By RAYMOND BONNER

WASHINGTON, Nov. 20 — An array of reli­gious, civ­il rights and polit­i­cal lead­ers are appeal­ing to President Clinton to declare a mora­to­ri­um on fed­er­al exe­cu­tions in the clos­ing days of his presidency.

A let­ter deliv­ered to the White House today and signed by 40 peo­ple, includ­ing the for­mer White House coun­sel Lloyd N. Cutler and sev­er­al oth­er one­time mem­bers of the Clinton admin­is­tra­tion, urged the pres­i­dent to ​“pre­vent an uncon­scionable act — exe­cut­ing indi­vid­u­als while the gov­ern­ment is still deter­min­ing whether gross unfair­ness has led to their death sentences.”

Asked about the ini­tia­tive, White House offi­cials said Mr. Clinton had indi­cat­ed no incli­na­tion to declare a moratorium.

Organizers sought sign­ers who they thought would have influ­ence with the pres­i­dent. The sign­ers includ­ed the Nobel lau­re­ate and Holocaust his­to­ri­an Elie Wiesel, the financier and phil­an­thropist George Soros, mem­bers of the com­mit­tee estab­lished by Mr. Clinton to study race rela­tions in America and three Roman Catholic bishops.

In a sep­a­rate let­ter call­ing for a mora­to­ri­um, for­mer President Jimmy Carter and his wife, Rosalyn, told Mr. Clinton that a fed­er­al exe­cu­tion ​“would dimin­ish the United States’ moral author­i­ty abroad.” The let­ter, sent by the Carters last month, is to be released at a news con­fer­ence that the orga­niz­ers have sched­uled for Tuesday.

The activ­i­ty pre­cedes by three weeks the sched­uled exe­cu­tion on Dec. 12 of Juan Raul Garza, sen­tenced to death for three drug-relat­ed mur­ders. Mr. Garza is one of 21 fed­er­al pris­on­ers on death row. His would be the first fed­er­al exe­cu­tion since 1963.

Mr. Garza was ear­li­er sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed on Aug. 5. But Mr. Clinton grant­ed a reprieve because of con­cerns about racial and geo­graph­ic dis­par­i­ties in the appli­ca­tion of the fed­er­al death penal­ty, along with what was then an absence of fed­er­al clemency procedures.

Then, in September, a Justice Department sur­vey con­clud­ed that in 75 per­cent of the cas­es in which a fed­er­al pros­e­cu­tor had sought the death penal­ty, the defen­dant was a mem­ber of a minor­i­ty group, and in more than half the cas­es, an African- American.

In addi­tion, the sur­vey found that a hand­ful of United States attor­neys account­ed for about 40 per­cent of the death penal­ty cas­es. Attorney General Janet Reno said at the time that she was ​“sore­ly trou­bled” by the find­ings, and ordered further study.

The let­ter sent to the pres­i­dent today called for a mora­to­ri­um until the study was com­plet­ed and there had been a peri­od of pub­lic debate. This would sure­ly car­ry any mora­to­ri­um into the next administration.

Other sign­ers of the let­ter include Mary Francis Berry, chair­woman of the United States Commission on Civil Rights; Julian Bond, chair­man of the N.A.A.C.P.; Kerry Kennedy Cuomo, founder of the R.F.K. Center for Human Rights; Bishop Joseph A. Fiorenza of Galveston-Houston, pres­i­dent of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops; John Hope Franklin, chair­man of the President’s Initiative on Race; the Rev. Theodore M. Hesburgh, for­mer pres­i­dent of the University of Notre Dame; Fred Korematsu, Japanese- American civ­il rights leader; Anthony T. Kronman, dean of the Yale Law School; Mario Obledo, pres­i­dent of the National Coalition of Hispanic Organizations; and Robert B. Reich, for­mer sec­re­tary of labor.