Pivotal ‘Keating Five’ Deliberations Started : Ethics: Panel action is seen as a prelude to a full-scale investigation of Sens. Cranston, DeConcini and Riegle.

The Senate Ethics Committee on Thursday began pivotal deliberations on the “Keating Five,” amid indications that it will approve a full-scale investigation of actions that Sen. Alan Cranston (D-Calif.) and two other key Democratic senators took to help savings and loan magnate Charles H. Keating Jr.

The panel’s closed-door session came with the disclosure of new documents showing the lengths to which Cranston and Sens. Dennis DeConcini of Arizona and Donald W. Riegle Jr. of Michigan went on behalf of Keating, a major campaign contributor.

Raising particular questions were late-night and early-morning telephone calls that the documents state were made by Cranston and DeConcini to the unlisted home number of a federal regulator. In a sworn affidavit, former Federal Home Loan Bank Board member Roger F. Martin said that Cranston and DeConcini used “almost exactly the same words” in separate calls urging the board to meet with the head of an investor group that could have taken Lincoln Savings & Loan Assn. off Keating’s hands at a time when it was on the verge of collapse.

“The unexplained urgency of the senators’ telephone calls was, in my experience, highly unusual, as was their timing very late at night and very early in the morning,” Martin said in the affidavit, the contents of which were confirmed by a source close to the investigation.

The Ethics Committee will decide whether to follow the advice of its special counsel, Robert S. Bennett, by proceeding with the investigation of Cranston, DeConcini and Riegle, while dropping two other senators--John Glenn (D-Ohio) and John McCain (R-Ariz.)--from the inquiry for lack of evidence.

All five repeatedly have denied any wrongdoing.

Cranston, in a statement Thursday, denounced the disclosure of the evidence. “The leaks are deplorable,” he said. “I’m reminded of the (Sen. Joseph R.) McCarthy era,” Cranston said in a reference to the late Wisconsin Republican whose investigative excesses led the Senate to censure him.

“In my heart of hearts, I know I’ve done nothing wrong,” he said. “I trust that will be the finding of the Ethics Committee.”

Bob Maynes, DeConcini’s press secretary, said: “Not only do these leaks break Ethics Committee rules, but since they are frequently inaccurate or out of context, they violate the average American’s sense of fair play.”

Citing advice from DeConcini’s counsel and a request from the committee not to comment on the investigative process, Maynes said: “Therefore, unfortunately, Sen. DeConcini is not in a position to defend himself.”

Riegle charged that he was the victim of “continuing leaks of inaccurate and false information.”

“A selective pattern of leaked confidential materials--totally out of context--does not present the full picture before the committee nor does it recognize that I voluntarily supplied the committee with all materials that pertain to me and the Lincoln-Keating matter months ago,” Riegle said.

He said that he believed the Senate panel will find “that my conduct was proper and ethical at all times.” And he said that he looks forward to discussing the matter fully and all the facts being made public once the committee has completed its work.

The Ethics Committee began investigating last December whether the actions by the five senators on behalf of Keating violated Senate rules. Keating donated more than $1 million to their campaigns or causes that they backed.

Documents obtained by the committee show that Cranston, DeConcini and Riegle or their aides maintained frequent contact with Keating through letters, memoranda and personal meetings. They also show the senators’ being advised that Keating was raising funds for them and expecting specific help from them.

Martin, in his affidavit to committee investigators, said that, as recently as March or April of 1989, Cranston and DeConcini called to voice their concern that an investor group headed by former Rep. John H. Rousselot was not receiving a fair hearing from a bank board unit on its proposal to take over Lincoln.

Cranston reached him late at night at his unlisted home phone number in Virginia, Martin said, and DeConcini made a similar call to him at 5:30 a.m. the following morning.

Martin said Cranston urged that the bank board meet with Rousselot immediately, citing his concern that Lincoln’s failure “would have a serious impact on the Arizona real estate market.”

Martin said he told Cranston “that the board’s procedures would not permit a full meeting of the board to be arranged on an urgent basis.”

In the call from DeConcini early the next morning, “he used almost exactly the same words as were used by Sen. Cranston the night before,” Martin said.

Cranston and DeConcini did not urge that the acquisition be approved, Martin said. But he added that “while members of Congress occasionally attempted to call me at my office, I have never, either before or since this incident, received a telephone call at home from any senator or representative regarding a board matter.”

The bank board eventually rejected the takeover proposal and the government seized Lincoln.

M. Danny Wall, former chairman of the bank board, has previously disclosed that he received calls during the same period from both Cranston and DeConcini, who urged him to allow Keating to sell Lincoln. Wall was the man with the ultimate responsibility for the decision.

The documents also include a Cranston memo thanking Keating for a $250,000 contribution solicited by the senator for a voter registration project. The memo also expressed Cranston’s pleasure that Keating had met with the top thrift regulator to voice his complaints.

Staff writer Robert L. Jackson contributed to this story.