Whitewater Panel To Investigate Mrs. Clinton’s Role In Foster Case Did She Order Papers Removed From Foster’s Office?

A Senate committee investigating the Whitewater affair is expected to begin to examine this week whether Hillary Rodham Clinton played any role in the handling of papers in the office of the deputy White House counsel, Vincent W. Foster Jr., after he committed suicide two years ago.

Entering its second week of hearings, the committee is preparing to question some of the closest aides to the President and Mrs. Clinton about whether she instructed officials to remove papers from Foster’s office before any investigators got there.

The committee will also question witnesses about whether Mrs. Clinton participated in the decision to prevent federal investigators from looking at sensitive papers in the office.

Mrs. Clinton has not been called as a witness, and Republicans are expected to tread gingerly around the prospect of taking on the first lady head on.

A Secret Service agent is scheduled to testify that he saw one of Mrs. Clinton’s top advisers remove documents from Foster’s office shortly after his death.

The aide, Margaret Williams, who also is expected to testify, has disputed the account of the agent, Henry P. O’Neill. The showdown between the two could mark the first moment of high drama in what so far have been slow-moving proceedings.

A White House lawyer, Stephen Neuwirth, has told committee investigators that he heard third-hand that Mrs. Clinton did not want investigators rifling through Foster’s office. White House officials and others with knowledge of the investigation said Sunday that Mrs. Clinton never took a position on the search of Foster’s office and never spoke to anyone about it.

Foster died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound on July 20, 1993, in a park overlooking the Potomac River. That evening, three aides including Williams went to Foster’s office in the West Wing and, according to the White House, looked briefly for a suicide note.

In his time in Washington, Foster had worked on a variety of sensitive political and personal issues for the Clintons, including their taxes, the Whitewater land venture, and their blind trust.