CLINTON MEETING DISCLOSED : MIDDLEMAN MADE 41 TRIPS TO WHITE HOUSE.

Byline: Associated Press 

An international business consultant linked to an allegation concerning a proposed $15 million political contribution from Taiwan met with President Clinton in September and came to the White House 41 times in the past 13 months.

White House spokesman Mike McCurry on Monday disclosed the meeting between Clinton, businessman Mark Middleton, deputy White House counsel Bruce Lindsey and James Riady, a member of a wealthy Indonesian family involved in the growing controversy over foreign-linked political donations.

Revealing that Riady was at the White House more frequently than previously known, McCurry said in an interview that the Indonesian businessman made a half-dozen trips to Washington during Clinton's first term, coming to the White House several times on each trip.

Riady was interested in having Asian-Americans appointed to jobs in the administration and was interested in U.S. trade policies toward Asia, McCurry said. It previously had been known only that Riady made three largely social visits to the White House to meet briefly with the president.

McCurry said Riady met a number of people while coming to the White House starting in April 1993.

Middleton - a former top aide to senior Clinton adviser Thomas ``Mack'' McLarty - made the 41 trips to the White House from September 1995 through Sept. 30 of this year, according to Secret Service logs obtained by the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee.

McCurry said the participants ``talked a little . . . philosophically'' about the United States' posture toward Asia ``and then James Riady expressed his support for what the president was doing.''

Much of the meeting was a ``social visit, a chance to catch up and say hello,'' McCurry said. The spokesman said the discussion ``was the last meeting that Clinton had with James Riady,'' whose family has contributed heavily to the Clinton campaign and the Democratic Party.

Middleton visited the White House four times in September - on Sept. 9, 25, 27 and 30 - and it could not immediately be determined which of his meetings was with the president. Middleton left the administration in February 1995.

In interviews with Taiwan's two leading evening newspapers, businessman Chen Chao-ping has claimed he was present when Liu Tai-ying, the chief financial manager of Taiwan's ruling Kuomintang Party, offered to Middleton a $15 million donation to Clinton's re-election effort. Liu flatly denied the accusation.

In a statement last week, Middleton said he has been to Taiwan several times for private business. He said he never suggested he was trying to raise money for the Democrats or any candidate, never solicited contributions and never accepted or arranged any donations from any foreign source.

The revelation about Middleton's presence at the Clinton meeting came as reporters pressed the White House for details of executive mansion visits by James Riady and Democratic National Committee fund-raiser John Huang, who worked for the Riady family before going to work at the Commerce Department and then joining the DNC staff.