There’s only one problem: Berger and Reno refuse to go. And the president doesn’t plan on discarding either of them, officials say–especially not his old friend Berger. On Friday, both bluntly denied allegations of negligence in dealing with Chinese spying in U.S. nuclear labs. They said they had no intention of resigning.
That’s not to say Berger and Reno aren’t feeling the strain –particularly the workaholic national-security adviser, a behind-the-scenes fixer unused to the spotlight. “For the first time in his life Berger has personally become the issue,” says a longtime acquaintance. “The strain on him has become immense.” Says one White House aide, “He looks exhausted and tired. It’s intense. He wears it.” But aides say Berger’s worried not so much about the Cox report as the war in Kosovo. And now he faces a renewal of tensions between two freshly minted nuclear powers, India and Pakistan. “It’s just a never-ending series of crises,” says an aide. Some colleagues worry that the overworked and overweight Berger will have “a Leon Fuerth episode.” (Al Gore’s national-security adviser was hospitalized this spring after suffering a heart attack.)
Berger, critics say, made two mistakes. Once he learned of security breaches at America’s nuclear labs in July 1996, he failed to quickly close them–and neglected to tell Clinton about the problem for a year. The Justice Department under the perennially unpopular Reno, meanwhile, refused to authorize a wiretap on Wen Ho Lee, a Taiwanese scientist at Los Alamos who some FBI officials suspected was a spy. One Democratic senator, Robert Torricelli, called Reno’s action “almost inexplicable.”
Berger’s supporters say he was merely being judicious; the allegations at first were so nebulous that even though both the House and Senate intelligence committees received the same briefings on nuclear leaks in 1996, they did nothing at the time either. By the end of the week, even Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, who had earlier called for Berger’s head, seemed to be backing off, expressing “concern” about “when he acted.”
Reno may face more heat in the end–but she’s also more used to it. The attorney general, who has few friends either in Congress or the administration, has been under pressure to resign almost continually since her decision, early in 1993, to authorize the disastrous raid on the Branch Davidian compound. She was savaged by Republicans for more than a year for refusing to appoint an independent counsel to investigate the campaign-finance scandal. “She’s steely but not unaffected. She gets angry and snaps,” says a former Reno aide.
Reno insists the decision not to request a wiretap was right, though she says her subordinates and the FBI should have told her earlier about the issue. Justice officials say the evidence against Lee was dated and highly circumstantial. Lee has never been charged, and officials say they may never have enough evidence to do so. “Right now there is zero probability that [Clinton] is pushing her out,” says an administration official. That may change, so long as Congress goes on looking for someone to blame.
