Socks’ Stand-In Social Secretary a Purrfect Penman : Politics: White House feline is the cat’s meow to his many fans, who deluge him with correspondence.

Socks the cat has a problem.

No, not the reports about his clawing the White House furniture and being banished to the basement.

No, not the fact that he can’t roam around freely like he did in Arkansas.

Socks has a much more basic problem: He has no thumbs. Because of that, he can’t hold a pen--so he can’t answer the 200 letters a day that he receives. Enter special agent James Garaufis, an 8-year-old from New York City.

His mission during a recent trip to Washington was to help Socks answer his mail.

James, known as Jamie, was invited along with other children from across the country as part of a program sponsored by the Smithsonian. Their day included a tour of the White House, along with rooms not normally shown to the public, and a personal meeting with Socks. After all, it would be hard to answer someone’s mail without having met him.

“I thought he was cute and cuddly--a very nice cat,” said Jamie, whose mother, Eleanor Prescott, is an executive producer with ABC News and whose father, Nicholas Garaufis, is counsel to Queens Borough President Claire Shulman in New York City.

Jamie said he was impressed with the White House--although he didn’t look for claw marks on the furniture--and was particularly impressed with the history. “It’s nice to know that the President’s desk was made out of a sailing ship,” he said.

He also learned that a bust of Lincoln in the hallway near the Oval Office has been traditionally used to show what mood the President is in.

The tradition reportedly started with President Lyndon B. Johnson. When he was in a bad mood, aides would turn the bust outside the office to face the wall to warn others.

“You can turn his head, but we weren’t allowed to,” Jamie said. It was unclear whether that was because the statue was valuable or because President Clinton was in a good mood.

Jamie said that the White House takes Socks’ letters seriously and tries to answer all of them. The replies include a full-color photo--with a paw-mark as an autograph.