WHITEWATER AND ALL THE PRESIENT'S MEN

When Michael Dukakis campaigned against George Bush in 1988 one of his more memorable lines was, "A fish rots from the head first." The comment was in part referring to insinuations that Bush had traveled to Iran to discuss trading arms for hostages. After numerous investigations into this matter by government and media, the charges were proved to be totally unfounded. However, this did not keep Mr. Bush's political opponents from charging him with secretly traveling to Iran all the way through the elections in 1992.

By this standard, Bill Clinton has a big problem. In fact, he has a crushing problem, because the evidence in the "Whitewater" affair is beginning to circle closer and closer around him. Already, some of the highest ranking officials in the White House -- who are among his closest personal friends -- have been implicated in the affair (which has come to represent much more than Arkansas insider trading and dubious loan deals). Mrs. Clinton, too, finds her activities at the center of an investigation.

On Saturday, White House counsel Bernard Nussbaum, the man whose job it is to keep the president out of legal trouble, resigned. This came after it was learned that Nussbaum -- along with Clinton political operatives -- had held three highly improper meetings with Treasury Department officials about a Resolution Trust Corporation probe in which the Clintons are named as potential beneficiaries of criminal activities.

In a stunning display of distrust about what is happening around him, Treasury Secretary and former Democrat vice-president candidate Lloyd Bentsen called Thursday for a separate independent investigation into these contacts between Treasury officials and the White House.

Meanwhile, special counsel Robert Fiske ordered the White House not to destroy any documents -- including computer files -- relating to this and the larger Whitewater matter. A memo sent out to all White House officials Thursday night warned that the destruction of White House computer records, the removal of "burn bags" or the shredding of paper documents would constitute "obstruction of justice."

Fiske's subpoena is an onerous -- but necessary -- one due to the record of troubling behavior surrounding the White House and Whitewater. On Friday, the New York Times reported on its front page that an employee of the Rose Law firm -- where Hillary Clinton worked before moving to Washington -- had been ordered to shred a boxful of files containing folders from the late Vincent Foster's records. Foster, who was found dead last year from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound, was a White House official and long-time friend of Bill and Hillary Clinton. He was also their personal lawyer -- in charge of their investments at the time of his death.

In the hours after Foster's body was found, White House political operatives along with White House counsel Nussbaum secretly removed files from Foster's office, including those dealing with Whitewater.

For months President Clinton has repeated the same words concerning the affair: "No one has accused me or any one else in the White House -- as far as I know -- of doing anything wrong in this whole encounter. We didn't do anything wrong -- and to look into this matter about a land investment we lost money in a decade ago is just a waste of millions of dollars of taxpayers' money."

But with the recent revelations of secret meetings, shredded documents and removed files, the president's disclaimers are beginning to run thin even among those in his own party. If nothing wrong took place, why all the secrecy? Why all the panic?

Is the president to blame for the latest round of blunders or is Bernard Nussbaum, who resigned because of them, the true culprit? Mark Shields, a political columnist and commentator for the McNeil Lehrer News Hour (and a Democrat), said Friday: "Those meetings that were taking place -- I'm not saying the president directed them or that he knew about them specifically -- but the people who were in them were doing it because they thought it was in the best interest of the president and he would be pleased to know the information that was gleaned from those meetings. These weren't rogue meetings. Those people weren't independent operators."

Whether the president knew specifically about the meetings or not, that they happened at all at this stage (and after months of denial) is a devastating signal about how seriously Mr. Clinton takes the ethical considerations of the most powerful office in the land. Unless the attitude changes at the top, we don't expect Mr. Nussbaum's resignation will mean much in the long run. Meanwhile, it is time the American people heard just what it is that is so troubling about Whitewater, Madison Guaranty and the Clintons' involvement with Jim McDougal. It is time for the Congress to hold public hearings.