WASHINGTON -- President Clinton announced yesterday the resignation of Treasury Secretary Lloyd M. Bentsen, the latest in what has become an uncommon string of departures from the administration.
Mr. Clinton also announced the nomination of Robert E. Rubin, head of the president's National Economic Council, as Mr. Bentsen's replacement.
The Rose Garden ceremony was tempered by the realization that Mr. Bentsen's advice will be sorely missed -- and that early departures among top staff members are becoming a pattern for this administration.
Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy has announced his resignation, effective this month. Commerce Secretary Ronald H. Brown is a likely candidate to leave the Cabinet next spring to head the Clinton re-election effort, White House officials have confirmed. Aides to Housing Secretary Henry G. Cisneros have confided in the past few days, White House denials to the contrary, that he is planning to leave the administration.
White House Chief of Staff Leon E. Panetta said yesterday that more personnel moves are being considered. "There are a whole series of things that we're looking at," he said.
Mark Gearan, another presidential adviser, said: "At some point, toward the end of the year, I think, other staff appointments will be announced."
Turnover in a president's Cabinet and White House staff is not uncommon. Every administration has aides who are shoved out or burned out -- or want to cash out. But in less than two years, the Clinton administration seemingly has had more than usual.
Howard Paster, the White House liaison to Capitol Hill, and Roy M. Neel, top aide to Vice President Al Gore, both left before a year was up for high-salaried private sector jobs.
David Watkins, chief of White House operations, was fired after he organized a golf trip on a presidential helicopter. Bernard W. Nussbaum, Mr. Clinton's first White House counsel, was pushed out after questions were raised about meetings between White House officials and banking regulators over the Whitewater affair.
Aspin had to go
Les Aspin, Mr. Clinton's first defense secretary, was forced out in favor of former Adm. Bobby Ray Inman -- who then quit before he even got to Washington.
The level just below Cabinet secretary also has been a problem. Roger Altman, the No. 2 person at Treasury, left after Republican senators accused him of misleading them under oath on a key aspect of Whitewater. The second in commands at both the State Department and the Justice Department left, too. At Justice, so did the No. 3 man, Webster L. Hubbell, who pleaded guilty yesterday to mail fraud and income tax evasion.
Some of the changeshave involved getting people into jobs that better suited their talents. Mr. Gearan, for instance, is in his third post in the White House. Mr. Panetta, who came in as the !B budget chief, is in his second. He replaced the first chief of staff, Mr. Clinton's boyhood friend Thomas F. "Mack" McLarty III.
The White House office space historically occupied by press secretaries has had three occupants during Mr. Clinton's tenure -- and will soon have a fourth if Dee Dee Myers leaves as expected early next year.
David R. Gergen, brought in to revamp the communications office, was himself subsequently shunted off to the State Department, and is now leaving for Duke University.
Abner Mikva is the third man to occupy the office of White House counsel. There have been two White House political directors -- and the job is vacant again with last week's resignation of Joan Baggett.
OC "I got to thinking there was a Noah's Ark quality to this White
House -- everything came in twos," quipped presidential scholar Stephen Hess of the Brookings Institution. "You had two communications directors, two political directors and so on. But now, it's threes."
In recent history, the only presidential administrations that compare with Mr. Clinton's in turnover of top staff are those of Harry Truman, Lyndon B. Johnson and Gerald R. Ford -- former vice presidents who came into office unexpectedly and who inherited staffers from the previous president.
One possible result of this exodus is that, in the wake of last month's elections, the public will conclude that Mr. Clinton's advisers are evacuating a sinking ship. This was one reason, one White House aide said, that Mr. Bentsen's long-rumored
departure was accepted so reluctantly.
Elder statesman gone
Another was that the 73-year-old former Texas senator, vice presidential nominee, millionaire businessman and World War II veteran was the administration's resident elder statesman. His advice had proved to be sound time and time again -- and his presence was appreciated more than ever after the Nov. 8 elections.
Mr. Clinton had an obvious choice to replace Mr. Bentsen: Robert Rubin, 56, head of the National Economic Council and a former Wall Street banker, and he wasted no time yesterday in nominating Mr. Rubin as Treasury secretary.
In the Rose Garden ceremony, Mr. Bentsen stood with Mr. Rubin and touted his successor's qualifications to be able to deal successfully with the new Republican leaders on Capitol Hill.
"He has a broad knowledge of our problems and programs," said Mr. Bentsen. "And he has the ability to sit down with Congress and work things out."
But Mr. Bentsen's kind of political experience is not easy to replace -- as the president himself acknowledged.
"Today with deep regret I accept the resignation of the senior member of our economic team," the president said.
Turning to Mr. Bentsen, the president added, "I loved having you here every day and I'm really going to miss you."