In the 70's we did this by 7 way crosstabs and used a series of
if mem1 eq 1 and mem2 eq 4 and mem3 eq 7 and mem4 eq 3 . . . newmem=1.
statements. (presented this at the 78 or 79 meeting).
Today I would explore the use of SPSS's CATPCA - categorical principal
components analysis, correspondence analysis, and TWO-STEP.
TWOSTEP will use categorical and/or continuous and produce
nonhierarchical clusters. It tells you the AIC and BIC for different
numbers of clusters.