Meanwhile Mr. Ryan, who declined to be interviewed for this article, reviews the 160 case files, and the board's confidential recommendations, even during dinner and while flying in the state plane.

In separate interviews last week, the Republican Senators questioned why the committee of three Democrats and three Republicans had not acted on a confidential recommendation on Sept. 10 of its special counsel, Robert S. Bennett.

They plan to make confidential recommendations next month to the governor, who may commute sentences or pardon defendants unilaterally.

Aides to Mr. Thompson said he had made his own confidential recommendation to President Bush.

And a few weeks ago, a confidential recommendation that Bernhard Goetz be spared imprisonment surfaced in the press.

Mundelein then met with the Quigley faculty and asked for their prayerful individual and confidential recommendations for the rector's position.

Five days ago, reasoning that an unscrupulous attorney would know how to find an equally unscrupulous private detective, even across state borders, Junior had phoned Simon Magusson, in Spruce Hills, for a confidential recommendation.

Next Thursday, the Illinois Prisoner Review Board will hear the clemency plea and make a confidential recommendation to the Governor.

In his message instructing Attorney General John Ashcroft to resist the committee's subpoenas, Mr. Bush voiced concern that disclosure of confidential recommendations about whether to bring criminal charges would inhibit candor and risk politicizing prosecutorial decisions.

Because of a deadlock brought in part by the political differences, the committee could not reach a consensus in September about whether to accept the confidential recommendation by its special counsel, Robert S. Bennett.