KINDER'S COMMENTARY: BLUNDER ON FBI FILES STIRS WRATH

It is, according to heavyweight columnist William Safire of the New York Times, "the most egregious invasion of privacy of U.S. citizens in a generation." Safire is a language expert who writes a separate column, which focuses on the meaning and evolution, of the English language. He is a craftsman of rare gifts who uses words with exquisite precision. Although a Republican who once toiled in Richard Nixon's White House speechwriting shop, Safire was sufficiently disgusted with the feckless George Bush presidency four years ago that he publicly announced his vote for Bill Clinton for president. That makes all the more remarkable just exactly what it is that has aroused his ire.

It is this: The Clinton White House's corralling of no fewer than 341 FBI files on prominent Republicans, including such former Bush administration officials as ex-Secretary of State Jim Baker. As the week wore on, various White House spin doctors offered one, two, three, then four different stories before the chief magistrate of the United States bestirred himself to isssue an "apology."

As this White House piles lie upon lie, it is crucial to understand what, exactly, is in FBI files. These files contain a mishmash of basic biographical data plus financial and court records mixed together with completely unverified gossip, rumor, innuendo and whatever-your-worst-enemy-might-want-to-say-about-you when the FBI agent dropped by to interview him. In other words, these files contain raw material in its very rawest form.

Safire bluntly states the brutal truth about what Bill Clinton's White House is up to these days: "Think about it: Unverified slanders and gossipy tidbits in your FBI file have been vulnerable to an unsigned form letter from a political partisan hiding behind another person's name. Under FBI director Louis Freeh, ... the Justice Department's most confidential file room became a walk-in closet for White House pols."

Nor is this all. Thursday's Wall Street Journal published a devastating piece entitled, "Inside the White House File Scandal." More ominous still is the identity of its author, a fact that must surely have Bill and Hillary Clinton losing a little sleep these days. For the author is a retired FBI agent named Gary Aldrich, who concluded a 26-year career whose "highlight," he writes, "was the five years, just prior to my 1995 retirement, I spent assigned to the White House." His tale, which will surely be of interest to independent counsel Ken Starr and his federal grand jury, is chilling:

"The White House was requesting copies of FBI investigations of hundreds of long-gone Reagan and Bush administration staffers. Why? Knowing that the Clintons casually used the FBI to weed out politically suspect employees, would it be so unreasonable to suspect them of also misusing the FBI to investigate political `enemies'? Statements by Clinton spokesmen that nobody looked at these files are as plausible as saying that if 340 Playboy magazines were sent to a boys' school they would remain in their boxes, unmolested."

Former agent Aldrich concludes, chillingly: "The Clinton administration has earned its reputation. But the FBI -- my FBI -- deserves better. Enough is enough."

The American people will want to know more about a president and First Lady bent on using the FBI in the manner to which they became accustomed, over so many years of unchecked power, to using the poor troopers of the Arkansas Highway Patrol. As the Clinton body count rises, more than one White House staffer, and probably Hillary herself, will need to make time for still appointments with the grand jury.

~Peter Kinder is the associate publisher of the Southeast Missourian and a state senator from Cape Girardeau.