Mr. Fontaine said the transition office has a budget of $3.5 million in Federal money, which he controls.

More than 600 people will be working at the transition office for the next 11 weeks to set an agenda, select personnel and organize an administration.

He has yet to visit his transition office.

The work could be done anywhere the two men sat, which in this case ended up including the governor-elect's transition office in Trenton.

He has methodically gone through the building, inviting groups of diplomats to his transition office on the first floor for show-and-tell sessions.

"You're going to have to ask the president's transition office for a comment," she said.

So, Cheney opened a privately funded transition office in Washington.

Mr. Giuliani's transition office sought to play down the announcement yesterday.

"Since Election Day, the transition office has received many inquiries as to how the governor-elect would like his name to appear," the memo said.

The Heritage Foundation, a conservative research group here, recently delivered a 10-foot stack of resumes to the transition office.