The Boston Globe from Boston, Massachusetts • 8

THE BOSTON GLOBE WEDNESDAY, AUGUST a For young diaris Boston's TV shuffle i will put NBC on Ch. 7 Fox loses its bid to switch affiliation; stint in public glare By Michael Kranish GLOBE STAFF HNBC Continued from Page 1 Channel 4 and end it on Channel 7. Even so, "in the end, well have the least interruption in viewing habits this way," said Rosemary BelL an executive vice president of Need-ham-based Pro Media, which buys commercial time. On July 14, CBS began the local round of broadcast musical chairs, announcing it would leave Channel 7 for Channel 4. The move was the result of a long-term affiliation deal the network had struck with Group Television, which owns Channel 4.

But NBC, suddenly facing homeless-ness in the nation's sixth-largest television market, was no shoo-in to move to Channel 7. The Fox network which airs its programs locally on WFXT (Ch. 25) also wanted WHDH as an affiliate, as part of a national strategy to become competitive with CBS, ABC and NBC. WHDH was more attractive than WFXT because, as a higher-powered VHF station (numbered below 14 on the broadcast dial), it because of the money he could make from newscasts. The Miami-based Sunbeam, which also owns a Fox affiliate in that city, bought WHDH for $215 million a year ago and immediately began an aggressive expansion of the station's news operation (replacing the venerable "CBS This Morning" with a local newscast, for example).

Expanding newscasts meant more profits for WHDH because the station could keep revenues from commercials sold during those programs, instead of splitting network-show revenues with CBS. Fox, because it has no morning news show and no programming between 10 and 11 would have allowed WHDH to continue that strategy in contrast to NBC, whose "Today" show is the cornerstone of its daytime schedule. Thus, the fact that Fox is not quite a full-service network was thought to be an advantage in Ansin's eyes. "What Fox afforded us was an opportunity to do an hourlong 10 o'clock news and four hours of news in the morning," Ansin said. "However, we basically felt that NBC's they left the impression they were guided, said Sen.

Phil Gramm, Republican of Texas, by the ethic of "anything goes." In the end, what seemed clear was that some Republicans on the committee hoped to use Steiners diary as a means of going after higher-ups, such as Altman and the president. As a result, they were not happy that he was trying to contradict the best evidence. Until yesterday, no one knew if Steiner would be the John Dean of the Clinton administration, telling details that would harm the president Instead, Steiner backtracked from many of the most sensational statements in his diary. The major question revolved around Steiner's diary entries that Altman was under "intense pressure from the White House" to continue the oversight of an investigation of a failed bank that was owned by Clinton's former business partner. But Steiner contradicted his writing, saying yesterday, "It was not my impression at the time he was under pressure." Sen.

Orrin Hatch, Republican of Utah, insisted that Steiner read an embarrassing passage from the diary. Steiner dutifully read the passage, which recounted how White House adviser George Ste-phanopoulos and deputy chief of staff Harold Ick-es were upset that Altman was going to recuse himself from overseeing the Whitewater-related investigation. "Harold and George then called to say that BC" meaning Bill Clinton "was furious," Steiner read from his diary. The president was upset because a Republican, Jay Stephens, had been hired to be an outside counsel on the case. "George then suggested to me that we need to find a way to get rid" of Stephens.

"Persuaded George that firing him would be incredibly stupid WASHINGTON Joshua Steiner, 28, fresh-faced, his hair shimmering in the klieg lights of the congressional hearing room, suddenly seemed to wither under the questioning of a grizzled Republican. The Treasury Department chief of staff from Cambridge was being grilled about why he wrote in his diary last February that Deputy Treasury Secretary Roger Altman had "gracefully ducked" key questions from senators about his involvement in the Whitewater affair. "What's the difference between a 'duck' and a lie?" an angry Sen. Lauch Faircloth, Republican of North Carolina, asked the man known as "Young Josh." Steiner responded that he had sometimes exaggerated in the diary, or, as he put it yesterday: "I made no effort to be inaccurate, but I want to be clear I was not attempting to be precise." To some, it sounded like so much spin. Others, such as Democratic Sen.

