WASHINGTON INSIGHT

SEEING STARS?: The Navy admiral tapped to be President Bush’s next deputy national security adviser has yet to take office, but already his appointment has made waves.

Adm. Jonathan T. Howe, a top NATO commander in Italy, at first insisted that he retain his four-star rank, which provides him with free housing and will add to his military pension. The prospect of providing housing raised alarm at the Pentagon, which is busy wrestling with a strict congressional budget ceiling.

Members of the Senate Armed Services Committee noted pointedly that Howe has yet to be confirmed in the four-star rank--a detail that could allow the Senate for the first time to vote to confirm a White House official. Even Howe’s new boss, retired Air Force Gen. Brent Scowcroft, said to be uncomfortable with the idea of an active-duty military man in the No. 2 position, has asked that Howe shed his stars.

Under a tentative compromise, Howe has agreed to leave the Navy by the middle of next year. “It would be much easier if he would just retire (now),” a senior Pentagon official said.

PLANE FOLKS: The U.S. armed forces, faced with a congressional decision to allow women to serve and fly in combat aircraft, are scrambling to determine how far they will go to open job opportunities to women. For the Navy, the problem is particularly painful.

If women are to fly Navy planes, then it follows they will have to live on aircraft carriers. And if women aviators are brought aboard, why not women support crews? If all those women are brought aboard, Navy officers fear that significant physical changes may be needed to house them. That would upset traditional berthing arrangements in which shipmates who work together live together.

Including women in combat air crews will be easier for the Air Force, since its bases on terra firma have allowed it to integrate women into all operations short of flying.

MONEY MATTERS: Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan, whose tinkerings with the money supply and interest rates make him one of the most powerful Americans, deserves a salary as high as a Cabinet officer. That’s the view of Rep. Jim Leach (R-Iowa), an influential member of the House Banking Committee. He offered an amendment to the savings and loan cleanup bill that would raise Greenspan’s annual salary to $137,500 from $125,000.

The committee agreed in a voice vote to give Greenspan pay parity with the Bush Cabinet members. The extra $1,000 a month for the Fed chairman was hardly noticed in the $80-billion savings-and-loan measure.

ON A ROLL: It took a while, but the Justice Department’s investigation of the Bank of Credit & Commerce International has moved into high gear. Buttressed by dozens of FBI and Customs agents, 37 federal prosecutors are now working on BCCI-related investigations in six cities. Word is that at least one new indictment has been returned already and will be unsealed when a key fugitive is captured.

Incoming Atty. Gen. William P. Barr has taken a personal role in trying to shake off persistent criticism from Congress and the press that the department failed to recognize the significance of the BCCI case. Barr has ordered an internal examination of what the Justice Department has done about the explosive case since the beginning.