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So forgive our skepticism regarding President Clinton's eloquent introduction of his third "AIDS czar" earlier this month as someone who "will speak the truth unvarnished."

Sandy Thurman, the new director of the White House Office for National AIDS Policy, worked on AIDS programs in Atlanta for five years, received an enthusiastic welcome from AIDS activists, and no doubt is an impressive candidate. Yet the organization she will head is a public relations shell, whose mission seems to be primarily to create the illusion of a grand strategy in the war against AIDS.

Instead, it has created the impression of aimlessness and disarray. It took President Clinton about six months to find the first AIDS czar, Kristine Gebbie. She came into office promising aggressive prevention and education efforts, but quit a year later, complaining of conflicting agendas and lack of support. The next czar, Patricia Fleming, lasted only 18 months.

Despite this, there have been significant strides in research and treatment. Federal funding for AIDS research is up significantly under Clinton. New drugs are slowing down the disease, even raising the possibility of a cure sometime in the near future.

The bad news is that AIDS is spreading most rapidly among intravenous drug users, and as a result has become the leading cause of death in Latino and African-American communities. Addicts contract the disease through dirty needles and sometimes infect their sexual partners and their children.

Last February, Health and Human Services Secretary Donna E. Shalala submitted to Congress the results of several studies conclusively demonstrating that providing clean needles significantly reduces the incidence of infection without increasing drug use or chances of addiction. The cost-benefit calculus is obvious: It's far cheaper to prevent addicts from contracting AIDS than to pay for their medical treatment, and possibly that of their partners and children.

Still, needle exchanges are a political stink bomb, and so the Clinton administration refuses to press for lifting of the Congressional ban on federal funding of clean-needle programs.

It's highly unlikely that the new AIDS czar will be any more successful than her predecessors in affecting the direction of federal AIDS policies and funding. So we propose a far simpler agenda: To repeat the phrase "clean needles" at every meeting, press conference and public event, until the Clinton administration screws up the political courage to ask for repeal of the congressional ban.

If she accomplishes that, it will be more than her two predecessors achieved, and for the first time will make the existence of the office of AIDS czar seem worth the expense to the taxpayers.

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