Barbara Boxer of California, saw it as a sincere effort by an idealistic young man to chronicle what he thought he saw -and his impressions of what he did not see at all. Sen. Alfonse D'Amato, the New York Republican, excoriated "feeble, lamebrained excuses" to "explain away" the contradictions. But to Boxer, Steiner was reminiscent "of two people I have great respect for my son and my daughter." Boxer said, "I look at you and I see the exuberance of youth, the exaggeration of youth." Stealer's six hours of testimony appeared to crystalize the problem for the Clinton administration in the Whitewater hearings: While it is not clear whether Clinton or his top aides did wrong, AP PHOTO Treasury Department chief of staff Joshua Steiner tells the Senate Banking Committee about his Whitewater diaries yesterday. and improper." But did it really happen that way? Yesterday, Steiner said that here were things here which do not exactly reflect a chronology or the nuance of what occurred." Pressed by Hatch, Steiner said: "Let me make it clear that neither Mr.

Stephanopoulos nor Mr. Ickes ever told me that the president was unhappy." Later, Steiner said Altman had told him Clinton was unhappy. Steiner was unequivocal on one point: After six years, he has quit keeping a diary. I ft 1 f- I xy Whitewater figure admits omissions has a signal that reaches more viewers who don't have cable. But after more than two weeks of negotiations, Fox didn't offer WHDH enough.

"Both NBC and Fox were very good opportunities for us for very different reasons, but ultimately we decided NBC was a better fit for what we're trying to do, particularly in news," said Edmund Ansin, president of Sunbeam Television Channel 7's owner. news operation would in the long run be more beneficial." In fact, WHDH will air 'Today" live, scrapping the second half of its own morning newscast, and making up for it by expanding the noon news to an hour from the current half-hour, and. by filling the 3-4 p.m. hour with a non-news program yet to be determined. WHDH will also design news programs to complement Saturday and EDMUND ANSIN "NBC was a better fit" Aide says Foster file stored 5 days at Clintons' residence WASHINGTON Reporters were misled for months about the timing and circumstances of Vincent Foster's Whitewater file being given to a Clinton family attorney after his death, the White House acknowledged yesterday.

A key point was left out of the earlier White House story: Margaret Williams, Hillary Rodham Clinton's chief of staff, was given the file first, and she stored it in the Clintons' residence for five days before turning it over to the lawyer. Owning up to the administration's lapse, Press Secretary Dee Dee Myers said, "My statements were incomplete. They certainly weren't intentionally misleading." ASSOCIATED PRESS "And it's a better fit for Boston." Exactly when the marriage will take place remains unknown. At a press conference Mike Carson, WHDH general manager, said yesterday, "the sooner the better." However, not only WHDH and NBC, but CBS and Group as well must agree on the date. And yesterday, Group insisted it had agreed to nothing yet.

The same economics that make an immediate switch so attractive to Ansin -namely, getting in a full season of Patriots games might make a delay attractive to the current owners of the NBC affiliate. "We would prefer a switch in January," said a source close to Group who asked not to be named. "It is not incumbent on us to switch immediately." The source, who said Group had learned of the NBC-WHDH deal only yesterday morning, added, "We will make a decision based on the interest of our viewers, WBZ, and of our new partners at CBS. Well be looking at it over the course of this coming week, and we'll announce our deci- Sunday editions of "Today," Ansin said. NBC's three "Dateline" newsmagazines a week complement WHDH's own news operations well, Ansin added.

So does NBC News Channel, the network's Charlotte, N.C.-based news service that supplies affiliates with reporters to cover national stories. And NBC offers other programming advantages that Fox, day in and day out, couldn't match. Just as "Today' and "NBC Nightly News With Tom Brokaw" perform especially well in Boston, so does the network's evening lineup. Around here, "The Tonight Show," starring An-dover native Jay Leno, consistently beats, CBS' "Late Show With David Letterman" an anomaly nationally. And above all, NBC's sports coverage including games from the AFC, which includes the home-team Patriots, as well as professional basketball and the 1996 Summer Olympics overwhelmed Fox's NFC football schedule.

Although Channel 7 is switching network affiliations and not ownership, lots of money is involved. Ansin WHITEWATER Continued from Page 1 improperly provided political cover for the president and Hillary Rodham Clinton. "Totally unbelievable," Sen. Phil Gramm of Texas said as Altman denied the charges. Several Democrats displayed little patience with Altaian's assertions of innocence and his charge that they had "convicted and sentenced" him before hearing his defense.

