The Diplomacy of Death : When spies execute foreign policy : Why Effort to Get Gates May Succeed

The nomination of Robert M. Gates to be Director of Central Intelligence is unraveling, raising serious political problems for his patron, President George Bush.

The smooth Kansan, who serves as Bush’s deputy national-security adviser, was nominated to head the CIA four years ago. But an enormous hidden shoal called Iran-Contra sank him, and President Ronald Reagan had to withdraw his name from consideration.

When nominated May 14, Gates appeared to be in for smooth sailing this time. But last week, an angry Senate Intelligence Committee postponed hearings on his nomination until September. Then it was disclosed that Gates had been summoned, three months ago, before a federal grand jury investigating Iran-Contra. Gates, if not actually sunk, is taking on water fast. Once again, he has hit the same reef.

What has Gates in trouble is essentially the identical set of questions that arose in 1987: How much did he know about the Iran-Contra scandal, and when did he know it? This time, however, the questions are in excruciatingly sharp focus as a result of the guilty plea by Alan D. Fiers Jr., who had directed the CIA’s Central American task force.

In pleading guilty to unlawfully withholding information from Congress, Fiers said that, in 1986, he had told his superiors, including Clair E. George, then the deputy director for operations, or head spy, that profits from arms sales to Iran were being diverted to the Contras in Nicaragua. He said George responded: “Now you are one of a handful of people who know this.” Moreover, Fiers said, George told him to mislead Congress about the CIA’s role in the illegal Contra resupply operation being coordinated from the White House by Lt. Col. Oliver L. North.

At the time, Gates was the deputy director of the CIA, a job to which he was named in April, 1986, several months before the Iran-Contra scandal surfaced. His immediate boss, CIA chief William J. Casey, was one of the architects of that scandal and from the start was well aware of the diversion of money to the Contras, according to North, who should know. Gates’ immediate subordinate, George, knew about the diversion, according to Fiers. George brazenly denied but later admitted to Congress that the CIA was involved in the resupply missions.

Fiers’ guilty plea places Gates as the meat in an unsavory sandwich that the Senate Intelligence Committee, like it or not, now has on its menu. Put simply, the question is: If Casey, Gates’ boss, knew and George, Gates’ immediate subordinate knew, is it possible that Gates did not? Was he part of the CIA cover-up?

The dilemma for Gates--a Soviet spe cialist who came up through the agency’s ranks as an analyst, not as a cloak-and-dagger operative in George’s directorate--is that he must either plead ignorance or admit complicity in, or knowledge of, the aid funneled to the Contras at a time when Congress had banned such assistance. If Gates pleads ignorance, what does that say about his competence to run the nation’s intelligence apparatus? It is the classic no-win problem for the bureaucrat confronting a scandal.

In dealing with the dilemma four years ago, Gates adopted what might be called the “ostrich defense.” In secret testimony declassified by the Senate Intelligence Committee, Gates said: “Agency people . . . actively shunned information. We didn’t want to know how the Contras were being funded, in part, because we were concerned it would get us involved in crossing the line imposed by the law. And so we actively discouraged people from telling us things.”

That sort of reply enraged the committee’s then vice chairman, Sen. William S. Cohen (R-Me.). He called Gates “an ambitious young man, type-A personality. . . . You basically didn’t want to rock the boat.”

Indeed, Gates comes across as the perfect young executive, dark-suited and immaculately groomed, the aide who hovers in the background and steps forward with exactly the document that the CEO needs before he asks for it. And he did climb the bureaucratic ladder deftly, detailed by the CIA to the White House under three presidents--Nixon, Ford and Carter--before returing to the agency and rising to its No. 2 job.

The ostrich defense did not play well in 1987. This time around, Gates, in all likelihood, will rely on other arguments--CIA compartmentation, his own background as an analyst, not an operator, and Casey’s notorious penchant for secrecy--to explain away his purported lack of knowledge.

The CIA does restrict information on a need-to-know basis, so it is conceivable, if improbable, that George, the chief of the operations directorate, did not take Gates into his confidence. As a member of the intelligence directorate, which he headed from 1982 to 1986, Gates would have been an outsider to the “DDO” crowd, as the operations directorate is known.

