Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, May 23, 1994                   TAG: 9405230081
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: C-4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: NEW YORK                                LENGTH: Short

CLINTON TO SUCCEED CLINTON AS PRESIDENT?

The New Yorker magazine reports in its May 30 issue that some friends say she may be planning to succeed her husband in the White House.

However, at least one source for the story says she was misquoted, and Clinton's spokeswoman denies any such conversations have occurred.

The magazine quoted Betsey Wright, President Clinton's chief of staff when he was Arkansas governor, as saying: "There are a great many people talking very seriously about her succeeding him.

"Their staff will say `We have to do it this way and that way, and then we'll be here at least 12 years.' And it's not just the staff. Friends, Democrats, people out across the country think it is a very viable plan of action," Wright said in December, according to the magazine.

Wright, now a lobbyist, told The Associated Press on Sunday that she never said anything of the sort. Speculation that Hillary Clinton wants to succeed the president after - and if - he is elected to a second term is "silly," she said.

"She wouldn't run and no one working around her would even entertain the thought," Wright said.

Maurie Perl, a spokeswoman for The New Yorker, said the magazine stands by its story.

The article also quotes Amy Stewart, who worked with Hillary Rodham Clinton at the Rose Law Firm in Little Rock, Ark., as saying Clinton would run only if "she felt she had to, to protect what he had put in place. But it would not be because it was her ambition."

Hillary Rodham Clinton's spokeswoman, Lisa Caputo, said late Sunday that the issue hasn't even been discussed.

Keywords:
POLITICS