Busy Capitol Hill Phones May Not Ring of Truth : Opinion: Calls are pouring in on the issue of gays in the military. But the Communication Age can give a false reading of public sentiment.

Friday afternoons are usually a time when the pace slackens a bit in congressional offices, but California Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s was a scene of electronic frenzy as two hapless receptionists tried vainly to keep up with the relentless beep of their telephones.

The office’s four phone lines were jammed by callers Friday, as they had been most of the week. This time, they were seeking to make their opinions known on President Clinton’s plan to lift the ban on gays in the military.

“Since Zoe Baird, I think we’ve had one day of respite, and that’s it,” said Shannon Selby, struggling to maintain an iron perkiness against the onslaught of callers, many of whom had had to redial dozens of times to get through.

In an era when television and radio talk shows are the jungle drums of American political opinion, voters are no longer content to sit down and write letters to government leaders or wait patiently for the pollster’s knock. Spurred to outrage, they rush to the immediate gratification of telephone, fax, telegram and e-mail.

Senate historian Richard Baker described the phenomenon as “a revolution in our own time.” As recently as the 1950s, he said, direct contact with constituents was so rare that senators from remote Western states made a practice of taking every voter who showed up in their offices to lunch. Now, legions of staff are required to keep pace with the barrage, for when the vox populi is on the line, politicians have to listen.

But beyond the question of handling the volume of communications looms a far more thorny one: how to gauge their meaning and, having done that, how to respond, particularly when it becomes clear that the calls and mail sometimes provide a distorted gauge of public opinion.

On the issue of allowing homosexuals in the military, for example, there are signs that a significant share of the responses were being organized by interest groups.

The Clinton Administration--which made much of its intention to take issues directly to the voters--along with members of Congress, has had to wrestle with the knotty problem twice in the last 10 days, first on the outpouring of public feeling over the Zoe Baird nomination and now on the gay-rights issue.

On the question of homosexuals in the military, the daily volume of telephone calls through the Capitol switchboard peaked at more than half a million, more than six times that of a normal day. Republican senators said their calls were running roughly 90% against lifting the ban; some Democrats estimated that the opinions they were hearing were evenly divided.

Last week, when voters were roiled by the idea of Baird becoming attorney general after she admitted breaking immigration laws, more than 370,000 calls were logged in a single day.

The record, according to tallies by the Senate sergeant-at-arms office, was reached the day that the Senate voted to confirm the nomination of Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court, when Capitol Hill phones lit up more than a million times: 1,021,508 calls.

When it comes to inspiring telephonic fury, few media work as effectively as talk shows, particularly those on radio, which this week crackled with the gays-in-the-military issue. Staff members at congressional offices said they believe many of their calls came at the direct urging of talk show hosts in their home districts.

Clinton himself understands the value of talk radio, which he used extensively during his campaign.

When his personal life and draft record were under fire before last April’s New York primary, for example, he sidestepped a hostile New York press corps by taking his message directly to young voters via hip disc jockey Don Imus’ morning show.

But it is the right that has made the most creative and sophisticated use of a medium that conservative lion Patrick J. Buchanan has touted as “uncensored by the biases and prejudices of the liberals who control the mass media.”

Increasingly, special interest groups are learning to orchestrate massive call-in campaigns.

Last year, for instance, a cable company patched calls from its subscribers through to Washington so they could barrage the Capitol with their “spontaneous” fury over upcoming legislation that the cable industry opposed.

The glitch, according to a Washington Post report of the incident, was that the cable company’s representative forgot to get off the line. Throughout one unidentified senator’s answering-machine tape, the cable company staffer could be heard coaching the callers on what to say, making it clear that many had no understanding of the issue.

White House Communications Director George Stephanopoulos has said similarly organized forces, particularly religious groups, may be behind the latest wave of irate calls.

“There is an organized effort by . . . right-wing groups, to focus attention on this issue,” Stephanopoulos said. “It is organized. It isn’t necessarily a gauge of where people are.”

Indeed, some patterns were evident in the opinions logged by Feinstein’s staff, which recorded the names and addresses of every caller willing to provide them. There were a series of calls from Apple Valley and another from Simi Valley registering exactly the same views, perhaps coincidentally or perhaps the product of a phone bank.

Feinstein’s staff said their letters and calls--there had been 6,688 by Thursday night--had initially been overwhelmingly opposed to lifting the ban. But as the week progressed, they estimated, the other side began weighing in in almost equal numbers.

The senator has backed the President in his efforts.

Opponents of lifting the ban on gays quoted the Bible, warned of security risks and railed about what one described as a “filthy, filthy lifestyle.”

But the other side was no less passionate. “It’s basic bigotry,” a woman from Diamond Bar protested. “Those old men are just afraid of being harassed like we have (been) for years.”