WHITEWATERGATE?

President Clinton has refused to turn over the meeting notes of former White House counsel William Kennedy to the Senate committee investigating Whitewater, citing attorney-client privilege and raising the possibility that he might resort to executive privilege if necessary. "From a public relations standpoint, this is bad," says TIME's J.F.O. McAllister, "because it raises the question in people's minds of why Clinton would block this if he has nothing to hide." Senate Whitewater Committee Chairman Alfonse D'Amato urged the President to reconsider, and said that the public has the right to know what went on in a November 5, 1993, meeting between Kennedy, three other White House aides and three personal lawyers for the Clintons. "The real question is, do the Clintons have any legal basis to invoke lawyer-client privilege?" says McAllister. "A number of legal experts think they may. They say that, especially in the District of Columbia, if the Clintons were to waive their right in one instance they could in fact be opening the door to waiving their rights to invoke lawyer-client privilege in all Whitewater-related maters."