A prep course for the month-long World Cup soccer tournament, a worldwide pheno

ear is Robert F. Wescott , an economist whose `` pocketbook index '' for predict

ing the outcome of presidential elections suggests that if the after-tax income 

of U.S. families is rising at a 3.7 percent annual rate or more in the fall of 1

995 , odds are that Clinton will win re-election . The rate this spring : 3.8 pe

rcent . This constant monitoring of the economy 's pulse highlights one of the m

ost fundamental characteristics of the Clinton White House : It remains exquisit

ely sensitive to the link between its political future and the health of the eco

nomy . Indeed , the rallying call for Clinton 's 1996 campaign may well be , `` 

It 's still the economy , stupid . '' `` The president is very focused on the ec

onomy , '' said Sperling . `` He has been sending very strong signals down the c

hain of command that even while we are working on crime , health care and other 

things , the economy should always be front and center . '' At the close of his 

first year in office , the waves of economic growth seemed to be breaking just r

ight for Clinton : The jobless rate was falling , there was hardly a trace of in

flation , interest rates had receded and the stock market was soaring . With eco

nomists predicting solid growth rates into 1996 election year , it seemed Clinto

n would be able to surf the business cycle right through to a second term . But 

the economic tides have shifted in recent months . As the Fed has raised interes

t rates , the value of the dollar faltered overseas and financial markets behave

d erratically . Many private economists believe the business cycle continues to 

move in sync with the political calendar . But the developments of the past thre

e months seem to have shaken Clinton 's confidence . Robert E. Rubin , Clinton '

s national economic adviser , is counseling colleagues to stay the course . Rubi

n , a former Wall Street executive , likens their current anxiety to that of a w

hite-knuckled trader sitting with a billion-dollar block of Treasury bonds durin

g a unexpected dip in the market . If you believe your original analysis was rig

ht and the economic fundamentals have not changed , he argues , there is no reas

on to panic or modify your strategy . In fact , the administration 's current fo

recast for the economy has changed little from the one it fashioned in the first

 few days of the administration , a projection known inside the White House as t

he `` pizza forecast . '' Those calculations were made by the members of `` T-2 

, '' a troika of economic deputies-Alan S. Blinder , a member of the Council of 

Economic Advisers ; Alicia H. Munnell , assistant Treasury secretary ; and Josep

h J. Minarik , associate director of the Office of Management and Budget . Over 

carry-out pizzas in Blinder 's quarters in the Old Executive Office Building one

 night shortly after the inauguration , they estimated that the economy 's growt

h rate cycle eventually would reach 3.3 percent in 1994 before settling down to 

a comfortable noninflationary growth rate of 2.5 percent in 1996 and the years b

eyond . The Council of Economic Advisers is now revising that forecast , but exp

ects little change . The preliminary consensus is that the economic drag from th

e recent rise of interest rates will be more than offset by the stimulative effe

cts of record-high spending on new business equipment . As companies invest in n

ew technology and re-engineer the way they do business , many administration eco

nomists believe , workers will be able to produce more goods and services , gene

rating higher incomes without generating inflation . The bottom line : Economic 

growth will remain steady , but not so strong as to make Clinton 's reelection a

 sure thing . Many private economists share the administration 's cautious optim

ism . In fact , some say that recent developments have only improved the preside

nt 's political prospects . By raising interest rates , they argue , the Fed and

 Wall Street 's bond traders might have slowed the growth of the economy this ye

ar or next , but helped to ensure that the expansion would not peter out by 1996

 . `` If anything , I think the Fed has done Clinton a favor , '' said Lehman Br

others Inc. economist Allen Sinai , whose latest newsletter to clients said the 

administration stands posed to `` beat the business cycle '' this time around . 

