Washington -- The 11-week transition period between the election and inauguration of a new U.S. president historically has been a time of healing and of striving for national unity, especially when a change in political party control was involved.

It also has been a time for the victor to transform a campaign organization into an administration, to put aside campaign rhetoric and focus on a legislative program and coherent foreign policy, and to announce key staff appointments and the Cabinet nominations that are subject to Senate confirmation.

But the transition is never a period when an incoming president's policies can be implemented. For even though an incumbent, such as President Bush, loses the election, he still retains control of the White House until the January 20 inaugural of his successor. In one of his first public statements since winning the November 3 election, Democrat Bill Clinton stressed that Bush still is president of the United States and should be treated accordingly.

The outgoing administration still has legal authority, but everyone knows that its influence is diminished; the incoming leader has plenty of influence, but until the inaugural, no authority.

During the transition, Bush will continue to serve as head of the government and commander in chief of the armed forces and to meet with foreign dignitaries. He also will ensure that his staff and all of the agencies of the federal government assist members of the Clinton team in preparing for the change of administrations.

Before World War Two, presidents for the most part completed their terms of office and left without extensively briefing their successors. Little attention was paid to changes in presidential administrations. But the need to focus on the consequences of a transition of presidential power was clearly demonstrated following the shocking disclosure that Franklin D. Roosevelt, who died during the war, had never apprised his vice president and successor, Harry S Truman, of the existence of the atomic bomb.

When Truman left office in 1953 he did meet with his successor, Dwight Eisenhower; and Eisenhower, for his part, also conferred with John F. Kennedy in 1961 and placed several Kennedy aides on the payroll of various government departments and agencies to prepare for the change in administration.

In 1963, Congress passed the Presidential Transition Act, which provides federal funds for office space, a staff, travel, communications and printing operations in order to "promote the orderly transfer of the executive power" between presidents.

Since then, former presidents Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan and George Bush have been involved in efforts to coordinate transitions.

The transition to Reagan's presidency in 1981, which involved a party change from Democrat to Republican, was guided by a team of about 1,200 people, two-thirds of whom were unpaid volunteers. His team also included his campaign staff, political experts from previous Republican administrations and a congressional advisory committee to open channels of communication with Capitol Hill.

Bush's 1989 transition process -- which many observers viewed as a continuation of the outgoing Reagan administration -- was considerably smaller in size and had contact points within government agencies at lower levels of responsibility.

In the past, incoming presidents have attempted during the transitions to strive for balance in making political appointments and to include women, minorities and members of the opposite political party among their selections.

Transitions are more complex in the area of foreign affairs because decisions have to be made in a global context. However the foreign policy objectives of both the outgoing incumbents and incoming presidents have been basically similar in most instances in the past; differences usually have been in style, tactics and priorities rather than in ultimate goals.

"If nothing else," says veteran political observer Dom Bonafede, "the presidential transition tends to reaffirm faith in the U.S. political process. In few other countries of the world is power passed from one hand to another with such mutual assistance, and without physical or spiritual violence."