OKLAHOMA CITY: AFTER THE BOMB : Clinton Unveils Proposals to Counter Terrorist Acts : Congress: Some lawmakers voice doubts about plans to hire more agents and broaden FBI’s investigative powers, citing cost and citizen rights.

Vowing that the “horror” of Oklahoma City must never recur, President Clinton announced new counterterrorism proposals Wednesday that he said would balance concern for civil liberties with the need to ensure “swift, certain and severe” justice for “anyone who dares sow terror on American land.”

Summoning congressional leaders to the White House to plan the nation’s response to the worst act of terrorism in American history, Clinton urged lawmakers to adopt the proposals swiftly.

The package includes hiring an additional 1,000 FBI agents, prosecutors and other federal law enforcement officials and creating a centralized counterterrorism bureau under the direction of the FBI. “We cannot allow the entire country to be subjected to the horror the people of Oklahoma City have endured,” Clinton said. He described the measures as grounded “in common sense and steeled with force.”

Leaders from both parties pledged to work with unaccustomed bipartisanship to craft the new law, combining the new proposals with the main features of a pending counterterrorism bill.

But they suggested that they still have reservations about the constitutionality of some of the proposals, particularly those that would expand the FBI’s authority to engage in wiretapping and other forms of electronic surveillance.

Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.) said after the meeting that as tragic as last Wednesday’s bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building was, “we need to be very careful in how we proceed. . . . There are certain areas involving people’s rights that we have to go very slowly on.”

House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) said that any legislation granting federal authorities broader investigative powers must protect “our civil liberties while also protecting us.”

Although all of the lawmakers were generally receptive to Clinton’s request for more law enforcement personnel, some expressed concern over the cost of hiring as many as 1,000 new agents for the FBI, the Treasury Department’s Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, and other federal agencies.

Participants at the meeting said that White House Chief of Staff Leon E. Panetta estimated the additional costs of the package at $100 million this year, $500 million next year and about $1.2 billion over five years.

“We’ll have to look at those issues,” said Sen. Don Nickles (R-Okla.). “These are expensive.”

Other elements of the combined counterterrorism law include:

* Relaxing current restrictions on military involvement in the criminal investigations of civilians so that investigators can tap military expertise in terrorism involving biological and chemical weapons.

* Placing certain substances in fertilizer and other possible bomb-making materials to help investigators trace the materials if they are used in an explosion.

* Giving wider discretion to use court-approved warrants for wiretapping and other surveillance, including proposals to make it easier to monitor cellular phones.

* Easing restrictions on the use in American courts of information obtained from overseas surveillance by foreign governments and permitting wiretapping for any felony.

* Increasing penalties for attacks on federal employees and for crimes committed with explosives, including a minimum 10-year sentence for helping others illegally transfer explosives used in the commission of a crime.

Additionally, and just as important, according to Administration officials, U.S. Atty. Gen. Janet Reno will review current guidelines prohibiting the FBI to investigate Americans in the absence of evidence that they have committed or are about to commit a crime.

A debate within the Administration over those guidelines, along with the new proposals to relax restrictions on wiretaps, has raised concerns among civil libertarians of a return to the excesses of the 1960s, when the FBI monitored the activities of civil rights groups and Vietnam War protesters on the vague grounds that they were part of a broad anti-American conspiracy.