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Friday, Jan. 19, 2001

But Reno indicated that after rest, traveling, a 120-mile kayak expedition in Florida and driving around in her new red pickup truck, she might eventually return to the public arena to work in early intervention programs for "at-risk children," one of her favorite causes.

Reno's tenure as the first female attorney general and the longest-serving one since the 19th century ends at noon Saturday. "It has been an extraordinary opportunity for me," she said.

Each week since 1993, when she was not out of town or testifying on Capitol Hill, Reno has presided over a no-holds-barred news conference. Thursday's was her 293rd and last.

Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder will take over as the interim head of the Justice Department until a new attorney general, presumably former senator John Ashcroft, R-Mo., President-elect Bush's nominee, is confirmed by the Senate.

The 62-year-old Reno, the daughter of two veteran Miami journalists, waxed nostalgic Thursday. "It seems just like yesterday I put my head in the press office [in 1993] and said, 'What about this?' [a weekly news conference], and you all looked at me like I was crazy," she told reporters.

As for her immediate future, Reno said her plan "is not to have any schedule, and not to have any plans. I'm going to sit on my front porch" of the house her late mother built in the Miami area "and do nothing for a week that I don't want to do."

While saying goodbye last week to Justice Department employees, Reno said she had "been cussed at, fussed at and beaten about the ears," but was leaving the department with renewed faith in the U.S. system.

Her eight years at the Justice Department have been filled with turmoil, beginning almost immediately with the fiery end of the Branch Davidian compound near Waco, Texas.

Why Say 'Such Mean Things'?

Reno said Thursday she didn't have a clue as to why so many people said "such mean things about her," but was kind to her critics, as usual.

One of her most frequent critics, Senate Judiciary Chairman Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, last year called her "the most partisan attorney general" in U.S. history.

"He was fiercely partisan at times" in Senate oversight hearings, Reno said Thursday. "… But he was always such a gentleman."

Reno said the department had to submit to congressional oversight, but "we've got to be independent."

Though she will not talk about it, Reno's relationship with the Clinton White House was often rocky as well. She requested an independent counsel investigation from a special judge's panel, or asked for an extension of an existing one, 11 times in eight years.

One of those extensions allowed then-independent counsel Kenneth Starr to investigate the Monica Lewinsky scandal, and led to President Clinton's impeachment and eventual acquittal in the Senate.

Are Elian and Davidian Kids Among Those 'At-Risk Children' She Likes to Work With?

Reno said she had no hesitation about returning to South Florida after last year's Elian Gonzalez controversy. Reno ordered the boy's forcible removal from Miami relatives in April, returning the child to his Cuban father. She insisted Cuban-American friends in Miami would understand why she acted as she did once she had a chance "to sit down and talk with people."

"The most difficult moment was Waco," Reno said. She authorized an FBI raid that ended with the cult compound engulfed in flames and more than 80 people, a score of them children, dead. Though multiple independent investigations found that the Branch Davidians and their children died in a fire set by cult leaders, through suicide or at the hands of cult leaders, the memory still haunts her.

Reno also oversaw the largest decrease in violent crime in modern times.

"I haven't made the difference in this department," Reno said Thursday. "Anything that I've done in this department is because of the people who work in this department."

Copyright 2001 by United Press International. All rights reserved.

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