Panel OK of Gates for CIA Is Seen Likely : Senate: But another tough floor fight against a controversial Bush nominee may break out if key Democrats argue he slanted intelligence.

Opponents of CIA director-designate Robert M. Gates, President Bush’s other controversial nominee, conceded Wednesday that the Senate Intelligence Committee is likely to recommend his confirmation to the full Senate when it votes on the nomination Friday.

But another tough floor fight could ensue if key Democrats such as Sen. Sam Nunn of Georgia, who is still undecided, vote against Gates because of allegations that he slanted intelligence assessments to please policy-makers while serving as a senior CIA official in the 1980s.

While declining to say which way he will vote, Intelligence Committee Chairman David L. Boren (D-Okla.) predicted that Gates will be approved by the 15-member panel, which has been reviewing thousands of pages of documents since it ended three weeks of sharply contentious hearings on the nomination Oct. 4.

One Democrat who has already announced his intention to vote against Gates, Sen. Ernest F. Hollings of South Carolina, went further, predicting that Gates will be confirmed when the full Senate takes up the nomination later this month. “I’ll bet he will get a majority vote,” Hollings said.

Supporters of Gates, who currently serves as White House deputy national security adviser, clearly were hoping that he would be helped by the general revulsion over the bitter brawling that characterized the confirmation hearings of Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas.

“There’s a general feeling, both among senators who supported Thomas and senators who opposed him, that the confirmation process has gotten out of hand and there may not be much be stomach for another bruising confirmation battle so soon after the last one,” a Senate leadership aide said.

“The Senate does not like to do things like this twice in a row,” added Tom Korologos, a Republican lobbyist retained by the White House to help with the Gates nomination.

Some Democrats disagreed with that assessment, however.

Noting that the debate over Thomas “aroused some pretty strong emotions,” Sen. Alan Cranston (D-Calif.) said that Thomas’ confirmation Tuesday on a 52-48 vote leaves senators free to vote against Gates without having to rebuff Bush on two critical nominations in a row.

“There were 11 Democrats who went with the Republicans” in voting to confirm Thomas, Cranston said. “There may be less of them willing to go along with Gates.”

“It’s a different kind of situation with a different nominee and different issues,” added Sen. Bill Bradley (D-N.J.), a Gates opponent who is likely to lead the opposition on the Senate floor. Bradley said that he did not expect the floor debate on Gates to begin until late in October, giving time for the emotions aroused by the Thomas nomination to cool down.

And strategists on both sides said that the key to Gates’ confirmation still rests with pivotal Democrats such as Nunn and Senate Majority Leader George J. Mitchell of Maine, whose arguments are likely to affect the way other Democrats vote on the floor.

Nunn, who chairs the Senate Armed Services Committee and is the second-ranking Democrat on the intelligence panel, was described by an aide as still “totally undecided” about Gates. Other undecided Democrats include John Glenn of Ohio; Dennis DeConcini of Arizona, who has described himself as “leaning against” Gates; and Cranston, who said that he is still reviewing the evidence and “could go either way.”

Boren also has described himself as undecided but most other members of the committee have said that they expect him to vote for Gates. Since he is assured of the committee’s seven Republican votes, Gates needs only one Democrat to win a favorable recommendation from the 15-member committee.

“This is a PG-rated nomination. It won’t be as tough as Thomas,” one committee aide said, alluding to the allegations of sexual harassment that nearly derailed Thomas’ bid to sit on the Supreme Court.

However, even if the Thomas debate does not affect Gates, there are parallels between the two nominations that will force senators to confront a dilemma similar to the one they faced over the allegations against Thomas.

Given sharply conflicting testimony by credible witnesses on both sides, senators will have to decide who they believe is telling the truth--Gates or the former CIA officials who have accused him of tailoring intelligence estimates to support the anti-Soviet biases of his boss, the late CIA director William J. Casey.

Gates vehemently rebutted some of those allegations in his last appearance before the committee but “many others were left unanswered,” noted another Gates critic, Sen. Howard M. Metzenbaum (D-Ohio).

Over the last week, while senators were consumed by the Thomas debate, the Intelligence Committee staff was poring over hundreds of documents in an effort to sort out contradictions and search for inconsistencies in testimony. The staff apparently found no “smoking gun” to disqualify Gates, but one aide said that it uncovered a number of instances in which Gates’ answers either left allegations unchallenged or skirted artfully around them.