Aspin's Purloined Letter

By Janice Castro

DEFENSE SECRETARY LES ASPIN IS SEETHING OVER A LEAK during the transition that soured Bill Clinton's relations with the Joint Chiefs of Staff over the issue of homosexuals in the military. Aspin's top-secret strategy advisory to Clinton -- in which Aspin recommended that discussion of the issue with the Chiefs should be merely pro forma and that Clinton should plow ahead regardless of what they said -- was written on the House Armed Services Committee computer. Administration sources say the memo was stolen from the computer by a Republican committee staff member, who passed it on to G.O.P. opponents of Clinton's policy before he made a move.