"Mr. Altman, it's possible not to do something illegal, not to do something unethical, and yet to do something that reflects very bad judgment, is it not?" asked Sen. Paul S. Sarbanes of Maryland, generally a defender of the Clinton administration. "Yes, it is, senator," Altman replied, referring to his contacts with the White House about Whitewater.

In addition to his Treasury Department job, Altman, a Boston native, was serving in February as acting head of the Resolution Trust Corp. when he briefed aides and the Senate committee about the RTC's Whitewater investigation. The investigation involves the failed Madison Guaranty Savings Loan of Arkansas, whose former president, James McDougal, was a partner of the president and Hillary Rodham Clinton in the Whitewater Development Corp. The Clintons were named as possible witnesses in criminal referrals forwarded last year from the RTC to the Justice Department. It was Altaian's testimony before the Senate panel on Feb.

24 about his briefing of White House officials three weeks earlier that prompted Robert B. Fiske the special counsel investigating the entire Whitewater affair, to examine the contacts between White House and Treasury officials for possible criminal wrongdoing. A grand jury determined that no would step aside. "In retrospect, I perhaps should have recused myself right off the bat," he said. He also contradicted the testimony of the Treasury Department's top lawyer, Jean Hanson, who said he instructed her last year to inform Nussbaum of the criminal referrals.

The committee devoted nearly five hours before Altaian's appearance to rigorously quizzing Steiner about entries in his diary that indicated White House officials improperly tried to influence key Treasury Department decisions on Whitewater matters. Altman and White House officials have rebutted the entries, which included assertions that presidential aides applied "intense pressure" on Altman to convince him not to recuse himself from RTC decisions on Whitewater and sought to "get rid" of Jay Stephens, a Clinton foe whom the RTC had hired to investigate Whitewater. Steiner appealed to the committee to consider his diary "impressionistic" and based in some cases on second-hand or third-hand information. He argued that some entries were "overly dramatic' and exaggerated, concurring with Altman and White House officials that he inaccurately portrayed the episodes. "I wrote it and take responsbility for it," said Steiner, a Cambridge native who is Treasury Secretary Lloyd Bentsen's chief of staff.

"But my intention in keeping this diary was not to give you a precise narrative of events that occurred." Senators of both parties greed. "You had no reason to exaggerate," said Sen. Donald W. Riegle Democrat of Michigan. "I believe you were being straightforward, honest and candid." Several other Democrats agreed.

"You've got a convenient memory here today," said Sen. Richard C. Shelby, Democrat of Alabama. "But these diaries speak for themselves." laws were broken, but Fiske declined to offer an opinion on the propriety of the contacts, which both the Senate and House banking commit-teess are considering. Altman said he concurred with the recent conclusions of White House special counsel Lloyd Cutler and the Office of Government Ethics that most of the 40 contacts between Treasury officials and presidential aides "should not have occurred." "But to the best of my knowledge," he said, "there was no effort on the part of anyone at the White House or Treasury staff to impede or affect in any way the RTC investigations." When members of the Senate committee asked Altman on Feb.

24 about discussions between Treasury Department and White House officials on Whitewater, he acknowledged only one meeting and did not reveal its full substance, lapses that were reported by the media. Several senators noted that Alt-man's former chief of staff, Joshua L. Steiner, who preceded him to the witness table yesterday, wrote in his personal diary that Altman had "gracefully ducked" the committee's questions in February about the meetings. Altman denied he had ducked the questions and blamed his omissions on a lack of "perfect recall." "I understand how a reasonable person reading my testimony and listening to all the testimony that has come before this committee could believe that I was not as forthcoming as I should have been," he said. "But in no way did I intend to mislead or not to provide clear and forthright answers." He later apologized and added, "Given an opportunity to do it over again, I would have added more information." Altman also acknowledged that, as acting head of the RTC, he may have mishandled his decision on recusing himself from the Whitewater investigation.

