Baker Might OK Covert Political Aid Outside U.S.

James A. Baker III, President-elect Bush’s choice for secretary of state, said Wednesday that he would leave the door open for the United States, in at least some cases, to give covert support to a political party or candidate to influence the outcome of another nation’s elections.

“In duly approved covert actions, I suppose, there could be instances where it would not be inappropriate,” Baker told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee at his confirmation hearings.

Covert U. S. financial support in foreign elections had been criticized both by the liberal Sen. Paul Simon (D-Ill.) and the conservative Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N. C.). Helms, in particular, objected to U. S. efforts to help Jose Napoleon Duarte win El Salvador’s presidential election in 1984.

While carefully refusing to rule out covert intelligence actions, Baker also made it clear that he wants the Bush Administration to take special measures to prevent further problems such as the Iran-Contra scandal that cropped up in the Reagan Administration.

Baker told the senators he believes that the secretaries of state and defense and the vice president should all be informed any time there is a “covert finding”--that is, a decision that the United States should undertake a clandestine intelligence operation.

In the Reagan Administration, Secretary of State George P. Shultz and former Secretary of Defense Caspar W. Weinberger were unaware of the secret decision, approved by President Reagan, to supply U. S. arms to Iran.

Furthermore, under questioning from Sen. Paul S. Sarbanes (D-Md.), Baker said he will tell all U. S. ambassadors overseas that they should take instructions only from the secretary of state or from President Bush, not from National Security Council staff members. While serving as a national security aide to Reagan, Marine Lt. Col. Oliver L. North instructed Lewis Tambs, the U.S. ambassador to Costa Rica, to assist in the opening of a “second front” against Nicaragua’s Sandinista regime.

The Foreign Relations Committee is expected to clear Baker’s nomination today and the full Senate is expected to confirm him as secretary of state in a vote scheduled for Jan. 25.

Baker’s comment on U. S. involvement in foreign elections was prompted by Helms, who complained that the CIA had “pumped about $2 million” to support Duarte’s candidacy in the 1984 campaign in El Salvador.

“The Salvadoran people are preparing for an election this coming March and, once again, I’m receiving information from reliable sources that the United States is covertly funding the presidential campaign of the Christian Democratic Party,” said Helms, who has for years supported the right-wing Arena Party of Roberto D’Aubuisson in El Salvador.

Baker testified he was unsure whether Helms’ allegations of U. S. involvement were true, and said that, “generally speaking,” he does not favor having the United States funnel money into a foreign political campaign.

Baker added: “There have, I suppose, been occasions in the past where it has been in the national security interests of the United States that parties or personalities inimical to the United States not win elections. And in duly approved covert actions, I suppose, there could be instances where it would not be inappropriate. So I can’t just give you a total blanket (rule).”