access to pseudo terminals

dear linux wizards---I am using the command line editor (cle), version
4.0, to make interacting with the Mathematica command line kernel more
pleasant. alas, I can only run it as "su", because it requires
read-write access to a pseudo-terminal. obviously, I do not want to
give cle full su provileges, as it can be used with any program.

what is the recommended way to work cle / programs that allocate pseudo
ttys?

sincerely,

/iaw