By TIM JOHNSON
             Herald Staff Writer

             QUITO, Ecuador -- President Clinton on Wednesday urged President Jamil
             Mahuad to ``maintain Ecuador's unwavering commitment to democracy'' in a
             message aimed at derailing any attempt by the besieged leader to shut down
             Congress and rule by decree.

             By the time the Clinton letter was delivered to the presidential palace, however,
             Mahuad appeared to have cast aside any thoughts of authoritarian rule to cope
             with the country's severe economic crisis.

             Mahuad spent the day forging a new political coalition and monitoring a nationwide
             protest movement that appeared to be losing momentum.

             But the Clinton letter appeared to confirm reports that Mahuad gave serious
             consideration last week -- and as recently as Monday -- to the possibility of
             suspending Congress and governing the fractious nation of 12 million people by
             strong-arm rule.

             Had Mahuad done so, it would surely have brought international condemnation to
             a country that returned to democracy in 1979.

             The three-paragraph Clinton letter was mostly congenial, praising Mahuad for his
             ``courageous efforts to build a political coalition willing to tackle Ecuador's
             profound economic problems.''

             Clinton told Mahuad, 49, that his efforts were appreciated abroad.

             Washington wants Ecuador to ``reach an agreement'' with the International
             Monetary Fund for reforms and emergency loans, Clinton said, adding that ``the
             United States is ready to help Ecuador meet its challenges.''

             Striking a note of warning, Clinton then wrote:

             ``It is vital that you continue to work for needed economic reforms and maintain
             Ecuador's unwavering commitment to democracy and constitutional order.''

             While Mahuad did not speak in public, Vice President Gustavo Noboa said on a
             television interview program that the 7-month-old Mahuad administration will not
             veer toward strong-arm rule -- even though plotters may be seeking its overthrow.

             ``The government will do all that is possible to maintain democracy in the country,''
             Noboa said.

             Mahuad has confronted a fiscal crisis ever since he assumed the presidency last
             August.

             The crisis suddenly worsened this month. The currency, the sucre, started plunging
             March 5, losing 25 percent of its value over the next few days. Mahuad
             responded last week by imposing a four-day bank holiday. He partially froze bank
             accounts and raised gasoline prices 165 percent. Many Ecuadoreans panicked,
             flocking to banks when they reopened Monday to take out what money they
             could.

             Mahuad apparently saw his political options as few. Since coming to office, he and
             his centrist Popular Democracy party have ruled with the help of the center-right
             Social Christian Party, which has its power base in Guayaquil, the huge Pacific
             port that is Ecuador's economic engine.

             But by last week, the Social Christians hinted that the alliance was ending.
             Analysts said the party recently achieved passage of a huge bank bailout in
             Congress -- rescuing major party financiers -- and saw little need to continue with
             Mahuad.

             Mahuad flirted with the idea of shutting down Congress, local news reports said.

             On Monday, in a meeting with U.S. Ambassador Leslie Alexander, Mahuad laid
             out some of the options before him, including the possibility of strong-arm rule, one
             source said. He was told Washington would oppose any such rupture in Ecuador's
             democracy.

             There is a precedent for such a move in neighboring Peru, where President
             Alberto Fujimori shut down his nation's Congress and intervened in the judiciary in
             1992. Fujimori, who has remained in office ever since, has yet to restore Peru's
             pre-1992 system of checks and balances.

             A sense of national paralysis, meanwhile, eased as a 3-day-old protest movement
             lost momentum, degenerating into battles between rock throwers and police in
             Guayaquil, Quito and Cuenca. Tens of thousands of hungry employees trudged to
             work, failing to find public transportation.

             Some said they had to earn money to put bread on their tables.

             ``People are desperate. They have nothing to eat. They have to work.  . . . If you
             don't work, you don't have any income,'' said Patricio Chango Maldonado, a
             vendor of milk products.

             Stores reported growing low on supplies as trucks bringing foodstuffs to major
             cities sat behind barricades and crackling bonfires that brought sections of the
             Panamerican Highway to a standstill.

             ``There is no sugar. There is no flour. We are short on everything -- oranges,
             plantains,'' said Laura de Leon at the Rincon de Bavaria bakery in Quito.

             She said many workers like herself opposed the gasoline price hikes and other
             measures imposed by Mahuad but ``we have to work to eat.''

             Tens of thousands of Indians in the central highlands joined the protest, as did
             some 4,500 petroleum workers.
 

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