Some Democrats on Panel Turn Against Gates

WASHINGTON —  Robert M. Gates’ chances of becoming CIA director were dealt another setback Wednesday when several undecided Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee indicated that they now have doubts about voting for his confirmation.

Shaken by two days of testimony that has given unprecedented exposure to what one CIA veteran called the “hardball” game of intelligence analysis, some senators who had been leaning toward confirmation began to question Gates’ ability to manage an agency where morale seems to have hit rock bottom during his tenure in the 1980s.

Rallying to Gates’ defense, some committee members accused the CIA officers who have testified against him of relying on second-hand information for their allegations that he slanted intelligence about the Soviet Union to please the ideological biases of the Ronald Reagan White House.

President Bush also spoke up for the nominee--now serving as his deputy national security adviser--expressing confidence that Gates will “clear the record up” when he answers the allegations in his final appearances before the committee today and possibly Friday. The panel hopes to wrap up its hearings this week.

Referring to his own brief tenure as CIA director in 1976, Bush reacted skeptically to the critics’ charges by wondering aloud “where all these people have been all these years with . . . all their anxieties” about intelligence slanting.

“It seems funny that (it) all surfaces right now but I know Bob Gates and I know he wouldn’t slant an estimate for some political purpose,” Bush told reporters. “I was at the agency. I know how it works. And my confidence in Bob Gates has not been diminished one single bit.”

But Administration strategists acknowledged that the prospects of an easy confirmation appear increasingly doubtful, and the outcome will be determined, in large part, by Gates’ credibility when he reappears before the committee.

“The jury is out now,” said lobbyist Tom Korologos, who has been assisting the Administration on the confirmation. “Tomorrow will be judgment day.”

Testifying on the nominee’s behalf, a senior CIA official in charge of Soviet analysis at the agency when Gates was named deputy director in 1986 disputed the allegations of intelligence slanting.

The official, Douglas MacEachin, said that he knew of no instance in which Gates had suppressed dissenting opinions or pressured analysts into skewing their intelligence assessments to conform to then-CIA Director William J. Casey’s conservative views about the Soviet Union.

But MacEachin, now chief of the CIA’s arms control intelligence staff, acknowledged that the perception of such slanting is widespread and has created serious morale problems at the agency. “We have allowed this thing to fester for too long,” he testified, his voice strained. “The perception of politicalization is almost as bad as the real thing.”

Indeed, as other current and former CIA officials painted conflicting Jekyll and Hyde portraits of Gates, panel members who had been inclined to vote favorably on the nomination when the hearings began three weeks ago appear now to be harboring serious reservations.

“Allegations of this type are very difficult to prove but the fact is that it is a major problem, and some senators are beginning to wonder about the wisdom of sending Bob Gates back to the agency to fix a problem he helped to create,” a senior committee aide said.

Sen. Ernest F. Hollings (D-S.C.) startled the audience at the hearing when he announced that he was “leaning” toward voting against Gates because he no longer believes that his confirmation would “be in the best interests of the Central Intelligence Agency.”

The second-ranking Democrat on the committee, Sen. Sam Nunn of Georgia, also expressed concern about the widespread animosity toward Gates that apparently exists within the CIA. He suggested during a period of cross-examination Wednesday that Gates would have “quite a task” in managing an agency where morale is likely to suffer further if he is confirmed.

Hal Ford, a senior CIA analyst whose testimony at a closed door-hearing last week was considered especially damaging to Gates, agreed with Nunn during Wednesday’s open session. Ford said that he could not recall a previous situation in which this kind of opposition to a director-designate had arisen within the CIA. “It’s an unusual situation,” he said. “My answer would be that it’s unique.”

Until Wednesday, the only senators who had been considered certain to vote against Gates were Democrats Bill Bradley of New Jersey and Howard M. Metzenbaum of Ohio. But Sen. Alan Cranston (D-Calif.) said that some Democrats had been badly “shaken” by the testimony of the last few days and that he knew of several who previously had been “inclined to support Gates who are now uncertain.”

Hoping to arrest the trend against Gates before it picks up momentum, the seven Republicans on the 15-member committee challenged the nominee’s CIA critics to defend allegations that they said are based on hearsay. The Republican offense was led by Sen. Warren B. Rudman of New Hamsphire, who attacked the credibility of one key witness, former CIA Soviet analyst Melvin A. Goodman.

For several dramatic moments, the atmosphere in the hearing room took on the electricity of a courtroom trial as Rudman engaged in a sharp exchange with Goodman. The issue was Goodman’s assertion that William H. Webster, Casey’s successor as CIA director, suspected that Gates was giving a political slant to intelligence and ordered a secret investigation into the allegations after he arrived at the agency in 1987.

Challenging Goodman’s account, Rudman produced a Sept. 27 letter that he received from Webster denying that he had commissioned a secret investigation of Gates. “You made a very strong statement and this totally rebuts it,” Rudman said.

Goodman, however, insisted that his version of events is accurate.

The day’s most dramatic testimony came from Jennifer Glaudemans, another former CIA analyst. In a quiet, at times nearly quavering voice, Glaudemans spoke in detail about the “culture of fear” that pervaded the analysts’ division and that led, because of Gates’ influence, to “a prostitution of Soviet analysis.”

“I understand how difficult it is to believe what we have told you. The means by which politicization (of intelligence information) occurred is not readily documented. There is little paper to evidence the continual and subtle pressures applied to analysts to make them comply,” Glaudemans said.

She cited several examples from her six-year tenure as a junior analyst at the CIA in the mid-1980s, among them a 1986 memorandum on declining Soviet aid to the Third World. She said that Gates “threw away and said he didn’t want to see” the memo because it contradicted his belief that the Soviets were becoming an increasing menace in the Third World.

Staff Writer David Lauter contributed to this story.