Notebook:

Round Two - Albright vs. Cohen

Switzerland: They're yodeling to a different drummer

(TIME, october 20) -- The land that gave birth to the cuckoo clock seems finally to have figured out what time it is. Switzerland's new ambassador in Washington, Alfred Defago, has correctly deduced that he needs the best p.r. advice Swiss francs can buy. So he has turned to Jay Footlik, who recently rounded off more than three years as the Clinton White House's chief liaison to America's Jewish community. Footlik has begun helping the envoy orchestrate a campaign of meetings with Jewish groups that began shortly before the High Holidays of Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur.

A handsome, 31-year-old former actor, Footlik appeared in several forgettable 1980s flicks, including Teen Wolf, with Michael J. Fox, and Iron Eagle, with Louis Gossett Jr., as well as in TV ads for McDonald's and American Airlines. He recently helped pave the way for Defago to appear before the Chicago Board of Rabbis and admit to Switzerland's numerous transgressions during and after World War II. So far, the new ambassador's shtick is playing a lot better than that of his predecessor, Carlo Jagmetti, who resigned in disgrace after saying that Switzerland was in a war it must "fight and win" and that its critics "cannot be trusted."

--By Adam Zagorin/Washington

Spotlight: D.C. Confidential

Bosnia: The battling secretaries: Albright vs. Cohen

Secretary of State MADELEINE ALBRIGHT and Defense Secretary WILLIAM COHEN are still feuding over whether American soldiers should remain in Bosnia beyond June 1998, the once hard-and-fast deadline for their departure. Albright wants their stay extended, fearing the Bosnian Serbs, Croats and Muslims will go back to slaughtering one another if U.S. forces leave next summer. Cohen and Congress want the troops out, with no ifs, ands or buts. Bill Clinton has papered over the dispute for the moment, ordering the Pentagon to draw up two sets of contingency plans: one for a June withdrawal, the other for an extended stay. But aides tell TIME the President won't decide until next month whether the troops leave or stay, and right now it looks as if he'll opt for their staying--although in fewer numbers than the 11,800 currently deployed.

--By Douglas Waller and Mark Thompson/Washington

The Supremes

They're back! Last week ushered in the first Monday in October, the traditional starting date of the Supreme Court term. Yes, the Justices may seem remote in their black robes, but they all list hobbies on their resumes. A Supreme Court sampler:

Ruth Bader Ginsburg
She's the only Justice to have chambers on the second floor of the Supreme Court building. It's sunnier and roomier there.

Antonin Scalia
Can't keep quiet even when he agrees. Wrote the most concurrences last term: nine.

John Paul Stevens
Likes tennis, competitive bridge, and is partial to bow ties.

David Souter
The bachelor Justice. If he married, he would be one of few Justices to wed while on the bench. First to be divorced (three times): William Douglas.

William Rehnquist
Only current member with no prior judicial experience. The last Justice with no previous judicial experience was Lewis Powell.

Clarence Thomas
Often called the "silent Justice" because he asks few questions at oral arguments.

Sandra Day O'Connor
First Justice to wear a dress. Closest precedent: Chief Justice Roger Taney was the first member to wear trousers instead of knee breeches.

Stephen Breyer
One of three former Supreme Court clerks on the present bench. The first former clerk to return to the court was Byron White.

Anthony Kennedy
Key swing Justice together with O'Connor. Delivered the fifth vote in all but four of the past term's 5-to-4 decisions.

Source: Voting statistics from the Harvard Law Journal

Excuse dept.

THE DOG ATE IT? After lamely suggesting that the White House originally was unable to locate videotapes of President Clinton's coffee klatches because researchers punched "fund raisers" into the computer instead of "coffees," White House special associate counsel Lanny Davis outdid himself. He explained that Rosh Hashana delayed his group for two days from delivering the tapes to the Justice Department. Mazel tov, Lanny!

TIME Capsule

Hillary Clinton, in her fifth year as First Lady, has had her share of growing pains. So did another controversial First Lady, as reported in the TIME cover of April 17, 1939:

Six years ago, the tall, restless character who moved into the White House with Franklin Roosevelt was viewed by large portions of the U.S. public with some degree of derision, if not alarm. They caricatured her, joked about her, called her "Eleanor Everywhere." They couldn't believe that any one woman could sincerely embrace the multiplicity of interests which she added to being a wife, mother and White House hostess. Today enough people have met Mrs. Roosevelt, checked up on her, to accept her for what she is...Everything she says, everything she does, is genuinely and transparently motivated. Sophisticates who used to scoff now listen to her. They read with measurable respect her books, magazine articles, daily column. Since developing from a painfully shy, homely gosling and an inhibited, inferior-feeling wife and daughter-in-law into a self-confident swan of a woman with the nation for her pond, she has learned to sail through life with serenity.