Cranston’s Promise on Bonds Told : S&L; scandal: Senator’s appearance at meeting disrupted by leader of group that lost millions in Lincoln Savings failure.

Shirley Lampel, an outspoken leader of more than 23,000 investors who purchased now-worthless junk bonds at Lincoln Savings & Loan offices, said Saturday she has won a pledge from Sen. Alan Cranston (D-Calif.) to assist them in their efforts to get their money back.

Cranston made the promise during a 10-minute private session with Lampel Friday night in Orange County. Cranston met with the 58-year-old Tustin woman after she disrupted a forum on women’s issues that the senator hosted at a high school in Santa Ana.

“This is the only way I can get ahold of you,” Lampel had shouted at Cranston from the audience.

Lampel gained prominence last month when she and two other bondholders testified before the House Banking, Finance and Urban Affairs Committee that they held Cranston personally responsible for their losses.

The three represented more than 23,000 people--most of them elderly Californians--who lost an estimated $220 million by investing in bonds issued by Lincoln’s parent company, American Continental Corp., which has filed for bankruptcy court protection.

Cranston was one of five senators who had intervened with federal regulators on behalf of Lincoln owner Charles H. Keating Jr. during a 1987 investigation of the Irvine thrift. Keating contributed $1.4 million to the senators’ campaigns and other causes they supported.

Critics have charged that Lincoln would have been seized by the government in 1987 if the senators had not intervened in the case. By the time the government finally took control last April, the Irvine thrift had piled up more than $2 billion in federally insured losses.

The five senators, whose intervention is being investigated by law enforcement authorities and the Senate Ethics Committee, have denied responsibility for the losses incurred by taxpayers or by the elderly bondholders.

While Lampel still blames Cranston for her misfortune, she emerged from the meeting with a much kinder view of the senator than she had expressed earlier. A Democrat and former Cranston supporter, she said she was treated with courtesy by the senator and his aides.

“I elicited a promise that he’s going to be active in helping the bondholders,” Lampel said in a telephone interview. She said she was “absolutely positive” that the 76-year-old senator will keep his promise because his political future may depend on it.

Cranston’s popularity in California has slumped dramatically in recent weeks as a result of his involvement in the Lincoln scandal. A recent Times Poll found that his favorable rating had fallen to 32% from 56% last October.

Lampel said she warned Cranston that he had better live up to his promise to help the bondholders if he expects to be reelected to a fifth term in 1992.

“I said to him last night, ‘You’ve got two years. A lot of good can be done in the next two years. You can turn it around,’ ” she said.

Lampel said she felt “absolutely positive” Cranston would keep the pledge to help the bondholders because she received the telephone number of one of his aides, who invited her to call at any time. “I now have access to the senator,” she asserted.

She said Cranston’s aides had promised to contact her again in mid-January.

Cranston did not tell Lampel precisely what he intended to do to help the bondholders, but he mentioned that he has asked the General Accounting Office to investigate whether federal regulators can be held responsible for allowing the bonds to be sold at Lincoln offices. The GAO is the investigative arm of the Congress.

If the GAO finds that the federal government failed to properly regulate the bond sales, Cranston has said he will press for government repayment of the bondholders. Meanwhile, the bondholders also are pressing lawsuits seeking restitution from Keating and Lincoln.

Lampel said she felt bad about disrupting Cranston’s meeting at Century High School, but she knew of no other way to get an opportunity to talk with the senator. She said she was very nervous about sitting down with the powerful senator, but she forced herself to do it because she believes the other bondholders are looking to her to speak for them.

“I made up my mind that no matter how my heart pounded, I would not run from the room,” she said.

Lampel was not the only citizen who disrupted Cranston’s meeting. Shortly after Cranston opened the forum, which was attended by about 40 people, a small group of conservative Republican youths threw bogus $100 bills at the stage and shouted, “Have some more money senator; that’s the only way you listen.”