CIA Officer Shot to Death in Caucasus; Motive Unclear : Georgia: The victim was riding with a top security official. Terrorism is held unlikely.

A U.S. diplomat was shot to death in the former Soviet republic of Georgia in a murky incident that Georgian authorities Monday attributed to banditry or possibly just a stray bullet.

In Washington, U.S. officials said the diplomat, identified as Fred Woodruff, 45, of Stillwater, Okla., was a CIA officer on temporary assignment in Georgia. They said he had been due to leave Aug. 20, but they declined to provide specifics about his business there.

Woodruff was riding about 15 miles northwest of the Georgian capital, Tbilisi, in a vehicle with Georgian leader Eduard A. Shevardnadze’s chief of security Sunday evening when he was hit in the forehead by a bullet, according to the Georgian Embassy in Moscow.

“Our friend, a wonderful representative of the American people, has become a tragic victim of a senseless incident, and in that connection I express my deep sympathy,” said Shevardnadze, the former Soviet foreign minister who helped end the Cold War.

The Caucasus republic has been racked by civil war, political chaos and economic collapse for nearly two years, capped last week by the resignation of the entire Cabinet.

The Georgian prosecutor’s office, which said it had launched a major investigation, appeared to be ruling out the possibility of anti-American terrorism, saying the shooting appeared to be “purely criminal.”

Several possible versions of the killing were already circulating, including the hypothesis that the assailant, seeing the Georgian security chief, thought he might be traveling with Shevardnadze himself, Russian Television reported. But it also hazarded a guess that the shooting was a simple case of attempted robbery.

U.S. officials in Washington said it still was unclear whether the bullet that hit Woodruff was aimed at him. They said U.S. authorities were also investigating the affair.

Shevardnadze, in a morning radio address, appeared to be preparing to use the killing as a further excuse to introduce a general state of emergency to crack down on the lawlessness that has come to reign in Georgia during its unrest.

“Order must be restored in the country,” he said. “Even if we must temporarily restrict our democratic achievements to save democracy.”

The security chief, Eldar Gugusladze, was reported to have been driving Woodruff in a Soviet-made jeep but remained unhurt in the attack, which apparently consisted of only a single shot.

A government statement said that two other Georgians had been in the vehicle with them.

Gangs of robbers are known to roam parts of Georgia, and arms abound. Georgian troops and irregulars have been fighting for months to subdue the breakaway region of Abkhazia, and Shevardnadze also faces a threat from the backers of his predecessor, deposed President Zviad Gamsakhurdia, in western Georgia.

Woodruff’s death came just at a point of some mounting hope that in Abkhazia, at least, the fighting might be waning and international observers might be able to help keep the peace.

Woodruff was described by State Department spokesman Mike McCurry as “a regional affairs officer,” but McCurry was unable to define such an officer’s role. The victim was listed as a career Foreign Service officer. He was married and had five children, two by a previous marriage.

Times staff writer Art Pine, in Washington, contributed to this report.