`` This is looking more and more like it will be a long-lasting business expansi

on . ''

 Now we know why the Clintons bombed in their Whitewater real estate venture . I

t was , says Jack Trinsey , Pennsylvania developer , politician and legal gadfly

 , a failure of vision . They bought only half the mountain . They should have b

ought the whole thing . Behold , the Trail of Tears Tower , a 115-story , talles

t-building-in-the-world monolith that Trinsey says is the true destiny for the 2

40 acres of mountain land the Clintons bought 15 years ago with their then-frien

ds and future S&L barons , James and Susan McDougal . In what would surely rank 

as one of the world 's great silk purse transformations , Trinsey says he wants 

to build the tower on a bend in the scenic White River in northern Arkansas . Th

e name would honor the Native Americans who passed through the area on a forced 

march to Oklahoma in the late 1830s . The project also would be carried out , Tr

insey said , in memory of the spunk of the `` young Clintons . '' To that end , 

he 's planning to keep Hillary Rodham Clinton 's puny $ 30,000 model home as a L

incolnesque tribute to the First Family 's `` noble '' if unsuccessful efforts `

` to bring this magnificent Whitewater site to the public . '' He wants to use a

 cuddly black `` Hillary Bear '' as the project 's mascot . `` I saw an aerial v

iew of the Whitewater project and I said , `` Oh my goodness . . . I have got to

 have that , ' ' ' Trinsey said . `` I understand why the young Clintons fell in

 love with it and I understand why they failed. . . . They bought only half of t

heir hill . `` They just could not cut the mustard . When you see the sample ( h

ome ) that the young Hillary Rodham put in you understand that she did all the s

uffering any developer in the country does . There is just heartache there . '' 

All told , Trinsey 's project would be 5 million square feet ( the Pentagon cloc

ks in at 3.75 million ) of sparkling glass office space . In Flippin , Ark . `` 

It appears to me he is probably a crackpot because in my wildest imagination I c

annot imagine the thing he is talking about being built in this area , '' said F

lippin Mayor Bob Marberry . The roads are bad and the area remote , and there ce

rtainly is no demand at present for a 1,500-foot office tower in the Flippin are

a , or even Cotter the other town near Whitewater . There may not be for another

 millennium . The tallest building in Flippin currently is two stories , and the

 largest industry a factory that turns out a couple dozen bass boats each day . 

What 's more , the people there don't want such an obvious urban intrusion even 

a dozen miles away at Whitewater . `` When you get to Flippin you think you have

 gone to the end of the world , '' Marberry said . `` When you go on to Whitewat

er you know you are at the end of the world . '' Nevertheless , Trinsey , aided 

by brokers at local Pioneer Realty , has for nominal sums bought purchase option

s on about 10 of Whitewater 's 44 lots , and on another 80 acres across the road

 . The real estate agents involved say they are earnest about helping Trinsey as

semble up to 1,000 acres , in hopes he can get at least a limited project off th

e ground . Trinsey , in fact , says he will start slow . `` The question is , ca

n we start new life here ? '' Trinsey said . `` I am doing exactly what the Good

 Witch Glinda advised Dorothy to do in her quest to find the Wizard of Oz . It i

s always best to start at the beginning . '' So first he will build the four-sto

ry `` Whitewater Inn . '' Then he will expand with the construction of six- , 10

- , 20-story and larger structures , before going public with a stock offering t

o raise the money for the Trail of Tears Tower . There will also be a Whitewater

 soap opera , and movie , he says , all about young entrepreneurs trying to get 

a leg up-just as Bill and Hillary tried to do when they went halfsies with the M

cDougals on Whitewater , and when they practiced the politics of meaning on the 

commodities exchange . `` The advertising we are going to have all across the wo

rld is , `` Live , work and worship at Whitewater , ' ' ' Trinsey said . `` I am

 seeking to get blessings from the Indian nation. . . . I am going to invite the

 entire nation of tribes to a public picnic '' to authenticate the project 's ro

ots . Consider him the Romulus and Remus of the Ozarks . More modestly he refers

 to himself as the `` Beethoven '' of developers , and says Whitewater 's remote

ness is part of the attraction for him . It 's a chance to paint on a clean canv

as . He could use it . The central project of Trinsey 's life , incomplete after

 30 years , was taken away from him and auctioned by the Resolution Trust Corp. 

