THE WHITE HOUSE

                     Office of the Press Secretary
________________________________________________________________________
For Immediate Release                                   October 30, 2000


                             PRESS BRIEFING
                                   BY
                              JAKE SIEWERT

                    The James S. Brady Briefing Room


1:42 P.M. EST


     Q    Jake, at the State Department today they said that the
President spoke with the leader of Yemen, Salih.  Can you tell us about
that call?

     MR. SIEWERT:  He did.  He spoke with him on Saturday.  As you know,
the President had written a letter to the leader of Yemen, thanking him
for the cooperation on the first phase of the investigation, and asking
for their continued cooperation as we go into the next phase of the
investigation.

     We got a return call on Saturday, and they spoke for about 25
minutes on Saturday.  They pledged their full cooperation in the next
phase of the investigation; and we made clear that as part of that
investigation we're going to need to see some access to witnesses and
access to primary materials there.

     Q    Did they agree to that?

     MR. SIEWERT:  They've pledged full cooperation, and I'm not going
to get into the modalities of the investigation, but they pledged that
they would continue to cooperate.  And we've received excellent
cooperation from them in the first phase, and we expect that that will
continue.

     Q    So they agreed to give us access?

     MR. SIEWERT:  They've said that they would cooperate fully in the
next phase of the investigation.

     Q    Have there been problems, though?  Apparently with the certain
people that the Yemense - Yemen authorities have detained, and they
haven't allowed U.S. officials to question?

     MR. SIEWERT:  I'd check with the Department of Justice and the
other investigation agencies about how each phase of it's going.  But
generally in the first phase of the investigation we are very satisfied
with the cooperation we've gotten.  As you know, a lot of the
investigators have returned now.  We have a smaller group that's
focusing on the next round.

     The President called President Salih to let him know that we need
more cooperation in the second round, continued cooperation.  They made
clear that they would provide that cooperation, and we made clear in the
call that we're going to need access to suspects and information that
we'll need to continue that investigation.

     In terms of the day-to-day particulars of this, I think there are
better places to get that information than here.

     Q    Is it your understanding that this latest pledge of
cooperation means that Yemen will give our FBI investigators access to
the witnesses, suspects and evidence?

     MR. SIEWERT:  You should check with the FBI on how that is actually
playing out in practice, but we've made clear that that's something that
we will need.

     Q    Salih says that he's going to continue to cooperate.  That is
how the White House interprets it.  The White House brings up specific
concerns in his phone conversations --

     MR. SIEWERT:  That's what he said.  That's all I'm saying.  That's
what he said; and we made clear, as part of that cooperation, we'll need
access to information and to suspects.

....

-     Q    Jake, back on Yemen, did the President write the letter at the
urging of Janet Reno and Louis Freeh?

     MR. SIEWERT:  Not that I'm aware of.  I think it was meant just to
-- I'll check on that, but it was meant to just thank him for the
cooperation in the first phase, recognizing that we're moving into a new
stage where we were lessening the footprint that the investigators had
in Yemen, but that we needed to continue and do more over the next phase
while there were fewer people on the ground; the next phase of the
investigation is very important.

                           END 2:08 P.M. EST