. McCurry and former assistant to Hillary Clinton, who left the deputy job after a year at the White House to head the Voice of America.

Also mentioned as important among the ranks of the women is Janet L. Yellen, 50, chairwoman of the President's Council of Economic Advisers. Yellen, whose no-nonsense rhetoric is delivered with a pronounced Brooklyn accent, joined the White House a mere five months ago, after serving for three years as a Clinton appointee to the Federal Reserve Board. Yellen came to the White House as the budget battles were ending, so she had a less central role on the President's economic team than her peers, although the chief of staff made sure she was included in all the decisions. Yellen, who resurrected the weekly economic briefings for the President that had been dropped during last year's campaign, is seen as an important adviser because of her knowledge of economics and her familiarity with the thinking of Fed chairman Alan Greenspan.

Even though economic policy has traditionally been a male preserve, two other women economists preceded Yellen in the Administration: former budget director Alice M. Rivlin (now at the Fed) and Laura D'Andrea Tyson, who was the first female Council of Economic Advisers chair in 1993. Tyson, who had real clout in the first term, took over Clinton's National Economic Council (NEC) when Rubin went to Treasury, but left Washington last year to return to teaching.

Another assistant to the President who is getting good marks is Maria Echaveste, 43, who directs public liaison. Her office functions as the President's eyes and ears to outside interest groups and ``real people.'' Echaveste, a former corporate litigator who came to the West Wing in the second term from the Labor Department's Wage and Hour Division, is in a position of considerable political importance to the President and Gore.

Eschaveste succeeded Alexis Herman, now Labor Secretary. Inside the White House, Herman was seen as a politically savvy aide with a vast network of contacts and connections. The President, in particular, relied heavily on her political weather vane. Echaveste's colleagues think she is successfully picking up where her predecessor left off.

Cheryl D. Mills, deputy counsel to the President, is applauded by many current and former White House officials for her mastery of a range of thorny issues in the counsel's office--everything from ethics requirements to the handling of Clintons' ``scandals.'' While some commend the confident, and confidential, way she dispenses advice, others suggest that she sometimes shoots from the hip. The fast-talking, high-energy Mills, 32, is a skillful navigator, having served with all five of Clinton's top lawyers. She came to the White House during the 1992 transition, when she was a deputy general counsel working with the late Vincent Foster Jr. The continuity of her service adds to her influence.

Elena Kagan, deputy assistant to the President for domestic policy, works side by side--some in the White House say interchangeably--with boss Bruce Reed, who is considered to be Clinton's ``centrist'' conscience on the White House staff. Kagan, 35, shepherds issues ranging from tobacco to welfare through the policy pipeline. On extended leave from the University of Chicago, where she is a law professor, she specializes in constitutional and labor law. She joined the Domestic Policy Council this year at Reed's behest after she announced she was leaving her post as associate counsel to the President, which she held for more than a year. The President is said to be among her fans.

With so many respected, highly educated women working just outside the President's inner circle, many current and former White House officials predicted in interviews that it's only a matter of time before a woman with the right ``fit'' ascends to the inner circle. After all, Clinton as a governor had a female chief of staff, Betsey Wright. They acknowledge, however, that not one of the prospective candidates to succeed Bowles, who is expected to depart this year, is a woman. ``It will depend more on the individual,'' Lewis said. ``That one, I'd say, could happen. The nation is ready for that.''

While there is no doubt that Clinton enjoys the company of guys--playing golf and hearts, swapping colorful stories, talking sports--no one interviewed suggested the President had ever displayed gender bias. None of the off-the-record examples of perceived gender bias among White House aides involved men who are now there.

If there is any pervasive problem for women on the White House staff, it's the time it takes for them to polish the skills that men use to get into the political arena, to network into jobs and to latch onto supportive mentors. In most cases, female White House staff members who have moved up the ladder have had influential sponsors. Lewis has both Bill and Hillary Clinton in her corner; Mathews secured Rubin's backing when she was his assistant at the NEC; Yellen enjoyed an academic reputation and had ties to Administration officials, including Tyson and former student deputy Treasury secretary Lawrence H. Summers; Echaveste worked for Labor Secretary Robert B. Reich and brought the important Hispanic constituency with her to the West Wing; Kagan, after leaving Harvard Law School, clerked for White House counsel Abner J. Mikva, who later brought her into the White House; Mills has been encouraged in her rise by a succession of male counsels working for the President, including Lindsey.

``Presidents tend to turn to people already in government, particularly in a second term,'' according to Janet M. Martin, associate professor of government at Bowdoin College, who has written extensively about women in the executive branch. ``Presidents turn to people who are familiar,'' she said in an interview. It is important, then, for women to build networks with men or women that can put them in positions of influence. ``That's exactly what men do,'' Martin explained. Women in the Clinton White House said women are less likely than men to come from outside the Administration directly into a senior post.

``Many times, men may get to the table based on their reputation for wise counsel and good judgment,'' Mills said. ``With women, I've noticed that it's more typical for us to arrive at the table after others have had a chance to work with us.''

There is no surefire path to success for a woman in the White House, but those interviewed offered traits that help: high-quality work, good political judgment, loyalty to the President, a proven ability to deliver what's expected, a willingness to take on even ``dog projects,'' self-confidence and people skills that can be used to build a consensus. And in the fast-paced atmosphere of the White House, women cannot expect hand-holding when things go wrong, or lavish praise when things go right, they said.

``The only acceptance that you don't get is your own,'' said a woman who left an influential White House post after working for Clinton. ``You know, nobody tells you how to do the job; they just give it to you. It took me about three days to figure out what my mother always told me: `People take their cue from you. If you think you're supposed to be there, you're supposed to be there.' '' She added: ``That's the way the boys operate. I think a lot of the reason girls don't get what they want is because they don't know how to deal in the same arenas, even though they've been successful in what they've done.''