GOP SENATORS BREAK RANKS ON BOTH COUNTS : PERJURY: ACQUITTED 55 - 45 OBSTRUCTION: ACQUITTED 50 - 50.

Byline: Alison Mitchell The New York Times

The Senate on Friday acquitted William Jefferson Clinton on two articles of impeachment, falling short of even a majority vote on either of the charges against him, perjury and obstruction of justice.

After a harrowing year of scandal and investigation, the five-week-long Senate trial of the president - only the second in the 210-year history of the republic - came to a climax shortly after noon when the roll calls began that would determine Clinton's fate.

``Is respondent William Jefferson Clinton guilty or not guilty?'' asked Chief Justice William Rehnquist, in his gold-striped black robe. In a hushed chamber, with senators standing one by one to pronounce Clinton guilty or not guilty, the Senate rejected the charge of perjury 55-45, with 10 Republicans voting against conviction.

It then split 50-50 on a second article accusing Clinton of obstruction of justice in concealing his affair with Monica Lewinsky. Five Republicans broke ranks on the obstruction of justice charge. No Democrats voted to convict on either charge, and it would have taken a dozen of them, and all 55 Republicans, to reach the two-thirds majority of 67 senators required for conviction.

Rehnquist announced the acquittal of the nation's 42nd president at 12:39 p.m. ``It is therefore ordered and adjudged that the said William Jefferson Clinton be and hereby is acquitted of the charges in the said articles,'' he said. Almost immediately the mood in the Senate lightened.

As required by the Senate's impeachment rules, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright was formally notified of the Senate's judgment.

Clinton responded by once again declaring himself ``profoundly sorry'' for his actions and words that had thrown the nation into a 13-month ordeal. ``This can be and this must be a time of reconciliation and renewal for America,'' he said in a brief appearance in the White House Rose Garden.

Yet for all the hopes of healing, the bitterness and turmoil of the past months were underscored when the Senate side of the Capitol had to be cleared by police because of a bomb scare, shortly after the trial ended and just as senators had begun a series of news conferences.

Feinstein rebuffed

Just before the bomb scare, the Senate, by a 56-43 vote, rebuffed an effort by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., to force a vote before the day had ended on a censure measure that would rebuke Clinton for ``shameful, reckless and indefensible'' behavior.

Even many of those who chose to acquit Clinton on Friday delivered stinging judgments of him while concluding that his evasions and attempts to conceal a sexual relationship with a former White House intern did not constitute the kind of high crimes the nation's Founding Fathers had contemplated when they wrote the impeachment clause of the Constitution.

``In voting to acquit the president, I do so with grave misgivings for I do not mean in any way to exonerate this man,'' Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, one of the Republicans to break with her party, said in a statement.

``He lied under oath,'' she said. ``He sought to interfere with the evidence; he tried to influence the testimony of key witnesses. And while it may not be a crime, he exploited a very young star-struck employee whom he then proceeded to smear in an attempt to destroy her credibility, her reputation, her life.''

Some of the Democrats who had stayed so staunchly at Clinton's side throughout the impeachment saga warned grimly that he should not see his acquittal as political vindication. ``This has been a long, tortured trial,' said Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.C. ``There are no winners. The president should take no solace from this.''

GOP harsher

The Republicans who wanted to remove him from office were far harsher, raising questions of how Clinton and the congressional majority that pursued his impeachment will ever reconcile across the remaining two years of Clinton's term.

Sen. Robert Bennett, R-Utah, called Clinton a man ``with a capacity to lie about anything.'' And Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., the majority leader, quoted the words of the great southern novelist, William Faulkner, to make clear his profound distrust of Clinton. ``One of the sayings that's always guided my life is, `I will witness your advent and judge of your sincerity,' '' he told reporters. ``I guess you could say, in a little bit more of a Reagan way, trust and verify.''

Until now the only impeachment trial of a president had taken place in 1868 when Andrew Johnson escaped conviction by a single vote. That trial left in its wake a weakened presidency and came to be viewed over time as a partisan vendetta, a term many Democrats applied to this case, too.

It will now be up to historians to judge what happened in this impeachment, the first one to be conducted under the independent counsel law enacted after Watergate. For now, the impeachment drive has left the Republican Party at record lows in public opinion polls, while Clinton has retained some of the highest job approval ratings of his presidency. But many in both parties believe that public opinion could shift with the passage of time, now that Clinton is out of danger of removal.

The emerging debate

Far from ending the national ordeal, Friday's verdict is likely to propel forward a new cultural and political debate in the 2000 elections over morality and the right to privacy, creating sharp lines of demarcation between the political parties, which have seen so many of their policy differences diluted in the Clinton years.

Some of the signs of the emerging debate were visible Friday as both sides tried to take stock and assess the meaning of a vote that saw neither article even gain majority support.

Democrats and some Republicans argued that the votes signaled that the House had erred in sending forth impeachment articles against the will of the public and on a partisan vote in December.

But Randy Tate, the executive director of the Christian Coalition, said the House prosecution, in defiance of public opinion, ``will be seen by history as an example of true American greatness.''

Tate deplored Clinton's acquittal, saying ``children now have the lesson that lying, cheating and breaking the law are permissible on the pathway to success.''

The failure to reach a majority, said Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., ``reflected quite clearly the weakness of the House managers' case.'' He said, ``These articles should never have been brought in the first place.''

Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., who is weighing a presidential bid, asked whether the many senators who were once prosecutors were ``not deeply disturbed by an independent counsel grilling a sitting president of the United States about his personal sex life, based on information from illegal phone recordings.''

CAPTION(S):

5 Photos, Box

PHOTO (1--Color) ``It sends a very bad message to our youth.''

- Beth Fonseca, 33

N. Calif., minister, Republican

(2--Color) ``I'm tired of hearing it.''

- Sara Berghofer, 18

Reseda, saleswoman, independent

(3--Color) ``I think I'll probably vote Republican in the future.''

- Simon Tesillo, 21

Pacoima, security guard, independent

(4--Color) ``Just give it up - it's over with. Move on.''

- Tim Walia, 33

Simi Valley, security guard, Republican

(5--Color) ``We have other very important things to do, like school.''

- Maude Bell, 43

Van Nuys, works in church bookstore, Democrat.

BOX: HOW THE SENATE VOTED

SOURCES: Knight Ridder Washington Bureau and Asociated Press

Research by Judy Treible, graphic by Lee Hulteng/Knight Ridder Tribune