in 1992 . Trinsey acquired the land for his Rebel Hill development , near Philad

elphia , in 1959 , and did manage to build a few town houses before facing forec

losure on a $ 7 million loan . Trinsey , 66 , is still fighting the RTC in court

 over that project , which offers another important glimpse of Trinsey 's charac

ter . He likes to sue people . Over the last few years he has typically acting w

ithout a lawyer sued the Democratic and Republican parties , Ross Perot 's organ

ization , and all 50 states . The lawsuits were related to his various political

 campaigns-for U.S. Senate , president ( he got 22 votes in New Hampshire ) and 

an upcoming bid for governor of Pennsylvania . He is also planning to sue Suprem

e Court Justice Byron White for refusing to allow an appeal of one of his other 

lawsuits . It was , in fact , in fighting the RTC that he first learned about Wh

itewater . He saw in special counsel Robert B . Fiske Jr. 's investigation of th

e development an opportune chance to correct his own misfortune with Rebel Hill 

. The answer was obvious . Sue Fiske ! A motion trying to force Fiske to include

 in his probe an extensive look at RTC wrongdoing is pending in U.S. . District 

Court in Washington at this moment . Immersed in Whitewater as a result , he saw

 published pictures , then followed up with a visit in April . Herewith , his re

action : `` My eyes slowly left the bottom of the White River to the ground belo

w my feet and suddenly I felt a presence of those Indians on those very grounds 

and then my eyes caught the base of the trees lining the river bank and my eyes 

lifted slowly up the trees to the sky above when I saw a vision of a Trail of Te

ars Tower rising to the sky , the tallest building in the world . `` I have not 

been the same since . ''

 WASHINGTON How much did Hillary Rodham Clinton know in the early and mid-1980s 

about the troubled business dealings of her Whitewater partner and sometime law 

client , James B . McDougal ? And did she play a role in his efforts to bail him

self out ? These questions have become an important part of the Whitewater contr

oversy facing the president and Mrs. Clinton. And in the incremental way that th

e affair is now developing , new documents have surfaced that don't fit comforta

bly with Mrs. Clinton 's explanation that her contacts as an attorney with McDou

gal and his Arkansas savings and loan company were purely routine and peripheral

 . The Clintons contend they were remote from the tangled financial affairs of M

adison Guaranty Savings & Loan , owned by McDougal , their partner in the Whitew

ater real estate development . The thrift was seized by federal regulators in 19

89 at a cost to taxpayers of $ 47 million . As a partner in the Rose Law Firm in

 Little Rock , Ark. , Mrs. Clinton represented McDougal 's S&L in 1985 before th

e state securities commissioner ( appointed by her husband , then the governor )

