CRISIS IN THE CARIBBEAN : Clinton, Carter Aides Debate Wisdom of Use of Force : Negotiations: Former President says White House decision to launch first phase of invasion almost killed the deal.

Behind their polite smiles and mutual congratulations, President Clinton, former President Jimmy Carter and their associates conducted a quiet but intense debate Monday on a central element of the weekend’s events:

Was Clinton’s decision to launch the first phase of the U.S. invasion Sunday the final stroke that forced Haiti’s generals to yield? Or was it a blunder that almost killed a deal?

The argument goes beyond the simple question of who gets credit for the deal and reaches a central dilemma in post-Cold War American foreign policy: What is the proper use of force?

As related by Clinton Administration officials Sunday night, talks between Carter’s delegation and Lt. Gen. Raoul Cedras, Haiti’s military commander, had stalled earlier that day. Cedras bent to the U.S. will, these officials said, only after being informed by his chief of staff, Brig. Gen. Philippe Biamby, that U.S. planes carrying paratroopers were in the air, heading their way.

Carter offered a very different account. The former President said the Haitian generals almost abandoned the talks when they heard that the warplanes were on their way.

“They were on the verge of saying, ‘We will not negotiate anymore, this may be a trick just to keep us occupied, all of us military commanders, in the same room while the invasion takes place,’ ” Carter said during a news conference at the White House. “The thing was about to break down.”

That account is in marked contrast to statements made the night before by senior U.S. officials, beginning with Gen. John M. Shalikashvili, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

“I am absolutely convinced that it was being aware of the preparations of such an overwhelming force that caused him to blink,” Shalikashvili said, recounting to reporters how Biamby brought Cedras the news that the American planes were in the air.

The dispute reflects, in part, two very different views of the usefulness of force. Administration officials, having engaged in frustrating talks with the Haitians for more than a year, grew convinced months ago that only force would cause the generals to abandon power.

Carter, however, in his continuing role as an international mediator, seems increasingly convinced that while the threat of force may be useful, the actual use of military power can almost always be avoided by diplomacy.

Whose interpretation of events is more nearly correct may never be known. But this much is clear: The launching of the planes from Pope Air Force Base in North Carolina, coupled with Clinton’s concerns about getting the delegation out before the formations reached Haiti, put considerable pressure on both sides to close the deal.

“The last time we talked, he (Carter) said, ‘Well, we’re almost there, we’ve about got this nailed, we’re going over to the presidential palace,’ and I said, ‘OK, you have 30 more minutes, and then I will have to order you to leave’ because I was worried about their personal security,” Clinton recalled during the White House news conference. “They had to get (out) before dark.”

Cedras himself has made no public comments about his motivations in agreeing to the deal, and even if he does so in the future, his statements would, no doubt, be colored by his own concerns about self-image.

In the meantime, Administration officials were doing their best to paper over the difference, insisting that even if Carter and Clinton disagreed about the utility of actually launching the planes, they agreed that the generals were willing to negotiate only after they had been convinced, during discussions Saturday, about what Carter termed “the inexorability of the entry of the forces into Haiti.”

And with the dispute only a few hours old, policy-makers were already using their conflicting views of what happened to draw grand lessons for the future.

Rep. Ronald V. Dellums (D-Oakland), chairman of the House Armed Services Committee and a longtime anti-war spokesman, declared in a statement that “while the threat of military force may have played a role in the timing of the agreement, it was effective diplomacy, focused on the right issues, that provided the desired result.”

By contrast, the Rev. Jesse Jackson, a chief advocate of using military force in Haiti, said Sunday’s events proved that Cedras “would not, in fact, honor the agreement he had already made until he knew the military was in the air heading toward Haiti with parachutes.”