Showdown Today Over Packwood Diaries : Ethics: Oregon senator’s colleagues face a painful choice as they vote on whether to subpoena private papers. Precedent may return to haunt them.

In a drama spiced by accounts of sexual high jinks, the Senate is reluctantly facing a showdown today with one of its own, Oregon Republican Bob Packwood, over a subpoena for his personal diaries.

The Ethics Committee is investigating charges that the 61-year-old Packwood had engaged in a pattern of sexual harassment and the panel is asking the Senate to enforce a subpoena for his intimate memoirs. Shortly after noon, sergeant-at-arms Martha Pope will be instructed to gather the 100 senators for a decision.

Senate refusal to back up its Ethics Committee could bring charges of a whitewash. But if senators rule against Packwood, the precedent could come back to haunt them by sharply limiting the privacy of public officials.

Packwood has revealed that the diary, which he has kept for a quarter-century, includes tidbits about the sex lives of other members of Congress, as well as his own. He has hinted that these details might be spread on the public record if the Senate takes the unprecedented step of enforcing the subpoena against one of its own members.

Sen. Richard H. Bryan (D-Nev.), chairman of the ethics panel, has suggested that the diaries may also contain evidence of possible criminal violations by Packwood. In preliminary jousting last week, Bryan virtually accused Packwood and his lawyer of distorting the real issues of the inquiry by alluding to the sex lives of a former senator and an unidentified member of the House Democratic leadership.

Bryan added for the benefit of other senators who will sit as judges in the case: “The Ethics Committee is not interested in the personal, consensual sexual relationship of any other senator or member of the House.”

At issue is whether the Senate should authorize the ethics panel to seek a federal court order telling Packwood to turn over portions of his diary or risk being held in contempt of court.

The Ethics Committee’s three Democrats and three Republicans voted unanimously to insist that Packwood turn over diary entries to aid the investigation that began last February into allegations of sexual harassment.

After Bryan raised the suggestion of a possible criminal violation outside the scope of the original inquiry, Senate Republican Leader Bob Dole of Kansas castigated him for making “almost a prejudgment” of the case. As Bryan described it, he was only trying to set straight a complex chain of circumstances that led to the current impasse.

It all began Feb. 4 when the Ethics Committee announced it would conduct a preliminary inquiry into charges that Packwood made sexual advances toward more than 20 women, including staff aides and lobbyists, over two decades. The panel also voted to investigate allegations that Packwood and his staff tried to intimidate and discredit his accusers.

While Packwood was being questioned under oath last month, he disclosed for the first time that information sought by the committee was available in his diaries, Bryan said.

The committee reached an agreement with Packwood to shield some of the diary entries where there was an attorney-client or doctor-patient privilege or where personal, private family matters were discussed.

“On Sunday, Oct. 17, while reviewing the diaries under the original agreement, the committee counsel came across information indicating possible misconduct by Sen. Packwood unrelated to the current inquiry,” Bryan said. “This information raised questions about a possible violation of one or more laws, including criminal laws.”

Packwood’s attorneys refused to provide additional diary entries unless the Ethics Committee agreed not to pursue evidence of other misconduct, Bryan said. The committee refused to accept this.

When Packwood refused to comply with the committee’s subpoena, it voted to ask the Senate for authority to go to court for an order enforcing its demand for diary entries dating back to 1989.

If the court issued such a ruling, Packwood could face civil sanctions for contempt of court, including a jail sentence and heavy fines. In addition, the committee could start criminal proceedings for contempt of Congress.

Packwood’s attorney, James F. Fitzpatrick, accused the panel of making a “frontal attack” on the senator’s constitutional right to privacy.

The American Civil Liberties Union has entered the fray on Packwood’s side.

“Private, personal diaries, even those dictated in the course of official duties, enjoy a very high level of legal protection,” said Laura Murphy Lee, director of the ACLU’s Washington office, in a letter to Bryan.

Addressing this line of defense, Bryan said in his statement that Packwood’s diaries for many years were transcribed by a secretary in his office. “They are not strictly personal, handwritten diaries,” Bryan said.