WHO'S WHO

...The speculation is that the North tapes were leaked by the Israelis to demonstrate to the White House that, if Israel is pushed too far by the U.S...

...So quite a few people believed him when he said, “I really am getting stuff over the transom about Professor Hill...

...One of the more intriguing bits of Washington gossip involves the significance of the tapes leaked to “Nightline” of conversations between Ollie North and the Iranians concerning the arms for hostages deal...

...If the tape proved Bush’s knowledge of the arms for hostages deal, it would be embarrassing to say the least...

...White House legal counsel C. Boyden Gray believes the administration prevailed because key portions of the law are vague and invite challenges that may not survive the scrutiny of a conservative Supreme Court...

...After months of indifference to Danforth’s civil rights compromise, the White House embraced it at the last minute, partly out of gratitude for Danforth’s steadfast support of Clarence Thomas...

...National Security Council aide Richard Haass, still floating from his moment of air time during the Gulf war, barred White House ghostwriters from working on Bush’s Mideast speech in Madrid, which Haass wroteand modestly billed as the most important speech of Bush’s presidency...

...By then, Thornburgh aides realized that Bush was their problem and politely declined the invitation...

...I’ve got statements from her former law professors, statements from people who know her, statements from Tulsa, Oklahoma, saying ‘Watch out for this woman...

...Thus far, however, he has produced no documents to support his claim and the name of only one alleged writer of a letter, Mary Constance Matthies of Tulsa...

...But then Bush got angry when Danforth later confided to the press that Bush had caved on quotas...

...One reporter later asked, “Brit, are you the deputy press secretary?’ . . . Democrats may be interested to learn that the Nine Sundays proposal for election coverage-which they may believe is benign because it came from the John E Kennedy School at Harvard-was actually authored by John Ellis, who just happens to be George Bush’s nephew...

...Secretary of State James Baker wanted to firm up his bona fides with the Arabs on the eve of the Mideast peace talks...

...A recent example was the October 22 press conference in which Hume interrupted a legitimate question to Marlin Fitzwater-“Is there consideration being given to the idea that the Democrats should have a larger say in who you pick [for the Supreme Court]?’-with a dismissive joke: “Marlin, isn’t it clear that you could fix the whole thing by clearing everything with Senator Biden now?’ This enabled Fitzwater to escape dealing with a serious issue-the need for consultation in a divided government -by laughing and saying, “I think Brit asked the key question here...

...Susan Threadgill...

...The administration’s attack group is said to have also included J. Michael Luttig, an assistant attorney general, and Rosalie G. Silberman, vice chairman of the EEOC...

...That angered the VOA, which hates to be treated as a propaganda arm of the department...

...Ken Duberstein, the former White House chief of staff assigned by the Bush administration to shepherd Clarence Thomas’s nomination, claims “credit” for the attack strategy used against Anita Hill...

...It would not be the way I characterize the letter...

...That flap followed another blow to VOA’s pride: Baker’s decision last year to award the VOA seat on his plane to USA Today...

...WHO'S WHO Days before Dick Thornburgh was upset by Democrat Harris Wofford in Pennsylvania’s Senate contest, George Bush offered to make a last-minute appearance to bolster his former attorney general’s lagging prospects...

...So Bush’s coolness toward Rogers may also have carried a message to Sununu...

...Faithful Who’s Who readers weren’t surprised when Bush icily distanced himself from White House aide Edward Rogers Jr., who had signed a $600,000 contract to represent Sheik Kamal Adham, said to be one of the shadier figures in the BCCI scandal...

...When asked about Simpson’s statement, she told David Rosenbaum of The New York Times: “People make different interpretations of things...

...While Thomas was being questioned on natural law, Senator Hank Brown was reading the home furnishings section of The Washington Post...

...Ross, who is Jewish, is tough on Israel and Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir...

...The hot and cold relationship between the White House and John Danforth continues...

...in Mideast peace negotiations, a Bush-Nir tape could also be leaked...

...But after an extra glass of wine at a Georgetown dinner party, C. Boyden Gray said it was he, not Duberstein, who was responsible for the strategy...

...I don’t want to call Senator Simpson a liar...

...I don’t know what else he was refemng to...

...So he trotted out his chief Mideast expert, Dennis Ross, for an interview with The Washington Post...

...Voice of America correspondents were recently reprimanded by State Department spokeswoman Margaret Wtwiler for questioning her boss, James Baker...

...One of the voices on each of the tapes belongs to Amram Nir, the Israeli secret agent who also happened to brief Bush around the time that the then-vice president was visiting Israel...

...Brit Hume, the ABC White House correspondent who likes to play tennis with the president, has become the object of ridicule by his colleagues because of his obvious sympathy for the administration...

...I’ve got faxes...

...Rogers was the deputy to John Sununu whom Bush had wanted to axe last winter-see our April 1991 issue-but who was kept on until August by Sununu in what seemed to be a struggle of wills with the president...

...Although his reputation has been in decline for a couple of years, Alan Simpson was once a respected member of the Senate...

...I’ve got letters hanging out of my pocket...