Several witnesses have testified that Altman decided to remove himself from the case on Feb. 1, only to change his mind the next day following the objections of former White House counsel Bernard Nussbaum. Three weeks later, when a New York Times editorial writer called to tell him the paper planned to publish a editorial protesting his decision not to recuse himself, Altman announced that he had changed his mind and sion when we make it." Group has and NBC wouldn't disclose figures, but affiliate compensation the "rent" that a network pays a station to run its programs was a contributing factor in picking NBC, Ansin said. Industry observers who asked not to be named speculated that Fox couldn't afford NBC. and other networks in similar local skirmishes after having spent nearly $1.6 billion to capture NFC football from CBS last fall, and $500 million more in May to strike an affiliation deal that set off the chain reaction of swaps that ultimately hit Boston last month.

the legal right to retain WBZ as an NBC affiliate for six months. Neil Braun, president of the NBC Television Network, wouldn't comment on the timing issue except to say, "There is no second choice. You have to switch at the beginning of the season or at the end of the season." All sides said they'll discuss the timing issue over the next few days. Why did Ansin strike a deal with NBC instead of Fox? Largely, it was for the very reason many observers had expected him to ally with Fox Come to the experts I The ONLY Boston area stores dedicated ONLY to treadmills. GREAT CHINESE FOOD! THF CHATEAU 11.

hv FIIRFKA! HILTON'S hb aw mm SALE PRICE CAMBRIDGE 491-5377 BOSTON 536-0420 They Don't Make 'Em Like This Anymore! 7 Oz. Poplin Canvas CSPlum Treadmill Crmen mu wHeavy Polyester Canvas Sidewalls Heavy Duty 4 oz. Oxford Floor This fl Is One Tough Tent 8'x 10' 7' Center Height Sleeps 4 AOute Comlortabiy! C'rrwn And Get One Before They're comp. saw THE OASIS TWO ROOM TENT by COLEMAN hiltcs 40-50 OFF XST inis is run iu PolvCanvas fl fl Room Divider Chain-Corded Steel Poles sin-Corded Steel Poles 95 Root Storm-Blok Douhle Coated Walls 6' 6' Awning I XU The Perfect Tent For Family Campingll REG. $230 SUMMER SALE Golf, Tennis, Ski Sportswear for Men and Women THE ZION II by KELTY HILTON'S SALE PRICE Sleeps 2 6' 7' Shock-Corded Fiberglass Poles Full Body Fry Freestanding Design 1400 MM Poly Coating For Great Water Protection Continuous Feed Sleeves For Quick Set-Up Great For $0095 CUSTOM TABLE PADS ASK ABOUT OUR AUGUST SALE SPECIAL Backpacking, Car Camping or Boating! Rg.

1120 3 A "i1 THERM AREST ULTRA-LIGHT LONG SELF INFLATING SLEEPING PADS by CASCADE fl 95 DESIGNS (Cosmetic Blems) OTHER MODELS AVAILABLE Comp. $55 0J Now In Progress Additional Markdowns On Selected Merchandise 95 Reg. YOUR $59.95 CHOICE COLEMAN DUAL FUEL 2 BURNER STOVE (424) OR COLEMAN DUAL FUEL 2 MANTLE LANTERN (285) $44 13S5 WOW! COLEMAN COOLER COMBO (28 Qt. Cooler, Qt. Cooler, 2 Litre Jug) GUARD YOUR TABLE AND SAVE! Order wilh confidence from America's oldest and largest table pad company.

Our free measuring service assures an exact fit. No advance deposit or messy C.O.D. You pay nothing until you receive your table pads and are completely satisfied. 30 year guarantee. OVER 50 TENTS AND 60 SLEEPING BAGS COMPLETE RENTAL DEPT.

TENTS, BACKPACKS, SLEEPING BAGS, THERMARESTS, STOVES, Hilton's AMAWUU ON DISPLAY LANTERNS AA tfMf 482-481 7-Ext. 109 IN MERRIMAC VALLEY 1-800328-7237 EXT. 109 SHOPS At IMi ATRIUM Rte. 9, Chestnut Hill ch4 TABLE PAD CO. 964-7344 IX t.272 Frientl Ju8t uron lhe ltrMt from ltie Garden Nortl' statlon MBTA' JILI ifu Pn Monday-Friday 9am-9pm Saturday 9am-6pm Sunday t2pnv8pm, SINCE 1911 SENTRY, 1W0.