Spy Panel Split On Own Conduct

The Senate intelligence committee dissolved into angry bickering Thursday over its own conduct in the confirmation hearings for Anthony Lake, President Clinton’s nominee for CIA director.

Over three days of hearings, the committee has spent relatively little time eliciting Lake’s views on running the $30-billion-a-year U.S. intelligence empire.

Instead, the members have asked Lake about his belief in the guilt of Alger Hiss and how quickly he thinks Russia can retarget nuclear missiles that are not now aimed directly at the United States, and about his well-documented decision to do nothing about Iran’s arms shipments to Bosnia’s Muslims in 1994.