SECRETARY NOW FOCUS OF SCRUTINY.

Byline: Steve Goldstein Knight Ridder Newspapers

In the compressed corridors of power in the White House, the word ``gatekeeper'' could describe any number of aides who control access to President Clinton.

Only one sits literally at the gate to the Oval Office, the last person a visitor sees before entering - and the first upon leaving.

The president's personal secretary, Betty Currie, is the guardian of Clinton's daily access and the person who could be the key to the mystery of his relationship with Monica Lewinsky.

``It's as close as you can get without being in the Oval Office,'' said Nancy Huang, who occupied Currie's desk in the Bush administration. ``It's thrilling, but there's definitely pressure.''

Especially for Currie, 58, who for five years has been known as the fiercely protective ``mother hen'' of the Oval Office and is now in the middle of the independent counsel's investigation of whether her boss had an affair and encouraged people to lie about it.

Her predicament recalls the plight of Rose Mary Woods, personal secretary to Richard M. Nixon, who became controversial when an 18-minute gap was discovered in crucial audio tape of Oval Office conversations about the Watergate affair. Woods denied causing the entire breach but admitted to possibly erasing four or five minutes of the tape.

The spotlight is on Currie because she possesses information about Lewinsky's comings and goings, gifts allegedly exchanged with the president, and the former intern's search for a job outside government.

Now there are reports - denied by Currie's attorney - the secretary's grand jury testimony is at odds with Clinton's accounts of his relationship and meetings with Lewinsky.

A Clinton campaign veteran, Currie sits 10 feet from the president's office door. On the wall above her is a silver-framed picture of Socks, the first cat.

Her office is actually part of a suite that comprises the Oval Office, within the rarefied work environment of the West Wing. Sometimes called the ``outer Oval,'' the anteroom with French doors opening onto the Rose Garden is the access point for presidential visitors.

No one would approach the area unless they had a reason for being there, said some former White House staffers.

Traditionally, the person sitting at Currie's desk next to the Oval Office door logs in the times of entry and departure of visitors, according to C. Boyden Gray, White House counsel to President Bush.

``Anyone walking past without checking in would be asked, `Where do you think you are going?' '' Gray said.

Huang, who served as staff assistant to President Bush from early 1992 until January 1993, said she saw ``basically'' everyone who went into the Oval Office, but could not see or hear what transpired inside.

She said her desk did not allow her to see much of the office when the door was left open - which was almost never.

``The door was really only open when people were going in or coming out,'' she said.

Nor could she hear conversation in the Oval Office with the door closed, even though she was barely 20 feet from the president's desk.

``When a lot of people were in the Oval Office you might be able to hear laughter, but that's about all,'' said Huang, 30, now a banking executive in San Francisco.

Someone else who has worked in that office said the heavy door to the Oval Office has a peephole that allows someone in the outer office to peer in. Secretaries used the peephole to determine if a meeting might be ending, according to the person, who asked not to be identified by name.

Currie keeps long hours, typically arriving before 8 a.m. and departing after 8 p.m., according to published accounts. She shares the outer Oval with Nancy Hernreich, deputy assistant to the president, and Kris Engskov, a young Arkansan serving as the president's personal aide.

Currie and her husband, Robert, a retired official of the Environmental Protection Agency, live in nearby Alexandria, Va. She came to Washington in 1961 to work in the Navy Department.

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