THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, December 17, 1994 TAG: 9412170218
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium: 52 lines
White House Press Secretary Dee Dee Myers said Friday that she's leaving her job at the end of the year and is undecided about what she will do next.
``It is time for me to move on to do other things,'' said Myers, the first woman to be the first presidential press secretary.
State Department spokesman Mike McCurry is the leading candidate to succeed her.
Myers' departure was widely expected. Earlier this year, when she fought off an effort by White House Chief of Staff Leon Panetta to move her to another job, Myers said she would leave before 1995.
Asked if were forced from the job, Myers said, ``I'm neither jumping nor being pushed. I'm walking away when I think it's the best time.''
She said it's difficult to be the first woman in any job and added, ``Washington is still in many ways a male-dominated city.''
Myers said she was considering a number of offers and indicated she planned to go on the speech circuit for awhile.
Myers leaves a legacy as a spin doctor who used laughter as a tonic during tough times for her boss.
As press secretary for Bill Clinton's pressure-laden presidential campaign, she once relieved the tension by turning cartwheels in front of reporters.
At White House news briefings, she often used irony and irreverent humor to defuse sharp-edged questions from reporters.
She could make fun of the president himself, as she did when she announced Clinton's first presidential news conference and joshed that an interpreter would be available to translate ``from Arkansan into English.''
But there came a moment last March when she made clear the ultimate gravity of the job she held.
The Whitewater special prosecutor was peppering the White House staff with grand jury subpoenas, and Republicans in Congress were clamoring for public hearings.
Myers said Clinton had ordered the White House staff to cooperate, and added:
``We realize the presidency is an unforgiving environment,'' she said. ``We accept that as the price of admission.'' ILLUSTRATION: Myers
McCurry
by CNB