 on a plan that would allow the thrift to sell preferred stock to boost its capi

tal reserves and meet federal regulators ' demands . At a press conference in Ap

ril , Mrs. Clinton said she acted only as the `` billing attorney , '' while the

 case was actually handled at the firm by a junior associate . But documents obt

ained by the Resolution Trust Corp. suggest that Mrs. Clinton 's efforts on McDo

ugal 's behalf were both more active and more longstanding than that . In 1983 ,

 the documents show , Mrs. Clinton took a role in mediating a dispute between Mc

Dougal and the Rose firm over fees from earlier legal work . McDougal had refuse

d to pay Rose 's bills , prompting the firm 's managing partner , Joseph Giroir 

, to declare that he did not want McDougal as a Rose client again in the future 

, according to partners at the firm . But Mrs. Clinton interceded , and document

s and interviews with participants suggest that her mediation may have made poss

ible the subsequent Rose efforts on behalf of the S&L . In an Oct. 10 , 1983 , l

etter obtained by the RTC , Giroir wrote McDougal that he was submitting a new b

ill `` pursuant to your discussions with Hillary Rodham Clinton . '' While the s

avings and loan matter was pending before the state commission , McDougal indica

ted an interest in ways Mrs. Clinton could help with Madison 's dealings with th

e state . `` I need to know everything you have pending before the Securities Co

mmission as I intend to get with Hillary Clinton within the next few days , '' M

cDougal wrote to Madison President John Latham in a July 11 , 1985 , internal Ma

dison memo obtained by the RTC . The White House acknowledged that Mrs. Clinton 

may have interceded while at Rose to help mediate the billing dispute . As for t

he later memo from McDougal , John Podesta , a White House spokesman on Whitewat

er matters , said Mrs. Clinton did not recall getting together with McDougal in 

the summer of 1985 to review the embattled S&L 's pending issues . Regardless of

 any contacts between them and her part in patching up the Madison-Rose relation

ship , administration officials asserted , Mrs. Clinton had no significant profe

ssional role with McDougal 's financial institutions or any knowledge of the con

troversial practices cited after Madison Guaranty 's collapse . But critics sugg

est that having Mrs. Clinton and Rose in his corner may have given McDougal the 

potential of exercising undue influence on state authorities . A five-month-old 

special counsel 's investigation is probing whether political influence may have

 been used to prolong Madison 's existence and run up the eventual cost of the R

TC bailout . Former Madison President Latham said that McDougal , who was the ma

jority stockholder in Madison and effectively controlled day-to-day management o

f the S&L , told him to use Rose for legal work . In one conversation `` he said

 , go to Rose , because Bill and Hillary are my friends . So I used them ( Rose 

) , '' Latham said .

 When rocker Billy Idol joined the on-line revolution a year ago , he did it wit

h a requisite snarl . Promoting his album `` Cyberpunk , '' Idol talked of using

 the global Internet to circumvent the Establishment media , to smash the barrie

rs between musicians and their fans . He widely publicized his electronic-mail a

ddress . Good luck finding Idol on-line today . He signed off with a whimper las

t month , complaining of the `` overwhelming '' task of answering his e-mail . `

` Right now . . . my mailbox has over 4,000 messages and there is no way I can p

ersonally answer all of them without spending my days at the computer , '' Idol 

said in an automated e-mail response to anyone attempting to reach him on-line .

 Idol is a victim of self-induced cyber overload . The information superhighway 

has not only inspired a slew of bad metaphors , it 's become littered with uniqu

e nuisances . There 's e-mail glut simply too much mail , from social or busines

s contacts . There are junk messages unwanted commercial spiels posted on public

 bulletin boards . And there are e-mail bombs time-wasting messages that are `` 

exploded '' through unsuspecting networks into your personal mailbox . The net u

sed to be a cozy place , a virtual priesthood protected by its own arcane langua

ge and customs . Beard-tugging academics and helpful scientists set the tone . N

ow , as more and more techno-tyros log on , and more firms attempt to exploit th

e network commercially , the limits of `` netiquette '' the unwritten rules gove

rning cyberspace are being stretched . E-mail traffic on the Internet a conglome

ration of 20,000 computer networks loosely overseen by the National Science Foun

dation has reached more than 800 million messages a month , nearly double the vo

lume of a year ago . As happened with other communications breakthroughs that we

re supposed to make life simpler ( voice mail comes to mind ) , some e-mail user

s are beginning to see the down side of convenience . `` Whole work patterns are

 changing , '' says Dan VanBelleghem , associate program director for the Nation

al Science Foundation 's NSFNET , the largest component of the Internet . `` Bef

ore , you would get to work and chat with your neighbor over a cup of coffee . N

ow it 's become : `` I 'm gonna turn on my PC or Mac and scan through my mail . 

' And there 's 300 messages , and a lot of it is junk and a lot is hidden , and 

you might delete some accidentally , and before you know it , it 's 10 a.m. '' V

anBelleghem says he 's attempting to limit his morning mail call to 45 minutes .

