WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush will not revive a special White House office on women's issues that was created under President Clinton, a spokeswoman said Wednesday.

The National Organization for Women decried the decision as "really foolish and high-handed."

White House spokeswoman Claire Buchan said the function of the old office -- gathering policy and political input from women's advocacy groups and disseminating information on the administration's activities -- will be handled by aides in the White House Office of Public Liaison.

"We're still working on how exactly that will be structured, but we're committed to having a strong relationship with women's groups in the Bush White House," Buchan said. "The president believes the best way to address issues important to women is through a broad variety of fronts, through his policy initiatives, through outreach by the White House and by the agencies."

Since Bush's inauguration in January, an answering machine at the White House Office for Women's Initiatives and Outreach has notified callers: "We will no longer be able to receive your calls."

NOW President Patricia Ireland pointed out that, to date, Bush has not reached out to women's groups -- except for a meeting last week with Republican-leaning women business executives.

"We don't really think that is sufficient if he wants to have support from women in congressional elections a year and a half from now or in the presidential election in 2004," Ireland said.

The office that Clinton created in 1995 gave women activists a voice in policy deliberations, Ireland said.

"Can we talk about the budget and which domestic programs are going to be slashed, which are going to be preserved? All this discussion about outreach to the communities, about not being polarized, about (Bush) being the president of everyone -- it sounds like just so much hot air when we don't have any way to even approach the White House," Ireland said.

Buchan countered that the president has on his Cabinet and among his most senior advisers "numerous qualified officials who also happen to be women."

Last month, similar special offices on AIDS policy and race relations were essentially closed and their duties split between public liaison and the White House's Domestic Policy Council.