Embattled Cia Nominee Withdraws Lake’s Resignation Letter Critical Of Confirmation Process

Anthony Lake withdrew Monday as President Clinton’s nominee to be CIA director, saying that continued Republican attacks had led him to conclude over the weekend that there was no end in sight to his confirmation process.

In an impassioned 2-1/2-page letter to the president, Lake said that “Washington has gone haywire” in partisanship and called the process he has gone through “nasty and brutish without being short.”

The former national security adviser insisted he had sufficient votes for Senate confirmation but said he no longer could tolerate delays that were hurting the CIA and National Security Council staff.

Lake’s letter cited three new developments that he said would create “endless delay”: a GOP request for broader dissemination to senators of files of Lake’s FBI background investigation, the Republicans’ desire to question Lake’s NSC staff members about meetings with Democratic campaign contributors and new allegations regarding a Lebanese-American donor who had met NSC aides and the president.

In a 20-minute meeting with Clinton in the White House residence Monday, Lake did not give the president a chance to talk him out of withdrawing, according to sources close to Lake. They said Lake told the president that he was “not going to spend the next few months being a dancing bear in a political circus.”

Lake had considered dropping out 10 days ago but was talked into appearing at his confirmation hearings, which began last week before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence after two delays that the White House described as politically motivated.

On Sunday, Lake decided he would quit and told a handful of aides Monday morning before going to the president.

Although Lake is said to believe his withdrawal will make Congress look at what may be wrong in the confirmation system, he recognizes that “the folks who led the attack on him may say they won,” a source said.

Lake told the president that he was concerned that his continuing nomination battle was beginning to damage the CIA and would make it difficult for him to work with Republicans in Congress if he was confirmed.

Republicans in December picked Lake as the one presidential nominee in the national security area vulnerable for confirmation.

Since December the GOP has dragged out the process by postponing the hearings on Lake’s nomination. After three days of testimony last week, Lake believed he would finally have a vote in committee after a final appearance this Thursday. But obstacles continued to appear.

Committee Chairman Richard C. Shelby, R-Ala., who has been point man in delaying Lake’s progress, said Friday after reviewing Lake’s FBI files that they had to be made available to members of the intelligence panel. In addition, Shelby and other GOP members of his panel continued to press for interviews under oath by National Security Council members who worked under Lake and had contact with Democratic fund-raisers.

The final straw may have been the story about a Lebanese American businessman, Roger Tamraz, who contributed $177,000 to the Democratic National Committee during last year’s campaign and had meetings with NSC staff members and Clinton. In his letter to Clinton, Lake acknowledged that the story in Monday’s Wall Street Journal about Tamraz was “likely to lead to further delay as an investigation proceeds.”

Lake was so convinced that Republicans were seeking ways to delay a committee vote that he said that “if it had not been this (Tamraz) story, then it would be another.”

But the Tamraz story promised to be a major embarrassment at Lake’s next appearance before the intelligence panel on Thursday. He would have had to admit for a second time that he was not informed when one of his senior deputies had a direct confrontation with then-Democratic National Committee Chairman Don Fowler over granting a major party donor access to the White House.

Tamraz, a controversial figure wanted by law enforcement authorities in Lebanon on suspicion of embezzlement, was seeking White House endorsement of a grandiose plan to build a pipeline across Armenia and Turkey to transport Caspian Sea oil to western markets.

At last week’s hearings, Republicans and some Democrats questioned Lake’s management skills after learning that two of his subordinates did not inform him of their June 1996 briefing by FBI agents on possible Chinese attempts to influence congressional elections. He was asked repeatedly how he thought he could manage the intelligence community with its $30 billion budget if he could not manage a comparatively small NSC staff.

Although Lake, according to sources, hoped his withdrawal would allow Clinton to appoint another nominee for CIA director who would not face the delays caused by his nomination, it was not clear to whom the president could turn.

Clinton might be able to avoid another confirmation battle if he selected someone already holding a confirmed position, such as Acting CIA Director George Tenet, who was once staff director for the Senate intelligence committee, or Deputy Attorney General Jamie S. Gorelick, who was considered for the post before Lake was chosen.

The Journal reported that a National Security Council staff member, Sheila Heslin, rebuffed the pipeline project sought by Tamraz, a prominent contributor to the Democratic Party nationally and in Virginia. Tamraz then turned to Fowler, according to the Journal, and shortly afterward Heslin received, unsolicited, a CIA document about Tamraz.

By the Journal’s account, Lake had nothing to do with this sequence of events, but the paper said the Tamraz episode raised questions about his control of the NSC staff and the possible politicization of intelligence materials that undermined his quest for confirmation.

Fowler hung up on a reporter who reached him Monday night at his home in South Carolina.

Tamraz did not return a message left on the answering machine at his New York residence.

Records released during the campaign finance investigation show he has visited the White House at least seven times during Clinton’s presidency, including once with Heslin.

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: PARTING SHOT “I have believed all my life in public service. I still do. But Washington has gone haywire. I hope that sooner, rather than later, people of all political views beyond our city limits will demand that Washington give priority to policy over partisanship, to governing over ‘gotcha.”’ - Anthony Lake to President Clinton