OBSCURE CIVIL SERVANTS KEEP LEADERS COMING, GOING.

Byline: Carol Rosenberg Knight-Ridder Newspapers

What you saw: a solemn Janet Reno sitting unruffled at President Clinton's State of the Union address.

What you didn't see: For three days, Roxie Lopez juggled airline schedules, telephones, maps, scenarios and the Secret Service to get the attorney general to a remote Texas cemetery for a fallen federal agent's funeral - and into her seat on Capitol Hill the same day.

``At one point, we were talking, `Are there helicopters in the area?' and (Reno replied) `I will not use a helicopter; it's a waste of taxpayers' money,' '' said Lopez, recalling her 72-hour travail.

Lopez is a scheduler - one of the most politically sensitive and influential behind-the-scenes civil servants in Washington.

Every evening, a scheduler punches a computer key and prints out a timetable of one to 20 pages to guide a policy-maker's next day.

Depending on an individual's authority, the job can amount to much more. Schedulers often sift through invitations for events ranging from a Boy Scout jamboree to an emergency political planning meeting, mindful of politicians' balancing acts among public appearances, background briefings and personal time.

``A good scheduler knows who should be allowed through the door without asking, who their member wants to see, and can find the time and accommodation to do it. It's the toughest job in any office,'' said Deborah Kilmer, a Florida lobbyist in Washington whose office helps crunch federal figures for Gov. Lawton Chiles.

Scheduling may be a peculiarly Washington institution. The White House spends $506,212 a year on salaries of 11 people with the word scheduling or scheduler in their job titles. House speaker Newt Gingrich has three schedulers - one fixing appearances in his Georgia district, one full-time speaker's scheduler and an assistant handling his Washington dates.

Even CIA Director John Deutsch has a scheduler - a woman who has kept schedules for agency honchos for years. Her name is not classified, but spokesman Mike Mansfield declined to identify her.

``She would prefer to keep a low profile,'' he said.

So sensitive is the job, in fact, that press secretaries for several Congress members hemmed, hawed and eventually declined requests to interview their office schedulers.

That's because Capitol Hill schedulers weigh congressional hearings against constituent chats. They know how far a member can go and still dash to the floor to get in a vote. They sense when a skipped strategy session can create havoc.

Schedulers know the importance of events back home, where voters ultimately will decide whether the politician can stay in Washington. They know how to sweet-talk an airline into giving their boss a seat on a sold-out flight.

``It's a really involved process - but it keeps him so organized, so in touch,'' said Mark Block, who has scheduled Florida Sen. Bob Graham's trips within the state for four years.

``If it's in there, it's important,'' agreed veteran scheduler Lynn Miller, who has worked for three different Congress members and now keeps track of the agenda of Rep. Tillie Fowler, a Jacksonville Republican.

``She has so little time to worry about the details that we do it for her,'' added Miller, who keeps Fowler up to date by giving her various versions of the daily, weekly and monthly calendars as they evolve.

In Congress, Miller and Fowler have some unwritten rules, too:

Constituents get priority over outsiders. Votes - usually Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays - beat out almost everything, meaning Fowler's appointments must be no farther than a five-minute dash to the House floor. Meetings with House Speaker Gingrich take paramount precedence.

Miller, who makes $38,000, says she always writes in the schedule when to expect a black-tie event and provides enough information so Fowler can figure out when and where to squeeze in a meal.

Lopez, who earns $75,000 and has since moved to another job in the Justice Department, went even further when scheduling workaholic Reno, who starts at her desk at 7 a.m. - but usually doesn't see her first appointment until 8.

When Lopez would discover that a typical 12-hour Reno schedule left no time for lunch, she would nudge a staff member to put a sandwich in the attorney general's car - to eat between engagements.

``She's a rock star! You should travel with that woman,'' gushed Lopez, who so admires Reno that she said there is only one other person for whom she would sacrifice so much time and energy on scheduling - the pope. Her devotion was reflected in her scheduling guidelines:

She avoided ``red-eye'' overnight flights between coasts because, although Reno wouldn't complain, Lopez thought the sleep deprivation unfair to anyone who works as hard as the attorney general does.

Lopez wouldn't count on motorcade speeds faster than the legal limit, or lights and sirens, to speed Reno's car through traffic, because the country's top cop won't tolerate ignoring laws.

She checked her travel-time estimates with the Secret Service, which routinely inspects the places where Reno is to visit.

She secretly padded the attorney general's schedule with an extra five minutes getting through an airport.

Why?

Lopez knew that Reno would never get up from her airplane seat to visit the restroom, because she would never get back to her work again. Too many passengers would want to greet her.