PERSPECTIVE ON THE CIA : Innuendo Is No Basis for Rejection : The record is clear--Robert Gates acted honorably and honestly through the Iran-Contra episode.

The U.S. intelligence community faces a daunting array of tasks in the 1990s. Despite democratic reforms, the Soviet Union continues to control the world’s second-most-advanced arsenal of strategic nuclear weapons and the world’s largest standing army. Eastern and Central Europe are undergoing changes that were unthinkable a few years ago. Regional conflicts caused by religious, ethnic or tribal rifts will take on added importance as the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction increases the stakes in such conflicts.

As international bodies increasingly turn to economic sanctions--such as the U.N. measures against Iraq--to enforce their mandates, the need for economic intelligence will increase. Finally, counterterrorism, counternarcotics and technology transfer issues add to an already full slate of more traditional intelligence matters. And these increased demands must be confronted with shrinking resources.

President Bush’s nominee for director of central intelligence, Robert Gates, is uniquely qualified to lead the intelligence community in these times. A Soviet specialist by training and early experience, Gates has spent most of the past 17 years in positions at the National Security Council or in senior management at the CIA, where he has been an active participant in U.S. analysis of, and response to, what have become revolutionary world events.

Gates’ experience in managing the intelligence community and his familiarity with its programs and leaders enable him to face the necessary, tough decisions on resource allocation. In addition, his service as deputy national security adviser to the President has attuned him to the needs of policy-makers--the ultimate users of intelligence.

Although some of the usual CIA infighting is going on, the meaningful questions that have arisen about Gates’ nomination involve the Iran-Contra matter rather than his qualifications for the job. There are some who argue that Gates should have known more or discovered earlier that funds from the arms sales to Iran were used to support the Contras at a time when Congress had prohibited U.S. intelligence agencies from providing such support.

The Tower Commission, two congressional Iran-Contra committees and internal CIA investigations have reviewed Gates’ role in connection with the arms sales to Iran and U.S. government assistance to the Contras. Each of these reviews was completed after questions arose during Gates’ 1987 confirmation hearings, before he withdrew his previous nomination to succeed Casey as CIA director.

The CIA’s support of the Security Council’s initiative to sell arms to Iran and its role in providing support to the Contras were found to be, almost without exception, within the law and CIA regulations. Indeed, the agency’s instructions that its field officers avoid dealing with private benefactors--instructions given to protect the CIA from later criticism--generally went beyond congressional restrictions.

As documented in the reports, Gates, when confronted in early October, 1986, with troubling but uncorroborated suspicions that a diversion had occurred, neither blindly assumed the truth of those suspicions nor ignored them. He sought more definitive information and brought that information to the attention of his superiors. Gates also asked the CIA’s legal counsel to review the activities to ensure that the agency’s role was appropriate.

The information brought to Gates’ attention at that time did not suggest that anyone in the U.S. government was involved in a diversion of arms to Iran or funds to the Contras. Then, Gates was out of the country when others learned more, suggesting that a diversion had occurred. He did not learn this information until Atty. Gen. Edwin Meese’s announcement in November, 1986.

Gates also displayed a careful approach in the preparation of testimony delivered by the late CIA Director William Casey on Nov. 21--testimony that has been criticized as misleading because it failed to disclose suspicions about a diversion and other matters relating to the arms sales. The early drafts of Casey’s statements, prepared at Gates’ direction because Casey was out of the country, were not intended to mislead; they reflected the best information available to the CIA at the time.

Indeed, agency personnel who participated in that process recall that Gates pressed for a full factual account of the CIA’s role in the Iranian arms sales. He insisted that the testimony describe the November, 1985, flight in which a CIA proprietary company delivered missiles from Israel to Iran. They also recall that Casey himself changed the draft significantly prior to his testimony.

After Casey’s collapse and hospitalization with a fatal brain tumor in December, 1986, Gates became acting director of central intelligence. His record of providing Congress and other official bodies with the information needed to conduct their investigations and of supplementing CIA statements with additional information as it became available is unchallenged.

We are in an era when those who would undertake public service find themselves considered guilty until they prove their innocence. It is fair and reasonable that the Senate pursue allegations that have been raised. It is also fair and reasonable to ask that the Senate not accept the innuendoes of those raising questions without careful scrutiny of the basis and personal motivation for their charges.

We remain confident that if fairness is truly maintained and the temptation to seek political advantage is avoided, the Senate will resoundingly confirm Robert Gates. One of the strengths of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence has been its longstanding effort to reach a bipartisan approach to conducting its business. It would be a mark of success, not failure, for this committee to demonstrate again that the intelligence business of this country is not the proper arena for partisan political combat.