Dispatches

By MICHAEL DUFFY, in Washington

Hillary Clinton may have suspected a ruse when aides hurried her out of the White House up to a conference on Capitol Hill last Tuesday afternoon--only to find the room completely empty. Arriving back home minutes later, she received further evidence that something was afoot when her husband, dressed as James Madison, urged her into a costume suitable for Dolley. It was, after all, Mrs. Clinton's birthday.

The night before he formally unveiled his health-care reform plan, the President pulled off what looked to some like the second biggest initiative of his presidency: a surprise party for his wife. Just when the Clinton White House seemed set to return to its truest, all-work-and-no-play self, more than 150 people waited in the dark as the perhaps not totally unprepared Mrs. Clinton descended the main staircase.

Meeting her was a line of staff members dressed as Hillarys of one sort or another: Hillary at Wellesley, Hillary the lawyer, Hillary on her wedding day, Hillary on a bad-hair day, Hillary at the Inaugural.

Every costume told a story. David Gergen disguised himself as Richard Nixon, his hands rising in the famous V-for-victory gesture. The much feared adviser and friend Susan Thomases was a Pilgrim. Affable communications director Mark Gearan became a gorilla, while mild-mannered personnel chief Bruce Lindsey wore a nun's habit. Pirate George Stephanopoulos huddled with media whiz Mandy Grunwald, who looked for all the world like a health security card. White House decorator Kaki Hockersmith--Scarlett O'Hara--had her dress made from fabric matching the curtains in the Lincoln Bedroom.

For his costume, power lawyer Vernon Jordan adopted the uniform of power forward Michael Jordan; he could be seen talking to a helmeted Hope High School Bobcats quarterback who distinctly resembled Mack McLarty. Sandy Berger, the deputy National Security Adviser, turned up as Yasser Arafat, his wife as Yitzhak Rabin. Arkansas pals Diane and Jim Blair pretended to be James Carville and Mary Matalin. Webb Hubbell and his wife came as the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea, and one guest, dressed as Lincoln, passed out little cards that read, "They have a nice bedroom in this house."

+ Gladys Knight--the real Gladys Knight--sang Happy Birthday to the First Lady, and a three-person band from Memphis played jazz, blues and Motown in the East Room until well past midnight.

Everyone danced. When one of the first on the floor turned out to be Hillary's mom, Dorothy Rodham (dressed as a mother superior), Dolley Madison exclaimed in mock horror, "That's my mother!"

The Blue, Red and Green rooms were dark and forbidding, what with the stuffed ghosts and goblins guarding the French doors on Louis XIV chairs. As one servant who started with L.B.J. put it, "I've never seen anything like it."