The Young Master of the White House

In addition to his speakerphone, George Stephanopoulos' crowded office contains a number of icons. Some are modern. Several, in black and white, are of a martyred President. Another is of a living one. And then there are the literal icons: sad-eyed saints presented to Stephanopoulos, son and grandson of priests, by others in the Greek Orthodox community. The saints stood close to a higher being. None of them had speakerphones, but most of them suffered for expressing what they believed were wishes from above.

From almost the moment George Stephanopoulos joined the Clinton campaign, he was able to speak for the candidate. Even though he was not from Arkansas, even though he was 14 years Clinton's junior, the pessimistic, MTV-ready congressional staffer bonded with the affable Governor. Along with a few other close aides, he saw Clinton through the long primary season. Says Kiki Moore, a former campaign aide and now Democratic National Committee spokeswoman: "You learn a lot about a person late at night on an airplane flying back to Little Rock, Arkansas, from New Hampshire." He also helped mold the reactive, counterpunching style that made Clinton victorious but appears to be misfiring when applied to the Whitewater affair.

While Moore and other campaigners, including Stephanopoulos' War Room co- star James Carville, maintained their distance from the White House after the campaign, the younger man's path led toward ever greater identification with his boss. "George has an innate knowledge of the President's thought process," says Moore. It is Stephanopoulos who underlines Clinton's press summaries every morning. And it is he who serves as the President's "policy body man," hovering near him throughout the day, providing continuity and calculating each issue's relative importance. Says press secretary Dee Dee Meyers: "He's the place where all things come together. He is the one person, more than ((chief of staff)) Mack McLarty or ((presidential counselor David)) Gergen, who doesn't lose the forest for the trees." Although Clinton does not see Stephanopoulos as a peer -- "he's not an alter ego," cautions another aide -- Meyers maintains that Clinton "trusts him more than anyone else."