Cornered in the Oval Office? : First Family: Avoid the rich. Don’t bother the masses. With all the politics involved, the Clintons may have to vacation at home.

WASHINGTON —  When they’re not assembling trillion-dollar budgets or writing sweeping health plans, Bill and Hillary Clinton are pondering a truly daunting question these days: Where will they unfurl their beach umbrella this summer?

With about nine weeks left to Labor Day, members of the First Family have yet to figure out exactly when to take their summer vacation or where or for precisely how long. Lots of high-achieving couples put such things off until the last minute. But for the Clintons, such mundane domestic issues engender unusual complications and have global implications.

With the weeks ticking down, the dilemma appears to demonstrate anew how seemingly straightforward questions can become matters of Gordian complexity in the Clinton White House.

The nub of the problem is this: The Clintons are the first White House occupants since Harry S. Truman who do not have a separate private residence or customary vacation spot suitable for holiday lounging. In the aftermath of a $200 haircut and some disagreeable comments about Hollywood connections, the family might hesitate to accept the hospitality of wealthy friends--particularly friends with show-business ties.

And if the Clintons choose a vacation of a more populist flavor--at a national park or the lakeside home of friends, say--their security force, huge support entourage and massive press contingent could wreck the holiday for all the average folks nearby.

What to do?

“It’s tough,” says Stephen A. Salmore, a political consultant and political science professor at Rutgers University. “They might do best to just take their lawn chairs onto the White House lawn, light the barbecue and drag out the plastic wading pool.”

The family has been considering the question for several weeks, and what they do would naturally affect the timing of work on the health care plan and the host of major legislative initiatives that will await them when they return. The Clintons would like to take off the last two weeks of August and perhaps divide time among several destinations, aides say.

Officially, the vacation spot could be anywhere and the decision could come anytime--maybe even in the last moments before departure. “Stick a pin anywhere on a map--it could be there,” says Dee Dee Myers, Clinton’s press secretary.

But some spots are more likely than others. They may spend several days in Arkansas, where Clinton’s mother, Virginia Kelley, lives with her husband in Hot Springs. A national park could be a destination.

They might visit south Florida, where Mrs. Clinton has family; or the resort island of Hilton Head, S.C., which they have visited in the past; or even Southern California, the home of their TV producer friends, Harry Thomason and Linda Bloodworth-Thomason, and other chums.

The Clintons may envy their predecessors for the simplicity of their vacation decisions. George Bush had Kennebunkport, Me., Ronald Reagan his Santa Barbara ranch and Jimmy Carter the farm in Plains, Ga. Gerald R. Ford went to Vail, Colo., and Palm Springs, and Richard M. Nixon had Key Biscayne, Fla., and San Clemente. Lyndon Johnson had his central Texas ranch and John F. Kennedy the Hyannis Port, Mass., family compound.

For estate-less Presidents, the easiest solution is to bunk with friends who own vacation retreats. But that is not so easy for Democrats as it is for Republicans, and it has become even more awkward for Clinton since his credentials as a plain-living son of the heartland have been challenged.

Reagan appeared to be doing what came naturally when he and Nancy slipped away during Christmas holidays to magnate Walter Annenberg’s 205-acre home in posh Rancho Mirage.

But Clinton faced questions the very first time he stayed at the luxurious 4.25-acre oceanfront estate in Summerland, just south of Santa Barbara, that was leased by the Thomasons. The Thomasons were compelled to explain that they did not intend to offer the place to the Clintons as a free “Western White House,” as some early reports had it.

There was more comment about Clinton’s vacationing habits last January when he spent five days rent-free at the Hilton Head home of industrialist Paul Bob Burge. The Clintons were staying at the $2-million oceanfront home while they took part in an annual “renaissance weekend” meeting in Hilton Head.

A return trip to the Thomasons’ California home presumably would bring far more comment. Since that late December trip, the Thomasons have played a part in the White House travel-office imbroglio and become part of the debate over the First Family’s seeming fascination with Hollywood. The Thomasons did not return calls to inquire about their plans.

Privacy considerations are at the heart of the Clintons’ problem. Since moving into the White House, they have talked a lot about how they wanted to live their lives without prying public eyes or restrictions on their movements.

Earlier this year, the White House staff scouted out secluded spots in south Florida, including private islands, in a search for weekend beach getaways where they would not be met by gawking throngs at the water’s edge.

But such searches always raise the same dilemma: The most private spots are in exclusive communities. “If it’s too exclusive, you’ve got to expect you’re going to take some hits for it,” as one aide put it.

When Clinton was governor, he had no such concerns.

Just before he announced plans for his presidential campaign, the family took time for some private soul-searching at Petit Jean State Park in Morrilton, Ark., where for $60 a night you can rent a cabin with a kitchen and a view of Cedar Creek Canyon. The Clintons have also spent weekends at the Beaver Lake, Ark., home of their friends, Jim and Diane Blair, whom they met at the University of Arkansas.

Earlier this month, Hillary Rodham Clinton called Diane Blair and told her that “there was no place the President would rather flop down” for a vacation this year than at their lakeside getaway, Blair says. But Mrs. Clinton added that the President’s busy and uncertain schedule might stand in the way.

The 200-acre presidential retreat in Maryland’s Catoctin Mountains has complete privacy and a full range of recreational activities--golf, fishing, horseback riding, swimming, volleyball, weightlifting and more. Lodging can accommodate all the friends and family the Clintons might want to bring along.

But the family has so far shown little taste for the place and has spent only two weekends at the mountain residence.

Another option, buying a suitable vacation retreat, seems to be out. “They don’t have that kind of money,” says press secretary Myers.

But as some of the Clintons’ vacation problems persist, others may be taking care of themselves with the passage of time.

Philip A. Schembra, the Hilton Head businessman who arranged the Clintons’ lodgings during last January’s sojourn to the island, believes that if the President’s family returns to Hilton Head, they will not be mobbed as in January.

The reason: Residents of the resolutely Republican enclave have lost interest in Clinton since he began pushing higher taxes as part of his budget plan.

“They won’t bother him at all now,” predicts Schembra. “They may not even turn their heads when he passes.”