CIA Chief Bringing Slain Agent’s Body Back to U.S. : Georgia: The American was apparently in the country to train security forces and help protect the nation’s leader from assassination.

CIA Director R. James Woolsey, honoring a fallen agent, flew to the former Soviet republic of Georgia on Tuesday to personally retrieve the flag-draped coffin of shooting victim Fred Woodruff and bring it home to America.

Woodruff, a U.S. diplomat acknowledged by Clinton Administration officials to be a CIA operative, was killed by a single gunshot Sunday evening as he was riding in a jeep with the security chief for Georgian leader Eduard A. Shevardnadze.

Georgian investigators say they have yet to determine whether the shooting was politically motivated or an attempted robbery typical of the Caucasus country’s endemic lawlessness.

Woolsey spoke for about an hour at the Tbilisi airport with Shevardnadze, who has expressed deep regret over Woodruff’s death. Woolsey declared on President Clinton’s behalf that the killing “will in no way influence the good relations between Georgia and the U.S.A.,” Shevardnadze’s press service reported.

Shevardnadze, the former Soviet foreign minister who helped lead the ex-superpower’s push to end the Cold War, has many friends in Washington, and he had apparently agreed to CIA help in fighting terrorism and protecting himself from assassination.

There were reports from Washington last month that several Georgian security men were being trained in the United States and that elite U.S. troops would be sent to Georgia to provide further training.

According to accounts circulating in Georgia, Woodruff “was invited to come over to Georgia in order to render assistance in the training of Georgian security forces and in the personal security of Shevardnadze,” said Vakhtang Abashidze, chief of the Georgian news agency, Gruzinform.

Shevardnadze reportedly told Woolsey that he was especially grieved that the killing had claimed a representative of America, “the country that gives Georgia the most support.”

Woodruff, who had been serving purportedly as a “regional officer” of the U.S. Embassy in Georgia only for the summer, had been due to leave for home next week. A native of Stillwater, Okla., and a resident of Virginia, he was married and the father of five children.

Shevardnadze said his security chief was taking Woodruff on an “excursion” to historic sites near the capital of Tbilisi when the shooting occurred.

Preliminary results of the investigation indicate that the killing may have been a fluke, with a single stray shot happening to penetrate the windshield and hit Woodruff in the forehead, Gruzinform said.

But that theory draws skepticism from many Georgians, who speculate that the shooting could hardly be an accident when Woodruff was riding in a car with Georgian government plates and that more likely it was intended to drive a wedge between Georgia and America.

“I can suppose that Mr. Woodruff was visiting Georgia with the purpose of establishing good contacts with the Georgian side in regard to fighting terrorism and the drug trade,” said Avtandil Iosiliani, chief of the Tbilisi unit of the Georgian Security Ministry.

“Why should American secret services not support Shevardnadze? Our country is so small and peaceful that America and Russia and all other countries should be helping and supporting it.”

In fact, Georgia is small but far from peaceful. After coming to power in mid-1992, Shevardnadze continued Tbilisi’s war against the breakaway region of Abkhazia, and tension also continues with backers of deposed President Zviad Gamsakhurdia in western Georgia.

With so many enemies, Shevardnadze has had several close calls, including a near brush with an artillery shell when he was touring war-torn regions last month.