Aides Warned of Donor Problems, Papers Show

The National Security Council released 165 pages of internal documents Friday related to the campaign fund-raising controversy in hopes of salvaging Anthony Lake’s chances of winning Senate confirmation as CIA director. Yet the same documents raised new questions about Vice President Al Gore’s role in the affair.

The documents detail attempts by Lake’s staff at the NSC to prevent interference by several Democratic donors in administration foreign policy matters. They include warnings to Gore’s staff against participating in a political fund-raiser at a Buddhist temple in Hacienda Heights, Calif., that Democratic Party officials later acknowledged was inappropriate. Gore’s staff has insisted he did not fully understand what the event was at the time.

They also show that one of President Clinton’s friends--former Little Rock, Ark., restaurateur and major campaign donor Yah Lin “Charlie” Trie--tried to offer the White House advice on U.S.-China relations, including U.S. naval maneuvers off China.

The NSC documents were made public by the White House after they were turned over to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, which is reviewing Lake’s tenure as national security advisor in considering his fitness to be central intelligence director. The panel had requested information on contacts between the NSC and 38 individuals and companies identified in the Democratic campaign fund-raising controversy.

Sen. Richard C. Shelby (R-Ala.), the intelligence committee’s chairman, has twice postponed Lake’s confirmation hearing, complaining that the White House has failed to answer questions about Lake and the security council’s actions.

Included among the documents is a letter from Lake to the Senate committee stating that he never met with any of the controversial campaign donors who have surfaced in the controversy, and administration officials argued that the NSC documents show that he deserves no blame in the affair, which involves allegations of undue access by some donors to the U.S. foreign policy apparatus.

In addition, officials argue that the documents underscore that the NSC “consistently gave professional foreign policy advice” whenever asked by the White House about individual donors.

Yet a senior administration official acknowledged that the documents show that neither the White House nor the NSC ever developed a system of reviewing foreign-linked donors who wanted to meet with the president or vice president, give policy advice or who sought the White House’s blessing for their actions in foreign countries. The administration official conceded such checks were made on a “hit and miss” basis.

Presidential spokesman Mike McCurry also conceded that the White House should have followed the NSC’s warnings on people and events mentioned in the documents. The NSC staff gave “pretty good counsel that should have been more closely heeded,” McCurry said.

The documents reveal that one of the NSC’s leading Asia experts warned Gore’s staff that his planned visit to the Hsi Lai Temple in Hacienda Heights last April 29 could be a bad idea, but Gore aides decided he could attend the fund-raising lunch anyway. The event has since become a major source of controversy.

The NSC official, Robert L. Suettinger, warned before the event that its sponsors “may have a hidden agenda.”

“Certainly from the perspective of Taiwan/China balancing, this would be clearly a Taiwan event, and would be seen as such,” Suettinger warned in an internal White House memo only days before the event, which raised $140,000 for the Democratic Party. Gore’s staff should use “great, great caution” to avoid damaging relations with Beijing, Suettinger added.

Gore spokeswoman Lorraine Voles said the State Department “provided specific conditions for the event,” including a request that no Taiwan flags be displayed and that no Taiwan politicians publicize the visit.

“After consultations with State and the NSC, the vice president’s national security advisor posed no objection to the event from a foreign policy standpoint,” Voles said.

Since then, questions have emerged about the true source of some of the money collected and about the propriety of raising funds at a religious institution. The Democratic National Committee has returned the money.

The documents also show that Gore’s staff was aware the event was “a fund-raiser” despite Gore’s later insistence he thought it was to build goodwill in the Asian community.

Said Voles Friday: “The vice president was not aware that the event was a fund-raiser. Some members of our staff believed the April 29 event was a fund-raiser. Others did not. The senior political staff traveling with the vice president did not know.”

Ronald Nessim, the new Los Angeles attorney for the temple, defended the temple’s involvement in the incident. He said Friday: “I think that the investigation in Washington will show that the temple and its clergy did nothing improper. These people are unsophisticated in the ways of American politics, and the Gore event was merely a way to acknowledge their long-standing friendship with the vice president.” As a senator, Gore had visited the group’s headquarters temple in Taiwan.

Among the other NSC documents made public Friday was a letter the president received last April from his old friend Trie, warning Clinton that his decision to send aircraft carriers into the Taiwan Strait might provoke war with China. Clinton ordered the action after China began missile tests near Taiwan.

The letter is the first evidence that Trie, a Taiwan native with business interests in Beijing, sought to use his friendship with the president to influence U.S. policy toward China.

Clinton and Trie have been friends since the 1980s, when Clinton was governor of Arkansas and a frequent visitor to Trie’s restaurant.

Trie since has sold his restaurant and has entered the world of international trade, brokering deals between Chinese and American firms.

Trie was responsible for collecting more than $600,000 in donations to the president’s legal defense fund, which the fund later returned because of questions about the source of the money.

In his letter, Trie demanded to know “why U.S. has to send the aircraft carriers and cruisers to give China a possible excuse of foreign intervention and hence launch a real war?” If the United States were truly committed to a “one China” policy, he added, it would see that such a move was the equivalent to intervening in China’s internal affairs.

He warned the president that “it is highly possible for China to launch real war based on its past behavior in Sino-Vietnam war and Zhen Bao Tao War with Russia.”

White House internal memos show that Trie’s letter, which was forwarded to the White House by Mark E. Middleton, a former presidential aide who also now works as an international deal-maker, was read with skepticism by Lake and other NSC officials. One aide described the letter as “rather provocative.”

On Lake’s recommendation, Clinton wrote to Trie to reassure him that the administration was not trying to provoke China.

“It was not intended as a threat to the PRC,” Clinton said in the letter, which was drafted in Lake’s office.

According to the documents, the only direct meetings between NSC staffers and individuals linked to the fund-raising controversy were the three previously reported sessions between Sandra Kristoff, the NSC’s chief Asia expert, and Pauline Kanchanalak, a Thai businesswoman and a former major Democratic donor. Last November, the Democratic National Committee returned $253,500 in contributions from Kanchanalak amid questions about the source of the money.

While Shelby and the Senate Intelligence Committee did not immediately comment on the new documents, other congressional Republicans were quick to voice concern about the new evidence of attempts by campaign donors to insert themselves into foreign policy matters. “The thought that money can influence foreign policy is troubling,” said Rep. Frank R. Wolf (R-Va.), who called this week for Atty. Gen. Janet Reno to name an independent counsel to look into campaign fund-raising abuses. “Nobody understands Whitewater, but everyone understands this. You can’t make it seem that our government is for sale.”

Times staff writers Doyle McManus and Alan C. Miller in Washington and William C. Rempel in Los Angeles contributed to this story.