DOCUMENTS SHOW CLINTON'S INVOLVEMENT IN FUND RAISING.

Byline: The Boston Globe

White House officials conducted the 1996 campaign amid a climate of internal fear over their ability to raise record-setting sums of money, a fear that led to recommendations that President Clinton personally solicit contributions by telephone and sent him on a constant cross-country dash in pursuit of cash, according to documents released Wednesday.

Clinton was personally expected to attract more than $50 million for the Democratic National Committee from the various coffees, fund-raising dinners and other events he was scheduled to attend, according to the documents, making him the point man in a furious search for dollars to fund the campaign's advertising budget.

``The fund-raising needs for the DNC will require a very substantial commitment of time from the president, the vice president, the first lady and Mrs. Gore,'' then-deputy chief of staff Harold Ickes wrote in one memorandum to Clinton and Vice President Al Gore.

One page attached to an Ickes memo projected the president should raise $50.2 million by attending fund-raising events, while Vice President Gore should bring in $10.8 million and Hillary Rodham Clinton an additional $5 million.

The first lady was slated for a variety of fund-raising activities in the documents, from making 10 calls to donors to being host for a ``Pakistani event'' that would raise $100,000.

The documents, which represented many of Ickes' personal papers, provided an unusual view of the internal workings of the re-election campaign, and cemented prior indications of the elaborate involvement of the White House and the president in the fund-raising aspect of the race.

In another memorandum, for example, Ickes, the chief White House political operative during the campaign, estimated that the DNC would have to raise more than $118 million over the last 33 weeks of the campaign, an average of $3.4 million a week for much of 1996, to meet the campaign budget. And as with several memos, the prospect of debt loomed ominously.

``I point out, however, that (DNC Finance Chairman) Marvin Rosen does not think that much over $115 or $120 million can be raised under the best of circumstances,'' Ickes wrote to Clinton and Gore. ``Thus, unless fund-raising is substantially increased, or unless either media or coordinated campaign expenditures are massively cut for April and May, it appears that the DNC will have to enter into a revolving loan agreement.''

As another example of Clinton's intimate involvement in the minutiae of fund-raising, he handwrote a recommendation to Ickes at one point on how to improve the direct-mail solicitations.

``I think we can do better w/mail if we have the right message,'' Clinton wrote on an Ickes memo that fretted over how the DNC was falling short of its goals.

White House officials seemed to shrug off the implicit message contained in the 800 pages of documents Wednesday. Lanny Davis, special White House counsel, said Wednesday the White House was involved in ``a difficult political contest'' and ``the Republicans outspent us.''

Against the glare of the controversies over illegal contributions from Asians and the trading of access at White House coffees for campaign contributions, the reassertion of Clinton's intimate involvement in the fund-raising process was made even clearer in the release of these documents.

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PHOTO Harold Ickes

Former aide played major role