Presidential Aides

White House administrative chief David Watkins, a longtime aide to President Clinton who hails from his hometown of Hope, Ark., resigned Thursday after officials learned that he had taken a military helicopter to play golf in rural Maryland earlier this week. Clinton, saying that he was "very upset" when he learned about Watkins' trip, revealed his aide's resignation during a press conference called to announce a decision on most-favored-nation trading status for China.

Rick Perry's communications chief Ray Sullivan says the Texas governor remains open to the possibility of another run for president in 2016 and has learned many "valuable" lessons about the intensity, pace and scrutiny that candidates must endure. The subject came up -- unprompted -- in a conversation with reporters in the lobby of the North Charleston hotel where Perry had just announced  he was leaving the presidential race. Sullivan was asked whether the governor planned to run for re-election in Texas.

President Bush has announced the appointment of Mary McClure, a former South Dakota legislator, as a special presidential assistant for intergovernmental affairs. She will serve as the White House liaison with state legislators.

A mighty earthquake rocked the small, impoverished island nation of Haiti on Tuesday, collapsing a hospital, the presidential palace and other buildings, triggering massive panic and claiming an as-yet uncounted number of lives -- perhaps thousands. Screams for help emanated from felled buildings, and chaos reigned. One diplomat called the quake a "catastrophe" in one of the countries least equipped to handle it. As night fell on the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince, a city of 2 million, reports emerged of extensive destruction; homes and buildings a shambles; trapped, seriously injured victims; and residents sleeping in streets.

In what UC San Diego Chancellor Richard C. Atkinson describes as a "historically significant" event, the chiefs of staff of six U.S. presidents will discuss the inner workings of the White House and their role in shaping the nation's history later this month at a symposium at UCSD. Entitled "25 Years of the Presidency," the Jan.

A White House memo asking presidential aides to pay for towels and bathrobes they may have taken from an aircraft carrier was disclosed by Rep. Dan Burton (R-Ind.). Forty White House aides and 23 reporters were on the George Washington during President Clinton's recent visit to Normandy, and the memo said that ship's officers discovered that 84 towels and robes, valued at $562, had vanished.

A third former Clinton administration official refused Thursday to give Congress documents subpoenaed for investigations of Democratic fund-raising, claiming a 5th Amendment privilege against self-incrimination. In addition to refusing document subpoenas, former White House aide Mark E. Middleton said in a statement that he would ainvoke his 5th Amendment privilege to resist demands to testify in any chearings held by House or Senate committees.

Former White House chief of staff James A. Baker III said today "nobody ought to second-guess" presidential aides now embroiled in the scandal over arms sales to Iran and secret funding of the Nicaraguan rebels. As he left a meeting of Republican governors, Baker, who became Treasury secretary early in President Reagan's second term, refused to speculate on whether he might return to his old job. Baker moved to the Treasury in February, 1985, in a job switch with Donald T. Regan.

Shortly after quitting the White House in 1982 to become a lobbyist, Lyn Nofziger told then-presidential counselor Edwin Meese III that it "would be a blunder not to award" an Army contract to a New York-based firm he represented, according to a memo disclosed at Nofziger's conflict-of-interest trial Thursday.

It was after midnight when President Clinton summoned his chief of staff to the presidential quarters in Beijing during his trip there last June. The chore? The president wanted Erskine Bowles to join him in a complicated word game, Boggle, that had caught his fancy. Bowles, 53, ever the loyal aide, trod over to Clinton's suite and took up the challenge. Now Clinton will have to find a new game companion, golfing partner--and a new manager of his increasingly difficult White House work.

With his first address to Congress looming, President Obama convened a few trusted advisors in the Oval Office. Seated in a chair beside the fireplace, he turned his attention to a 27-year-old with close-cropped hair who was perched on the couch. His instructions, according to one meeting participant, were familiar: "You and I always tell a story pretty well. I still want to make sure we do that here."

A senior employee of Taiwan's presidential office was indicted on charges of providing classified information to rival China, a prosecutor said. Wang Jen-bing was charged with violating the national security law by leaking documents gathered during the last three years of former President Chen Shui-bian's eight-year tenure, said prosecutor Huang Mou-shin. Chen left office in May. Chen Pin-jen, a legislative aid, was indicted on similar charges, Huang said.

Despite increased speculation that Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa may be heading to Washington, he said Monday that he would not be joining President-elect Barack Obama's Cabinet. Villaraigosa said he had a "conversation" with Obama in mid-November about joining the new Democratic administration but told the incoming president that he would stay in Los Angeles to focus on his reelection campaign and ongoing efforts to address the city's financial troubles and other pressing issues.

Desiree Rogers, a prominent Chicago businesswoman and Harvard MBA, will be named White House social secretary, sources in the presidential transition office told the Washington Post. Rogers, 49, is a friend of President-elect Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, and is a leader in Chicago corporate and social circles. Her appointment signals that the Obamas consider the job crucial to how they introduce themselves to the nation and to the world. She was a major fundraiser for Obama, and has long been part of the Obamas' inner circle.

Antiwar groups and other liberal activists are increasingly concerned at signs that Barack Obama's national security team will be dominated by appointees who favored the Iraq invasion and hold hawkish views on other important foreign policy issues. The activists are uneasy not only about signs that both Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) and Defense Secretary Robert M.

Now that the confetti has fallen, the nascent administration of Barack Obama has come face to face with one of its biggest challenges: living up to the exceptionally high expectations his thrilling campaign produced among supporters and long-suffering Democrats. At his transition team's first public briefing Tuesday, the audience was wildly outsized for the presentation by the transition chief, owlish think-tank denizen John Podesta.

Caution can be an admirable quality in a crisis, but as Boris Yeltsin showed from the top of a tank last week, a dash of daring also can work wonders. Caution in the Soviet crisis has served President Bush and the nation well so far, both in considering formal recognition of the Baltic states and in waiting to see basic economic change in Moscow before sending any money. The opportunities for long-term stability in the world have not looked better in nearly 75 years.

Independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr on Thursday took the dramatic step of urging the Supreme Court to short-circuit the federal appeals process and rule quickly on whether President Clinton can use executive privilege to block questioning of two senior aides in the Monica S. Lewinsky investigation.

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, a former co-chairman for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's presidential campaign, joins a list of some heavyweight economists and other politicians on President-elect Barack Obama's economic transition team, the Obama campaign announced Thursday. Villaraigosa campaigned for Obama after the Illinois senator locked up the Democratic nomination, and last weekend traveled to New Mexico to help rally the Latino vote for Obama on election day. Villaraigosa, a former California Assembly speaker and city councilman, joins some of the nation's top financial minds and wealthiest financiers, including Warren Buffett, chairman and chief executive of Berkshire Hathaway; Robert Reich, former secretary of the U.S. Department of Labor under President Clinton and now a professor at UC Berkeley; and Paul Volcker, former Federal Reserve chairman, among others.

For years here and in Texas, Scott McClellan was the consummate loyalist, exhibiting faithful, unquestioning devotion to his boss, George W. Bush. As White House press secretary, he scrappily presented the administration's talking points on everything from domestic policy to the Iraq war. No longer.