WHITE HOUSE COUNSEL RESIGNS

Citing the pace of the job and the desire to spend more time with his family, White House counsel Abner Mikva said today he will resign on Nov.1, after less than a year on the job. "Mikva was brought in to bring the administration through this year of hearings," reports James Carney in Washington. "He's done that, and he's probably just wiped out." Replacing the 69-year-old Mikva will be Vice President Al Gore's chief of staff, Jack Quinn. The transition should be a smooth one, says Carney: "Quinn is ideal for the position. He's not an outsider by any means, and his low-key temperment couldn't be more different than Bernard Nussbaum." Nussbaum was the Clinton administration's first White House counsel.