Gay Ban Must Go, Clinton Tells Military Chiefs

President Clinton told the Joint Chiefs of Staff on Monday that he is determined to lift the ban on homosexuals in the military, amid growing signs that the issue could divide the President from the armed services and many in Congress.

In their first face-to-face meeting, Clinton told the military brass in a 105-minute White House meeting that he is open to discussion on how to carry out the new policy but that he will not change his position.

“I intend to keep my commitment,” Clinton said before the meeting.

The six chiefs told Clinton that they respect his authority but, according to Dee Dee Myers, Clinton’s press secretary, also “definitely conveyed their concerns” about a change in policy that in their view could hurt morale and readiness. Military leaders also have said that lifting the ban could weaken recruiting, increase the risk of AIDS for heterosexual troops and drive devoutly religious people from the armed services.

Clinton’s firmness on the issue has thrust the top military commanders into a very tricky position: whether to acquiesce or to split with their new civilian leaders and wage their own battle of resistance in Congress.

Congressional leaders are predicting that the chiefs might even prevail, considering the number of legislators who share their view. But such defiance of the President might cost them in dealing with him on other important issues--such as defense spending.

Opposing the President, who is commander in chief of all U.S. armed forces, is also inconsistent with military command.

“The idea that the chiefs would simply say ‘no’ is beyond the pale in the way we see our military in this country,” said Kathleen M. Gilberd of the Military Law Task Force, a committee of the National Lawyer’s Guild.

The meeting came a day after the leak of a draft memorandum from Defense Secretary Les Aspin, which acknowledged that Clinton could face serious problems in selling his policy change to Congress. There were signs Monday that some legislators are preparing an open revolt against any change in the policy on gays and that Clinton is trying to head off such an insurrection before it starts.

After the meeting, Clinton aides announced that the President had quickly scheduled a White House meeting with members of Congress from both parties this morning to discuss the subject.

On Capitol Hill, Sen. Sam Nunn (D-Ga.), the influential chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee and an early opponent of Clinton’s plan to lift the ban, roundly criticized the President for deciding on his policy before consulting military leaders, and said the Senate panel plans hearings on the subject soon.

Nunn’s continued forceful rejection of plans to lift the ban on gays may be a serious blow to Clinton’s efforts. The Aspin memorandum identifies Nunn’s “active leadership” as “the key to a successful vote” for opponents.

“I think something is fundamentally flawed when the men and women in the military have an issue that is vital to them, that affects them, and they never have been heard from,” Nunn told a Capitol Hill news conference Monday. He said that if the Clinton Administration has a strategy to get the ban on gays lifted, “it hasn’t been explained to me.”

Nunn led a chorus of congressional voices opposing Clinton’s proposal. Most were Republicans, but not all: Aspin’s leaked memo includes a prediction from Senate Majority Leader George J. Mitchell (D-Me.) that 70 members of the Senate might oppose Clinton on the issue.

At the Justice Department, Acting Atty. Gen. Stuart M. Gerson said that, until the Administration has decided how it will lift the ban, government attorneys will seek delays in cases where legal action is pending.

Fourteen cases are under way across the nation involving homosexual discharges from the U.S. military, including a gay sailor who was recently reinstated to the Navy by a Los Angeles judge after the service had discharged him for homosexuality.

Gerson said Justice Department attorneys have been given no explicit instructions on how they should proceed.

Gay-rights groups reacted cautiously to the rising debate of recent days, expressing hope that Clinton will follow through on his promise but concern over the tempest the issue has set off.

“Aspin in his recent statement seemed to send mixed signals,” said Robin Kane of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. “Conservative opponents of a change in policy said they took encouragement from his remarks. But President Clinton has said he is not backing away, and we have not heard anything from the White House to indicate they are backing away.”

J Craig Fong, director of the Western office of the Lambda Legal Defense Fund, said he has concerns that Clinton will make concessions to bring the senior military officers along. But, Fong added, “it’s a little early to up the ante” by striking a more confrontational posture with the chiefs and Congress.

Should the Administration prove unable to overcome opposition in Congress and the military to overturning the ban, another possible avenue, White House aides said Monday, would be court action.

In the current cases, the government is defending the ban against lawsuits brought by service members who have been discharged. But Clinton could order the Justice Department to switch sides, leaving the ban effectively undefended in the courts because the military does not have authority to represent itself in civilian court rooms.

If a court were to rule that the ban on gays violated the Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection under the law--the position taken by the service members in several of the cases--then Congress would not be able to reinstate the ban legislatively.

For now, the government’s position on the issue in court remains in limbo, in part because of the absence of an attorney general to head the Justice Department in the wake of the withdrawal of Zoe Baird, Clinton’s first nominee for the job.

Clinton continued to work on his selections Monday, with aides suggesting that a decision could come later this week. At least one potential candidate, Judge Patricia M. Wald of the federal appeals court here, appears to have ruled herself out, sources familiar with the process said.

Sources said Clinton continues to look at several other candidates, including Judge Richard Arnold of the federal appeals court in Little Rock, Ark.; Charles F.C. Ruff, a former Watergate special prosecutor and attorney in Washington, and Jamie Gorelick, a Washington attorney who served as one of Baird’s advisers during her confirmation hearings.

Times staff writer David Lauter contributed to this story.