DIPLOMACY

By J.F.O. McAllister

U.S. officials are furious with Canadian Prime Minister JEAN CHRETIEN after an open mike at the NATO summit caught him scorning CLINTON's two-year campaign to enlarge the group as "done for short-term political reasons, to win elections." Clinton aides consider the digs meanspirited, but their boss has a different take. According to a senior official, the President laughed at the comments, chalking them up to the intricacies of Canadian-Belgian relations. Seems that Chretien was speaking to Belgian Prime Minister JEAN-LUC DEHAENE. Belgians disdain French Canadians as bumpkins, Clinton explained, so Chretien was just trying to impress Dehaene with his toughness. Clinton later told reporters, "You gotta blow something like that off." His planned revenge: "To get even on the golf course."

--By J.F.O. McAllister