A Chinese puzzle

So now we know that people inside the White House knew about the possibility of Chinese government political contributions for congressional races in June 1966. President Bill Clinton was told last month, which means that he has had several weeks to ponder the possibility that some of his aides knew months ago that China might be trying to funnel tainted contributions into American political campaigns.

It would not have taken much of a leap to wonder if China was doing so through such personal friends of Clinton as John Huang, Johnny Chung and Charles Yah Lin Trie. These revelations from the White House press secretary make Clinton's no-problems attitude last Friday seem all the more detached from reality.

But these latest disclosures send ripples far beyond the central question of Clinton's disinterest in where and how he got the money to finance his reelection. What emerges is yet another picture of managerial chaos among the FBI, the National Security Council and the president and his close advisers.

Clinton expressed irritation Monday that the FBI had told the National Security Council staffers to withhold sensitive information from their superiors, a charge the FBI later denied in an extraordinary challenge to White House credibility. Whichever side is telling the truth, it is a serious lapse when reports that a foreign power might be trying to interfere with the American electoral process failed to reach the president.

In any event, the strains, miscommunication and immediate blame-throwing that broke out between Clinton and the FBI mean that only an independent counsel can conduct the investigation. Attorney General Janet Reno and her subordinates in the FBI, including the director, Louis Freeh, clearly cannot direct an inquiry that now includes the issue of whether the bureau misserved the president or the National Security Council dropped the ball.

Disclosures about a Chinese plan to influence the election, first reported by The Washington Post, have taken the fund- raising scandal to a new level of seriousness and clarity. Last Friday Clinton suggested that only those people who questioned all political contributions were curious about the financing of the 1996 campaign. Now it is clear that any citizen with reasonable interest in the efficiency of the federal investigative agencies and the integrity of the electoral process will want a full account of what went on.

-- The New York Times