If At First . . .

HAVING STUMBLED TWICE IN ATTEMPTS TO CHOOSE an Attorney General, Bill Clinton thinks he got it right this time. After 15 years as prosecutor in Miami's Dade County, Janet Reno, 54, has plenty of experience with such Justice Department issues as narcotics, immigration and corruption. She has a reputation as an innovator who introduced a special court for drug offenders that mixes punishment with treatment. And since she never married or had children, she has never needed a nanny.

Reno was appointed Dade County prosecutor in 1978, and voters returned her to the office five times, despite a rough apprenticeship. Miami endured three nights of racial rioting in 1980 after her office failed to convict four police who allegedly beat a black insurance man to death. Reno regained trust by opening her office to blacks, Hispanics and women.

Like Clinton, Reno is an Ivy League law graduate (Harvard '63) with a down- home background. When she was a girl her parents, both reporters, moved the family to a homestead near the Everglades. Her mother was a crusty good ole gal known for wrestling alligators and building much of the log-and-stone house where Reno still lives.

Though she has a reputation for dealing aggressively with crooked cops and judges, Reno has been criticized for passing off to federal prosecutors the difficult job of pressing corruption charges against local officials. Her defenders insist that this strategy makes it easier to get convictions, since federal trial procedures give the accused fewer advantages in court than they get under Florida law. While she is an opponent of the death penalty, she has obtained it in 80 capital cases.

The choice brought quick praise from the legal establishment and no complaints from the public -- the main reason Clinton was smiling when he introduced his nominee to the press. If he had it to do all over again, the President told reporters, "I would have called Janet Reno on November the fifth."