Is She the President's Unguided Missile?

By NINA BURLEIGH/WASHINGTON

Outside the President's immediate family and staff, Betsey Wright is probably Bill Clinton's most passionate defender. As a top aide in Arkansas and on the campaign trail, she was the chief squelcher of controversy and scandal. But now her peculiar combination of roles -- confidant, hatchet woman and business lobbyist -- is proving to be a potential hazard for the Administration. Just last week Wright had to disavow a New Yorker article that quoted her suggesting that Hillary Rodham Clinton had plans to run for the presidency. While most people in Washington know enough to take some of her statements with a grain of salt, she can still embarrass the White House.

As Paula Jones' sexual-harassment charges against Clinton gathered steam last month, Wright sipped Diet Coke in her sunlit office a few blocks from the White House and calmly defended him once again. The former chief of staff to the Governor of Arkansas has gone through a transformation since the campaign. Gone are the sweatshirt and slacks. The new Wright can afford an expensive haircut and smart, stylish dresses. Still the same, however, is her fierce loyalty to her old boss. "For 10 years," she says, with a flinty, blue-eyed gaze, "I doubt Bill Clinton was ever gone 15 minutes without me knowing where he was."

The Texas-born Wright's major contribution to Clinton's election was stopping negative stories about the candidate. She made some notable gaffes, however, including issuing a premature denial that Clinton had ever used cocaine -- answering the question before it was even asked. During the spring and summer of 1992, she coined the unseemly phrase "bimbo eruptions" to describe the targets of her work. Wright hired San Francisco private detective Jack Palladino at a reported cost of more than $100,000 to investigate women who were making claims about relationships with Clinton. So protective of Clinton was Wright during the campaign that other top campaign officials were offended by her proprietary attitude. Her campaign style was abrasive and included dervish-like activity, crying jags, yelling fits and chain smoking. Not ready for prime time, she was pushed out of Clinton's inner circle by the time the transition began.

But her close ties to Clinton have paid off handsomely. Veteran Washington lobbyist Anne Wexler hired Wright to represent such clients as ARCO and the American Forest and Paper Association. In one case, Wright reportedly lobbied Clinton on behalf of the paper group while sharing popcorn and watching a basketball game with him in the White House.

Even now, Wright goes on part-time anti-sleaze patrol for the President. In Arkansas last December she persuaded a state trooper to sign an affidavit saying the President had never offered jobs in return for silence about his alleged trysts as Governor. Wright is also a prime source for reporters looking for dirt on Clinton's pesky accusers. But her expertise in Clinton arcana is costing her too. Friends say her lobbyist's salary won't cover the hefty legal fees already incurred complying with an expected subpoena from Whitewater prosecutor Robert Fiske.