NUANCED WELCOME IN THE HAMPTONS

Clintons' arrival provokes low murmurs but no ordinary, tasteless traffic jams

EAST HAMPTON, N.Y. -- The Hamptons didn't exactly offer President Clinton a
red carpet and a clamorous ovation this weekend. The greeting was more
confused than that, more complicated, muted.

Yes, there were the high-profile parties, thrown by the likes of the
investment banker Bruce Wasserstein and actors Alec Baldwin and Kim
Basinger, where the president was expected to raise some $2 million for the
Democratic National Committee. And there was the hospitality of Steven
Spielberg, who offered his Georgica Pond estate to the president and his
wife. But those were the celebrities and big-money folks who give the
Hamptons their reputation and cachet. The ordinary affluent weekenders who
give the Hamptons their crowds and soaring real-estate prices, and the
year-rounders, who generally can't wait for September, responded with a
more layered enthusiasm. Glamour and power are no big deal here; they come
with the territory.

The biggest welcoming sign was on the side of the Stephen Talkhouse, a
music club in Amagansett, where Jefferson Starship, a band from the era
when Clinton was not inhaling marijuana, played Friday night. The enormous
sign, on behalf of a 17-year-old chef at the club, Eiji Shiga, read:
``Welcome Bill and Hillary, Please help keep our friend, Eiji, out of
jail.''

Hoping for leniency

Eiji, who is awaiting sentencing for a series of robberies, is a
well-spoken young man who admits he deserves to go to prison but who hopes
for a lenient sentence.

``Maybe he'll see the sign, say, `What's up with that?' and stop in,'' Eiji
said of the president.

Whatever the reason, Route 27, the main east-west road through the South
Fork of Long Island, was uncharacteristically unclogged Friday.

Though it was the site of the Basinger-Baldwin and Wasserstein bashes, as
well as the president's weekend radio address, Amagansett, which is sleepy
to begin with, never really woke up. And maybe most amazing, downtown East
Hampton and Sag Harbor, ordinarily mobbed with shoppers, have both been
reasonably navigable.

Of course, no place is so inured to glitz and indulgence that the president
fails to make an impression. Friday, when he arrived at East Hampton
Airport by helicopter from Westhampton (where Air Force One had landed), a
crowd of maybe 200 people had pulled their cars off Route 27 and waited for
a glimpse of his motorcade.

It was an amused gathering on the roadside, including Michael Silberkleit,
publisher of Archie Comics, whose wife, Nancy, wore an oversize Archie
head; Corey Watson, a California college student working as a summer pool
man, who held a small sign that said ``Legalize Marijuana''; and the
housekeeping and maintenance staff of financier Ronald Perelman, whose
driveway opens on to the motorcade route.

On the street, in restaurants, it was easy to overhear the conversations
about Clinton, his sex life and whether he lied about it and encouraged
others to do so.

``I've always said, even if she catches you in bed with the sheets down,
say, `Honey, you got it wrong,' '' said Derek Ford, who may or may not have
been joking. ``It's very hard, if you're a man in a powerful position, to
say `No, no, no' to all the opportunities,'' said Ford, who owns a chain of
women's clothing stores in Canada. ``I've been married four times for that
reason.''

Speculation, lamentation

Speculations over what went on between the president and Monica Lewinsky,
the former White House intern, often led to head-shaking lamentations over
the fact that alleged sex acts have become the focus of a special
prosecutor investigating the nation's chief executive.

For many the issue is not whether there was sex play in the White House,
but whether it matters.

``I think it's outrageous, it's sexual McCarthyism,'' said David Oestreich,
a New York City businessman who was a house guest in East Hampton.

The opposite view was expressed on a roadside billboard in front of the
Southampton Full Gospel Church, where each week a line of scripture is
posted for the benefit of weekenders arriving in the Hamptons on Route 27.
This week's selection is from Hebrews: ``Whoremongers and adulterers, God
will judge.''

Checked-by: (Joel W. Johnson)