Updated: Feb 25 1998 11:01AM

WASHINGTON: After weeks of watching and waiting, President Clinton finally took his biggest legal leap against Ken Starr Tuesday, invoking executive privilege in an attempt to edit top aide Bruce Lindsey's testimony before Starr's grand jury, the New York Times reported today.

Lindsey: Trying to keep quiet. DENIS PAQUIN/AP

The obvious implication: Lindsey, Clinton's closest friend, knows too much. After Lindsey took a pass on several key lines of questioning in his testimony last week, Starr's prosecutors filed a motion to compel further testimony. Apparently unable to stomach that possibility, the White House has now locked arms with Starr in a legal skydive that will start soon in Judge Norma Holloway Johnson's chambers -- and probably end in the Supreme Court.

"Neither side wanted this," says TIME deputy Washington bureau chief Jef McAllister. To have a chance, the White House will have to somehow prove that Clinton's discussions with Lindsey on Monicagate damage control were vital to official government business -- a tall legal order. And the already sagging White House morale will not be helped by a round of stories that are eerily reminiscent of Nixon's ultimately fruitless Supreme Court battle to keep the tapes private. On Ken Starr's side, fighting the privilege -- which may soon be extended to a slew of other White House confidants -- could bring the rest of his investigation to a screeching halt. But Starr needs to know Lindsey's secrets, and the White House isn't ready to give them up. "It's a stall tactic," says McAllister. "The White House may not win this in court, and it certainly makes Clinton look like he's been lying. But the longer they can keep their people off the stand, the more chance this whole thing has of fading away."

-- Frank Pellegrini