HERE ARE 10 LESSONS the Clinton administration learned at the Summit of the Americas and should avoid the next time it invites 33 heads of government to a party:

1. Never put the 87-year-old president of the Dominican Republic, Joaquin Balaguer, who is blind and halting of step, in a position where he has to walk ahead of other leaders across miles of red carpet, climb stairs and then get on a riser to pose for a group picture. Whenever Balaguer was announced, he moved at such an excruciatingly slow pace, summit participants and hundreds of onlookers were in suspended animation waiting for him to arrive and arrive safely.2. Never assume spouses, daughters and other accompaniers intuitively will know how to dress. At the Friday night opening ceremony and grilled snapper dinner, a third of the wives of the leaders arrived in formal dress with sequins or lots of cleavage, a third arrived in cocktail dress, a third arrived in business dress and one woman arrived in a housedress. The first lady was in a red silk cocktail suit with gold buttons.

3. Never, even in the name of political correctness, have a woman with an unusually high-pitched voice translate the president's words into Spanish, breaking into his sentences, translating them as someone else might have said it and then pausing at length to disconcert him.

4. Never, when you have invited 5,000 press representatives from 33 countries, put them on a pier without restaurants, serve them cold hot dogs and then run out after serving only 1,500. They may return home and write or broadcast about the poor standard of living in the United States, even if the next day you relent and give them chicken, fruit and corn on the cob.

5. Do, when inviting the same 5,000 media types to hot, humid Florida, provide water rather than palm plants in bamboo buckets every few feet. Do provide trash containers. When the summit theme is more high-tech jobs and a better standard of living through trade, do provide phones that work all the time for the participants.

6. Do not fire a prominent member of the administration the afternoon the summit opens, especially not when the whole world is watching and the indiscretion involves a public discussion of masturbation. It was Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders' picture on the front pages and in the TV broadcasts, not the president after she was forced to resign just as the pomp and circumstance began in Miami.

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7. Do not allow the Secret Service to prevent the somewhat stuffy president of Argentina, Carlos Menem, and his exquisitely beautiful daughter from entering a hall where 500 of their friends are waiting to greet them. Menem was told he couldn't go into a building for a trade exhibit of Argentinian products because the agents couldn't guarantee his safety. The agents said they hadn't checked the building for a week and it would take an hour or two to secure the building. Steaming, Menem sat in his car for half an hour and then left.

8. When you have a symposium hosted by the first lady for the spouses (wives) of the leaders and it is on the broad subject of children, let other spouses speak while the cameras are in the room, not just the first lady of the host country.

9. When you invite three dozen heads of government and their vast entourages to a city that survives by the internal combustion engine, be prepared for limousine gridlock when you move them all from one place to another every few hours. Try to provide working magnetomers to prevent guests from bringing in guns so that harried agents with penlights don't have to go through purses on the sidewalk in the dark.

10. Do have another summit in Miami, which went out of its way to spruce up, hold down its murder rate, put on a friendly face and decorate its palm trees with tiny white lights and its front yards with giant polyurethane snow men for the season.

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