But the Senate committee, understandably, wants to hear directly from Fiers and George about what Gates may have known and when. Since Casey is dead, and Fiers in his plea did not refer to any conversations with Gates--although the two are known to have talked on several occasions--much of the interest will center on what, if anything, George might have to say.

Gates’ problems do not stop with the potential testimony of CIA witnesses. Even if George should appear and testify that he concealed his knowledge of Iran-Contra from Gates, the nominee faces myriad other questions about his role in the scandal.

Gates has testified that he first learned of a possible diversion of money from Iran arms sales to the Contras on Oct. 1, 1986, from Charles E. Allen, a CIA officer who was working with North. But Richard J. Kerr, the deputy director of the CIA, has testified that he warned Gates of the diversion in late August--more than a month earlier--after Allen told him about it. Gates has said he could not remember an earlier warning from Kerr. Date aside, why hadn’t Gates done anything about these warnings of illegal activity? In explaining his inaction, Gates testified that he considered the information “worrisome, but extraordinarily flimsy.”

In November, when the scandal burst forth publicly, it was Gates who supervised the preparation of Casey’s misleading testimony to the House and Senate intelligence panels. In his appearance before Congress, Casey never revealed the diversion and implied that the CIA believed that an Israeli shipment of Hawk missiles to Iran in November, 1985, transported by a CIA airline, was really oil-drilling equipment.

The controversy over Gates and the larger question of the CIA’s link to Iran-Contra has been a ticking time bomb for four years. In June, 1987, Joseph F. Fernandez, the CIA station chief in Costa Rica, told congressional Iran-Contra committees that his superiors at CIA knew he was coordinating air drops of weapons to the Contras in Nicaragua. George had testified, on Oct. 14, 1986, that “The CIA is not involved directly or indirectly” in the resupply missions. Was that true, Fernandez was asked? It was not, he said. Later, George went back to Congress and “corrected” his previous false testimony.

Lurking behind the battle over the Gates nomination is the potential for political damage to the President. The link to Bush is another ex-CIA man, Donald P. Gregg, the current ambassador to South Korea. Gregg, a clandestine operator for 31 years, served as Vice President Bush’s national-security adviser.

Gregg had no closer friend in the CIA than Felix Rodriguez, whom he introduced to Bush and other high officials. North was impressed and hired Rodriguez, also known as “Max Gomez,” to work with the Contras. Gregg’s White House secretary typed two memos for a May 1, 1986, meeting between Rodriguez and Bush. Rodriguez, the memos said, would brief Bush on the war in El Salvador and “resupply of the Contras.”

Since Bush has said he was “out of the loop” on Iran-Contra, the memos were a problem. But Gregg came up with an ingenious solution. The memos, he said, should have said “resupply of copters.” It was an explanation worthy of Pinocchio, but Gregg is now an ambassador.

The Senate intelligence panel is angry because, on July 12, President Bush, dismayed at the prospect of defeat over the Gates nomination, lost his cool and angrily blasted the senators who “ought not to panic and run like a covey of quail.” Senators, who tend to see themselves as eagles, were offended. Their feathers, so to speak, were ruffled. Sen. Dennis DeConcini (D-Ariz.) came right out and declared: “We are not a covey of quail.”

Bush, buoyed by his military success against Iraq in the Persian Gulf War, apparently felt he had the political strength to name Gates and stuff him down the senators’ beaks, despite the fact that Gates stumbled four years ago and his role in, and knowledge of, Iran-Contra remains murky. What seems clear, however, even on record thus far, is that Gates knew a great deal more about the scandal than he has publicly admitted under oath. That alone should provide sufficient grounds for the senators to reject his nomination.

Some of the CIA’s old clandestine operators argue that an analyst with no operational experience is not qualified to run a spy agency. But in a world with a collapsing communist empire, it can be argued that analytical skills and economic intelligence are more important than traditional spying. Gates may fit the new breed of intelligence leaders, but his involvement in the worst scandal since Watergate overshadows all else. Retiring director William H. Webster is credited with restoring the agency’s image. As his successor, Gates would not be likely to inspire the same public confidence.

For Bush, Gates was a risky--some might say arrogant--choice. For the Democrats, facing bleak prospects in 1992, the Gates nomination--and the unfolding CIA drama--may offer a volatile political issue.