PRESIDENT BILL CLINTON AND VICE PRESIDENT AL GORE

Photographed by Annie Leibovitz in the Indian Treaty Room of the Old Executive Office Building on August 14, 1997.

Clinton, 51, is the first Democratic president in 60 years to be elected to a second term. A centrist New Democrat, he has transformed his once beleaguered party. Under his presidency, the U.S. has enjoyed the lowest rate of inflation since the early 1960s, and he is the first president in 17 years to submit a balanced budget to Congress.

Gore, 49, is considered the most powerful vice president in U.S. history and is, with the possible exception of Hillary Clinton, the president's closest adviser. The vice president is the current favorite for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2000.

A PORTRAIT OF WORLD POWER

The 65 men and women who shape and rule the world today. A 58-page portfolio of global influence by Annie Leibovitz, Helmut Newton, Snowdon, Harry Benson, Jonathan Becker, Timothy Greenfield-Sanders, Nigel Parry and others. With an essay on "America, the Last Empire," by Gore Vidal, on page 219

In our wired world, lit by Trinitrons, circled by satellites and silicon, and run by good old-fashioned money, the defin it ions of power are shifting. Before the shrinking of the globe and the explosion of the Information Age. the Powerful were a familiar breed: presidents and prime ministers. monarchs, and a handful of industrial mandarins. Outside influences on leaders were minimal (give or take a Rasputin), and the word Empire had terrifying and very real meaning. But today, w ith 40 years of Cold War thawed, and half the world no longer intent on exploding if not exploiting the other, we find that the reins of earthly power (once, not long ago. firmly in the grip of a few iron lists) are coming up for grabs. In our strange age, an extremely wealthy man can buy himself a foreign policy. Take, for example, George Soros the hedge-fund shaman who has spent more than SI billion to influence political conditions in 31 countries around the globe: last year Mr. Soros alone managed to outgive the U.S. in the lands of Hungary. Yugoslavia, and Belarus. That's power. And take the charter members of the multinational Gulfstream-jet set: men like Bill Gates, Rupert Murdoch. Gianni Agnelli, Jack Welch, Michael Eisner. Norio Ohga, Boris Berezovsky, and Gustavo A. Cisneros, They control the tentacles of industrial octopi so vast and influential that heads of state must adhere to their words; in some cases in some countries they must follow' their every whim. And in our own nation it is said that the chairman of the Federal Reserve System, Alan Greenspan (likely unknown to 95 percent of the populace), is the most powerful person around because of his ability to move markets and control interest rates. He is quite possibly the ultimate man of influence in a world of expanding economies and one hopes expanding peace. And then there remain the traditional imperial magistrates the president of the U.S., the P.M. of Great Britain; the presidents of France, Russia, and China: armed and dangerous. The ability to blow up the world still grants you a huge amount of sway in the international arena, but surely even these nuclear leaders can t help but notice how crowded and varied the global stage seems to be these days.

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