Back in Zug, Marc Rich had been putting out feelers. William A. Wilson, who was President Reagan's friend and ambassador to the Vatican, began asking questions about his case. The State Department warned him off. In 1995, the department balked again, according to the New York Times, when the Israelis asked that the United States allow Rich to travel more freely without fear of being arrested.



He had not been able to attend the funeral of his father. By now one of his daughters, in her late 20s and in New York with her mother, was dying of leukemia. Prosecutors who had indicted Rich under former U.S. Atty. Rudolph W. Giuliani, now the mayor of New York, rebuffed his efforts to see her.



By the end of 1999, Rich wanted it all to end.



His lawyers insisted he had a strong defense. He claimed he was a victim of anti-Semitism and Giuliani's overzealous prosecution. If so, why not return with Green and stand trial?



"Considering the amount of publicity the affair has received so far and the amount of attention we would get if we took this step, it would be very risky for us," he told an Israeli magazine that October in a rare interview. "And I do not want to take this risk."



Instead, the congressional records show, Rich wanted to work out a deal with Mary Jo White, who had succeeded Giuliani as U.S. attorney.



He hired Jack Quinn, a lawyer and Washington lobbyist who had been Vice President Al Gore's counsel, then his chief of staff. In 1994, Quinn was drafted by Clinton to be his White House counsel. Quinn had served for two years, then returned to the powerhouse law firm of Arnold & Porter. For $400,000, Quinn began working the phones. He told everyone Rich's defense had merit. Then he called Eric H. Holder Jr., who was Atty. Gen. Janet Reno's top deputy, and asked a favor. Could Holder set up a meeting between him and Mary Jo White's people in New York?



Although Rich's case was notorious in New York City, Holder had never heard of him. He asked an aide to set up the meeting.



White's office would not budge. They were not interested.



The U.S. attorney herself was blunt. "Impossible," White wrote to Quinn several weeks later. "It is our firm policy not to negotiate dispositions of criminal charges with fugitives." There was only one option: a presidential pardon.



Quinn had nearly unparalleled access to Clinton and the decision-makers who surrounded him. He and Rich's other lawyers and advocates began writing letters to allies. They culled lists of potential advocates and plotted strategy. Who would make the strongest cases for their client?



They sought advice from Denise Rich, who agreed to help -- for the sake of her children, she said. By now she had made nearly $1.4 million in various political contributions to Democrats, including Bill and Hillary Clinton. Among her gifts were $450,000 for the Clinton library, $10,000 for Clinton's legal defense fund and a pair of coffee tables and chairs worth $7,375.



The team collected photographs of Rich, like ones taken a few months earlier showing him with former Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres, a Swiss ambassador and other luminaries at a reception in Rich's honor at the Tel Aviv museum. It helped that Rich had embraced Israel with his heart -- and his checkbook.



The Riches had been doling out money to Jewish causes "from before the establishment of the state [of Israel], first by my father and later on by me," he told Israel's Haaretz newspaper in late 1999. "I am a Jew, and Jews are important to me. I always thought the state of Israel was very important to Jews and to the whole world in general. I always wanted to help."



When Jerusalem's Sha'arei Tzedek Hospital needed medical equipment, Rich donated $1.1 million. When the Israel Museum wanted to open a new wing, Rich obliged with an additional $1.4 million. And when Israel's leaders needed money to help integrate new immigrants or to pay for young Jews to visit the country, Rich willingly picked up the tab.



Over two decades, Rich had, by some estimates, donated more than $30 million to various causes in Israel.



Now the people who came forward to help him could have filled several pages of Who's Who in Israel. They included Peres, former Prime Minister Ehud Barak, Foreign Minister Shlomo Ben-Ami, Justice Minister Yossi Beilin and a host of other high government officials on the left. Jerusalem Mayor Ehug Olmert topped a list of rightist politicians who supported a pardon.



Even Zubin Mehta, maestro of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, weighed in on Rich's behalf.



Quinn and his team gathered letters attesting to Rich's generous contributions. With cany sleight of hand, in some cases the team neglected to mention that the letters would be included in a thick book to be sent to the White House to help seek a pardon.



Shulamit Aloni, a former culture minister, said she knew nothing about Rich, even though his charitable foundations routinely funded her pet projects involving the opera, theater and women's rights. She said she was asked by a Rich representative to write about "all the beautiful things" his foundations had done.



"If I knew the letter was going to be used this way," she said, "I would have forbidden it."



Barak's support was knowing and fulsome. He telephoned Clinton and spoke effectively on Rich's behalf. Afterward, Clinton acknowledged to Geraldo Rivera, host of CNBC's "Rivera Live," just how effective the support from Israel had been.



"Israel," he declared, "did influence me profoundly."



Quinn engaged in another sleight of hand. When he forwarded Rich's formal request for a pardon, he bypassed the Justice Department and sent it straight to the White House. A Justice Department review is not required -- but is standard practice.



Rich's lawyers were dogged. E-mails churned across the Atlantic at a furious pace, from Quinn and Rich's other advocates in the United States to Avner Azulay, managing director of his foundation in Israel. A former senior agent with Israel's intelligence agency, the Mossad, Azulay was well connected.



His involvement, along with that of Shabtai Shavit, a former head of the Mossad, who supported Rich's pardon, raised speculation that Rich had aided the Mossad at some invisible point in his past.



Azulay stayed in daily contact with Rich by phone and mail. They met once a month, usually in Switzerland. Rich visited Israel only once a year. He stayed at the plush King David Hotel because he had no residence there.



"Would it still be useful to have another VIP place an additional call to Potus [the president of the United States] to support the petition?" Azulay e-mailed on Dec. 19. "I could try asking the Speaker of the Kensset (Parlement) [sic] Avram Burg who was the guest speaker at the Marc Rich Annual Seminar which opened tonight."



The strategy debate intensified.



Could they somehow approach Giuliani about the case? Bad idea. Other names were tossed about. Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.). Presidential advisor Vernon E. Jordan Jr. Nobel Prize winner and Holocaust survivor Eli Wiesel. The attorneys contacted some; others they let slide.



Wiesel, for instance, said he was contacted but declined to help.



"Wonder if you can inquire whether there is a possibility of persuading Mrs. Rabin to make a call to POTUS," attorney Robert Fink e-mailed Azulay on Dec. 30, regarding slain Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin's wife.



"Bob, having Leah Rabin call is not a bad idea," Azulay replied the next day. "The problem is how do we contact her? She died last November -- on the 5th anniversary of her husband's murder."



Mounds of praise