CIA Nominee Faces New Iran-Contra Questions : Congress: Investigators have found contradictory evidence about Robert Gates’ role in the scandal. The concerns do not yet threaten his confirmation.

WASHINGTON —  Congressional investigators re-examining the records of the Iran-Contra affair have uncovered contradictory evidence that raises new concerns about the role played by Robert M. Gates, President Bush’s nominee as director of Central Intelligence.

The concerns being raised privately by some senators and other congressional sources are not seen at this point as posing a serious threat to Gates’ nomination. But they could make the Senate confirmation process, scheduled to begin after the Independence Day holiday recess, more difficult than the White House anticipated when Bush nominated the 47-year-old career CIA officer to succeed retiring CIA Director William H. Webster last month.

“I don’t hear anybody saying that the nomination is in trouble. But, on the other hand, I don’t hear anybody saying it’s going to be a greased affair either,” said a senior source on the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Reports have circulated on Capitol Hill over the last two weeks that the nomination had run into a snag as the Intelligence Committee reopens the Iran-Contra files to take a second, much closer look at Gates’ role in the affair. The Iran-Contra affair, the biggest scandal of the Ronald Reagan Administration, involved the sale of U.S. arms to Iran and the illegal diversion of resulting funds to help Nicaragua’s Contras.

Committee spokesmen insist that the rumors are exaggerated. But questions that went unanswered in 1987, when Gates was first nominated to head the CIA but was forced to withdraw because of congressional opposition, are reportedly receiving closer scrutiny in view of information that has since come to light about the Iran-Contra affair.

One committee member, Sen. Howard M. Metzenbaum (D-Ohio), has a full-time investigator looking through the Iran-Contra records. Metzenbaum has warned bluntly that Gates will have to give better answers this time than he did during the 1987 hearings, when he said that he and other senior CIA officials actively discouraged people from informing them about details of what they suspected was an illegal operation.

“Many charges and countercharges have been leveled” against Gates, added Sen. Alan Cranston (D-Calif.), another committee member. “All of them that come from reputable sources will be examined very closely.”

Senators and staffers refused to discuss these charges in detail because they involve classified material. But some of the information that has come to light as a result of probes by both congressional investigators and the news media appears to contradict key elements of Gates’ earlier testimony to Congress.

For instance, Gates has repeatedly sworn that he had no knowledge of the Iran-Contra operation being run by Lt. Col. Oliver L. North before Nov. 25, 1986, when then-Atty. Gen. Edwin Meese III announced that profits from the secret sale of weapons to Iran were being used to illegally assist the Contras.

But White House computer messages released after Gates testified before Congress indicate that former National Security Adviser John M. Poindexter told Gates about the Contra supply effort in July of that year. In a message to North, Poindexter said he had advised Gates that the “private effort should be phased out.” An Oct. 13, 1986, entry in one of North’s diaries also refers to a discussion with Gates about the Contra supply effort.

A line-by-line examination of the encyclopedia-length Iran-Contra records by the Dallas Times Herald also has uncovered indications that Gates may have known more about the Iran-Contra affair than he admitted to Congress.

The records show, for example, that Gates knew in October, 1986, that the FBI and the Customs Service were both investigating a Miami-based air charter service with CIA connections that was being used by North to airlift weapons to the Contras.

One entry in the Iran-Contra records suggests that Gates may have been informed of North’s illegal activities on behalf of the Contras in early 1985. A note from North, dated March 12, 1985, describes in cryptic terms a telephone conversation with a high-ranking CIA official concerning a group of British mercenaries North had secretly recruited to help the Contras. It is not clear if Gates was the official with whom North apparently talked, but the note says that “CIA has info,” and it refers to “DDI,” agency shorthand for the CIA’s deputy director of intelligence, a post Gates occupied at the time.

Elsewhere, the records reveal that Gates altered his own accounts, given in sworn testimony, of several 1986 meetings in which early warnings of the Iran-Contra affair may have been discussed.

Explaining these inconsistencies to investigators, Gates has pleaded faulty memory. He has also said that he sought to avoid learning too much about the Contra supply effort because he did not want to become implicated in the illegal operation.

This time, however, several senators have indicated that they will not be satisfied with such explanations. “Gates bears a greater responsibility than the average witness,” Metzenbaum said. “Part of his responsibility is to be in the know. To say he turned his head away is not satisfactory.”

New allegations about the transfer of sensitive missile technology to South Africa between 1984 and 1988, when Gates was a top CIA official, also are receiving Intelligence Committee scrutiny and may further complicate the nomination, committee sources said.

In addition, the nomination is likely to receive closer attention because of momentum building in Congress to investigate allegations that officials from Reagan’s first presidential campaign may have negotiated a secret deal with Iran to delay the release of U.S. hostages until after the November, 1980, elections.

There is no suggestion that Gates, who was the CIA’s senior Soviet specialist at the time, had anything to do with that alleged effort. But the attention it will focus on the Reagan Administration’s secret relations with Iran is likely to extend to the Gates hearings.

“There is going to be a lot of pressure now to keep these hearings as open as possible and not move them behind closed doors,” said an aide to a Republican member of the committee. “The White House hoped to slide Gates through without much of a fuss, but that’s going to be much more difficult now.”

Earlier this month, the Intelligence Committee Chairman David L. Boren (D-Okla.), who strongly supports Gates’ nomination, sent the White House a detailed list of questions that members want answered before the confirmation hearings begin.

While it is normal for the committee to notify nominees of the concerns members plan to raise, some committee staffers said Boren went beyond this practice by giving Gates a very detailed summary of the points that senators intend to question him about.

An aide to one committee member added that the “exacting” nature of the questions “raised a lot of concern at the White House”--concern that may explain in part why the Administration waited six weeks to send Gates’ nomination to the Senate following Bush’s decision to appoint him.

The delay has given both sides time to prepare for the hearings, which are expected to begin sometime in mid-July, although no dates have been announced yet.

This time, the indications are that Intelligence Committee members are going to want to know not only what Gates knew and when he knew it, but what he should have known and why he did not know it.

Despite these lingering questions, most observers think Gates, who is presently serving as White House deputy national security adviser, will be confirmed to head the CIA.

“He’s bright, articulate, persuasive, and he has the President’s ear at the moment,” said a former Intelligence Committee staffer who knows Gates well. “When he comes up to the Hill next month, I suspect what we will see is the new and improved Robert Gates, someone who will portray himself as having learned a lot since the last time he was here.”

“We expect all the allegations (about the Iran-Contra affair) to be revisited,” added a senior aide to Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.). “But nothing has happened yet to change our view that this nomination is going to be scrutinized broadly, criticized very narrowly and approved overwhelmingly.”