Clinton's Crisis: Hot Off The Wiretap

When Linda Rose Tripp turned 48 last Nov. 24, she could well have reflected on a life that had slowed somewhat. Her children were grown: her son Ryan had turned 22; her daughter Allison would be 19 in April. And her husband Bruce, well, he was gone, moved out several years ago following the divorce. The two-story colonial on Cricket Pass, in a tranquil planned community between Baltimore and Washington, should have started to feel a little quiet. After all, Tripp had traveled the world for years with Bruce, a lieutenant colonel in the Army. Fluent in German, she had arranged visits for Congressmen around Allied headquarters in Europe, and in the late 1980s she held a classified job with the Army's elite Delta Force. In a man's world, she had learned to play rough. "A hard lady," recalls an officer who knew her at Delta Force. "And not much of a lady, either."

Until the past few months, after she plunged into her role as a White House whistle blower, life wasn't at the right tempo for Tripp. In the '90s, she had mostly worked as a secretary and logistics aide, a planner and coordinator for the powerful men in the White House and the Pentagon. She belonged to a class not peculiar to Washington but well represented there--those proximate enough to power to see its realities but not vested with sufficient authority to effect change. It was frustrating. "She wanted to do things her own way," says a Pentagon official. Others saw her demanding nature as a virtue. "She always wanted things done right," says a Bush White House operative who knew her well. "She had very good instincts, was quite intelligent." The official adds, "She was a gifted writer."

Tripp's coming of middle age has not been particularly happy, though. "Her life was a struggle," says the Bush official. "She complained of a long commute, a nomadic existence as an Army wife, an ex-husband who was not a true love. She had a chip on her shoulder."

Though the day-to-day rhythms of her life were hard and dull, Tripp has discovered in the past few years that in Washington, excitement and fame are traded in a currency more basic than power: knowledge. And Tripp has had a good taste of that, having held secretarial jobs all over the White House, including a stint in one of the most sensitive, secret-rich corners of the West Wing, the counsel's office. It is Scandal Central, the final stop for all legal matters. A busy place in the Clinton years.

Most career civil servants like Tripp, especially those trusted enough to work in the White House, are ferociously competent and unrelentingly discreet. They often stay for decades, and they keep their mouth shut. Tripp was different. She was seen as a schoolmarm, a bit obsessed with improprieties she saw around her. She once turned in an Army reservist for "petty wrongdoing," according to the Washington Post, and consequently got the man fired.