 An e-mail address still imparts a certain exclusive , cutting-edge glamour . En

tertainment and publishing people are flocking to the net , hoping to plug in to

 cultural trends . E-mail also allows an instantaneous connection to vast amount

s of knowledge , in the form of both data and experts . But `` as soon as e-mail

 is ubiquitous , people will have the same problems with it as they do with pape

r mail and phone calls , '' says Gail Williams , a manager of the Whole Earth ' 

Lectronic Link ( WELL ) , a West Coast conferencing system . There are easy solu

tions : Change your address or install a program to filter out the junk . But ba

sically , you can't hide . Once you join a public conference , it 's like giving

 your phone number to 20 million people . You can't be `` unlisted , '' because 

the system requires a return address on every message you send . If you message 

someone privately , that person has your address . `` There is a potential , bec

ause of the way the net is set up , that you can be mail-bombed or swamped in ju

nk mail , '' says Mike Godwin , an attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundati

on . `` And occasionally people will do this to you . But it seems to be no more

 of a problem than obscene phone calls . There is the potential for all people t

o make obscene phone calls , but most people don't act on the impulse . '' The I

nternet 's fiber-optic cable capacity isn't close to being taxed . And ultimatel

y , the humans on the other end of the messages will find ways to cope . `` This

 is the real world-you should expect the occasional junk phone call and junk e-m

ail , '' says Carl Malamud , president of the Internet Multicasting Service in W

ashington , a `` cyberstation '' that relays speech and music over the net . He 

estimates that he gets 500 e-mail messages a day . `` We filter the junk-we put 

it in a pile at the end of the day and then we delete , delete , delete . '' You

 can e-mail this reporter at LEIBYaol.com . But feel free not to .

 How 's this for high-concept television : A great network lifts itself out of t

he ratings cellar and rides high for three years . Then , all at once , things g

et rocky . The network loses its top programming executive , its high-profile sp

orts shows , even some of its affiliates . As executives search desperately for 

a new hit , the ratings start to look shaky again . Can this network be saved ? 

This scenario , as they say on TV , is based on a true story . CBS , the dominan

t television network of the early '90s , appears headed for a fall . Despite win

ning a ratings triple crown during the last television season taking the top spo

t in the prime time , daytime and late night Nielsens in recent months the netwo

rk of `` Murphy Brown '' and `` Late Night With David Letterman '' has been show

ing clear signs of deterioration . Last week , Black Rock , as CBS ' New York he

adquarters is known , was shaken anew . New World Communications Group Inc. , wh

ich owns eight TV stations affiliated with CBS , said it was shifting its loyalt

ies to Rupert Murdoch 's Fox network . The move was widely read as a coup for Fo

x , which paid $ 500 million for the stations ' affiliation , and as a major def

eat for CBS . Indeed , the stock market 's judgment was swift and harsh : Invest

ors rushed to sell their CBS shares , knocking nearly $ 520 million off the comp

any 's value on paper in two days . CBS executives argue the reaction to the New

 World-Fox deal was overblown . After all , they said , with its powerful primet

ime lineup , CBS should have no trouble persuading other stations in the eight m

arkets to sign up to carry `` 60 Minutes , '' `` Murder , She Wrote '' and other

 CBS fare . Fox , sniffed CBS Broadcasting Group President Howard Stringer last 

week , is a network of `` downscale sitcoms and titillating soap operas . '' In 

fact , Fox whose ratings have declined 10 percent in the past two years needs th

e soon-to-be former CBS affiliates more than CBS . Once it finds stations to rep

lace those it has lost , CBS ' `` worst case '' internal projections call for it

 to lose about 15 percent of its current audience in the eight cities . To put t

hat in perspective , the eight stations collectively reach about 10 percent of t

he U.S. population . So CBS believes a 15 percent decline in those markets would

 knock 1.5 percent off its average national rating each evening . `` We 're talk