Aspin, Viewed as Top Choice for Defense, Huddles With Clinton : Appointees: Rep. McCurdy, who had sought the Pentagon post, is likely to be offered helm of CIA; Oklahoman may decline.

President-elect Bill Clinton met here Friday with Rep. Les Aspin (D-Wis.), believed to be his selection for secretary of defense, and sources said Rep. Dave McCurdy (D-Okla.) was likely to be offered the post of director of central intelligence.

It was unclear whether McCurdy, 42, who had mounted an aggressive bid for the Pentagon job, would accept the CIA post. He has suggested he would prefer to remain in the House of Representatives than take charge of the CIA.

Sources said Clinton made plain to Aspin during their midday meeting that he was the top choice for defense, and said they believed McCurdy could be persuaded to take the intelligence post. The choices are regarded as particularly attractive to Clinton because they would elevate two of Congress’ top national security experts to positions matched to their areas of expertise.

As chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, Aspin, 53, has established a reputation as a thoughtful analyst of defense policy and military strategy. McCurdy, who took over the House Intelligence Committee two years ago, has been an aggressive and demanding overseer of the government’s intelligence community.

While the appointments would deprive House Democrats of strong chairmen on two powerful committees, transition officials said Clinton had apparently decided that Aspin and McCurdy would be more valuable in the Administration.

Transition sources said Clinton was also nearing a decision to name Anthony Lake, 53, a former State Department official in the Jimmy Carter Administration, as national security adviser. Warren Christopher, the 67-year-old Los Angeles lawyer who held the State Department’s No. 2 position under Carter, remains the expected choice for secretary of state.

The projected lineup would bring considerable experience and esteem in national security to a new Administration, whose President would be notably lacking in those credentials.

Apart from a morning appointment with his throat doctor, the President-elect remained out of public sight as he spent most of Friday consulting with advisers. Communications director George Stephanopoulos said Clinton would not announce his next choices until Monday at the earliest.

In an interview published in the Wall Street Journal Friday, however, Clinton answered one question about the incoming White House team by disclosing that he wants his wife, Hillary, to attend some Cabinet meetings.

Her participation would be the first by a First Lady since Rosalynn Carter met with criticism when she claimed a seat at the Cabinet table. But Clinton told the Journal flatly that he regarded his wife’s inclusion as logical. “She knows more about a lot of this stuff than most of us do,” he said.

At Friday’s midday briefing, Stephanopoulos added that Hillary Clinton would be “free to attend when she feels she can make an addition.”

Aspin’s selection as defense secretary would represent a public relations victory for the Wisconsin Democrat, who chose silence over his customary gregariousness as a tactic in bidding for the job.

A famous generator of press releases and speeches, Aspin has made virtually no public comment about recent military matters. He even took a vacation to the Caribbean earlier this month as part of what associates described as an effort to minimize his public profile and avoid any misstep.

“It was a shrewd political call to lay low,” said a knowledgeable Democratic aide. “Everybody that was high-profile had gotten burned.”

The Democratic aide said that Aspin spent the weeks since Clinton’s election “thinking hard about how badly he really wanted the job, and working out what priorities he would act on if he got it.”

In that time, Aspin has received endorsements from unexpected quarters. The outgoing defense secretary, Dick Cheney, has both publicly and privately heaped lavish praise on his likely successor.

Aspin and Cheney have disagreed sharply about the proper funding levels and spending priorities for the nation’s military forces. But Cheney has told aides that he believes Aspin--once an ardent liberal who has moved to the right on defense matters--would help protect U.S. forces from the deeper budget and personnel cuts endorsed by other Democrats.

That view has been echoed quietly within the Pentagon by Gen. Colin L. Powell, who is expected to remain in his post as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at least through next October.

McCurdy has said consistently, and as recently as three weeks ago, that he did not want the intelligence job. Associates say that the ambitious Oklahoma Democrat appears to regard the post as “no-win position” that might do little to enhance his own prospects for the presidency.

If he is offered the position, however, McCurdy could find it difficult to refuse. One key congressional aide said McCurdy had “seriously burned bridges” within the House of Representatives with his campaign-trail disparagement this year of the Democratic leadership.

In interviews, current and former officials involved in intelligence matters said McCurdy’s close ties to Clinton would be welcomed at the CIA and elsewhere in the intelligence community. Agency officials consider it particularly important that their director have access to and the confidence of the President.

But some of the officials also suggested that McCurdy might lack the stature and experience necessary to assume the complicated intelligence post. A former senior official involved in intelligence matters in the Ronald Reagan Administration dismissed McCurdy as “not at all impressive . . . he just doesn’t have a grasp of the issues. He doesn’t have much appreciation of the importance of the agency.”

Times staff writers John M. Broder, David Lauter and Melissa Healy in Washington contributed to this story.