‘Slanting’ Charges Absurd, Gates Says : Intelligence: The angry CIA nominee rebuts 20 of the most serious allegations of ‘politicizing’ analyses aired at his Senate hearings. He calls foes’ evidence ‘hearsay.’

In a voice taut with pain and anger, Robert M. Gates Thursday branded as “ridiculous” allegations from former CIA officials that he had distorted intelligence reports during the seven years he served as a top CIA manager.

But while delivering what supporters praised as a “powerful” point-by-point rebuttal of the most damaging charges, Gates admitted that leading an agency rent by deep dissent over whether he should be its new director would be a “tall order.”

Countering his opponents’ “hearsay” evidence with what he said are the “facts,” Gates returned to the witness stand at his confirmation hearings to rebut 20 specific allegations of intelligence-slanting that had been made in unprecedented public detail earlier in the hearings before the Senate Intelligence Committee.

He also outlined eight steps that he promised to take to deal with the problem of “politicized” intelligence and to restore morale at the agency if he is confirmed to replace recently retired CIA Director William H. Webster.

Even so, it was evident that President Bush’s embattled nominee had failed to dispel all of the doubts about his credibility and integrity raised during the extraordinary public examination of the intensely competitive way in which intelligence is analyzed at the CIA.

Republicans praised Gates’ performance. “He’s pounding straight through all the allegations. He’s doing good,” said Sen. Frank H. Murkowski of Alaska, the committee’s ranking Republican.

But Democrat John Glenn of Ohio noted the panel’s dilemma in trying to determine whose sworn but “diametrically opposed testimony” it should believe. Glenn said that he was “only half-joking” when he suggested that all of the witnesses take lie detector tests so “we can find out what’s going on.”

One of those who remained unconvinced was Sen. Ernest F. Hollings (D-S.C.). “You are not the right man for this job at this particular time,” Hollings told Gates as he announced that he would not vote for him.

Even more ominous, one of Gates’ key Democratic supporters, Intelligence Committee Chairman David L. Boren (D-Okla.), said that he found the testimony about intelligence-slanting to be “very serious” and said that he was having second thoughts.

Boren said that deciding how he will vote will be “difficult.” He said that there would be “only one thing influencing my decision in the end--my own conscientious judgment about what is best for the country. I am going to wrestle with this decision.”

So far, only four of the committee’s 15 members have said or strongly implied that they are leaning against voting for Gates--Hollings and fellow Democrats Bill Bradley of New Jersey, Howard M. Metzenbaum of Ohio and Dennis DeConcini of Arizona. But two key swing votes, Glenn and Sen. Sam Nunn (D-Ga.), have indicated in their questioning of witnesses over the last few days that they have new doubts about Gates’ credibility and integrity.

“The committee vote will be pretty close, one way or the other,” Nunn said after Thursday’s session. He said that he originally had been leaning toward confirmation but now is unsure which way he will vote.

While Administration strategists still expect the committee to recommend Gates’ confirmation, a close vote--especially if influential senators such as Boren and Nunn come down against the nominee--would guarantee a tough fight on the floor of the full Senate.

But Thursday, it was Gates’ turn to answer the charges that have so severely tarnished the reputation he enjoyed only three weeks ago as one of the nation’s finest intelligence officers and leading Soviet specialists.

“I have watched and listened and read with some dismay, as well as pain and anger” the proceedings of the last several days, Gates began in his flat, Midwestern drawl.

The charges that he presided over “a systematic, years-long effort to politicize and to corrupt the analytical process” at the CIA are “ridiculous” and are based on hearsay and second-hand evidence, he said in a voice rising in anger. “I never distorted intelligence to support a policy or to please a policy-maker.”

Quoting from selected memorandums and letters that appeared to have been hastily declassified to help him make his case, Gates rebutted 20 specific allegations of intelligence-slanting leveled against him. Among them, he denied that he had:

--Pressured analysts to come up with a report, based on flimsy and speculative evidence, that the Soviet Union was involved in a 1981 attempt to assassinate Pope John Paul II, or that he rewrote parts of it because he did not think it made the case for Soviet involvement strongly enough.

--Deliberately kept dissenting analysts from expressing their views in a 1985 assessment that exaggerated the danger of Soviet influence in Iran--an estimate that was later used by the White House to justify the secret sale of weapons to Tehran at the start of what would become the Iran-Contra affair.

--Ordered the agency to produce reports that exaggerated the military successes of the Contras in Nicaragua as a means of encouraging support for them.

--Pressured analysts to write reports falsely suggesting that Iranian support for terrorism was declining in 1985-86--at a time when then-CIA Director William J. Casey and National Security Council aide Oliver L. North were looking for justifications to begin selling weapons to Iran.

--Suppressed agency assessments in 1982 and 1985 that said Soviet military involvement in the Third World was declining.

--Blocked a 1984 agency analysis that would have shown that the moujahedeen guerrillas the United States was supporting in Afghanistan were not then waging an effective insurgency against the occupying Soviet army.

Gates also denied as “particularly reckless and pernicious” a charge that he allowed two operations officers working outside normal CIA channels to send misleading, in some cases fabricated, information to the White House about the chances of negotiating with Iranian moderates to help free American hostages in Lebanon. The accusation was made by former agency analyst Melvin A. Goodman.

In each case, Gates cited dates, records or different accounts by other officers to rebut the claims.

The doubts were raised when three former CIA analysts, all specialists on the Soviet Union, came forward to accuse Gates of systematically slanting intelligence estimates to please the anti-Soviet biases of Casey.

The allegations gained momentum when two current CIA officers, John Hibbits and Carolyn McGiffert Ekedahl, said in sworn statements that pressures to “politicize” intelligence estimates became unbearable during Gates’ tenure as director of intelligence from 1982-86 and as deputy CIA director from 1986-89.

While Gates--in line with what White House sources said was the strategy devised to counter the charges--confined himself to rebutting the allegations of intelligence slanting, Republicans on the committee complemented his defense by going on the attack. Some, such as Sen. John C. Danforth of Missouri, sought to discredit Goodman by portraying him as an analyst consumed with jealousy because Gates, who had been his junior at the agency, was promoted above him.

Asserting that the accusations emerging over the last few days had done “great damage to the CIA,” Sen. Warren B. Rudman (H.) angrily denounced Gates’ critics for engaging in “characterization based on hearsay and innuendo.”

That prompted an equally angry retort from Metzenbaum, who praised the “guts” of the witnesses who came forward to criticize Gates, in some cases at the risk of losing their jobs.

“What will the American people think if we confirm you for this position when so many people have . . . challenged your integrity?” he asked, turning to Gates. “What are we doing to the CIA? Will we help to restore its reputation, or will we hurt it?”

Gates agreed that there was a problem with the “perception of politicization” at the CIA and conceded that fixing it would be “a tall order.” But he pledged that, if confirmed, he would take immediate action to ensure that all analysts “be encouraged to speak their minds openly” and be free to express “divergent views.”

He listed eight steps that he would take to improve morale at the agency, among them the creation of an “analysis council,” composed of retired senior CIA officers to examine allegations of intelligence slanting.