from TPDL 1999-May-21, from Investors Business Daily, by Daniel J. Murphy:

Sandy Berger's Links to China
National Security Aide's History Sparks Worries

Samuel R. ''Sandy'' Berger doesn't have the resume of the typical national security adviser.

Among Berger's recent predecessors, Robert ''Bud'' McFarlane, John Poindexter and Brent Scowcroft were military men. Henry Kissinger, Zbigniew Brzezinski and Anthony Lake were academics. All had extensive knowledge of foreign intelligence. Several were experienced diplomats.

But Berger - President Clinton's current national security adviser - has been a political operative who's spent most of his professional life working in politics and lobbying.

As one foreign policy fiasco after another hounds the White House, critics keep pointing to Berger.

Neither Congress nor the White House has yet held senior members of the Clinton's national security team to account.

Only recently have rumblings been heard. Earlier this month, for example, Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., head of the Senate Intelligence Committee, suggested on NBC News' ''Meet the Press'' that Berger may be poorly serving Clinton.

Why the reluctance to take on Berger? Perhaps it's because he's a longtime friend of the Clintons. They met while working on Sen. George McGovern's 1972 presidential campaign and have stayed in contact since.

''I believe (Berger) was a major player even before he became the national security adviser,'' said Frank Gaffney, a senior official in President Reagan's Defense Department, who was responsible for nuclear forces and arms-control policy.

''It's obvious that today he is the pre-eminent foreign policy adviser to the president and the most influential - as far as I can tell - of any of the president's senior officials in this area,'' Gaffney said.

Berger's influential. But is he protecting the nation's security?

In their 1998 book ''Year of the Rat'' (Regnery Publishing), national security specialists Edward Timperlake and William Triplett state, ''Berger seems to be around whenever Clinton administration decisions are made that, in our opinion, favor (China) trade ties over American national security interests.''

Still, national security lapses are springing from so many sources that focusing on Berger might overlook breakdowns that occurred elsewhere.

Repeated calls to NSC spokesman David Leavy for comment were not returned.

Even before Clinton decided to run for president in 1992, Berger helped set up a national security briefing in Washington for the then-governor of Arkansas.

Berger was in Little Rock when Clinton announced his candidacy. Upon entering the White House, Clinton tapped Berger to serve as deputy to National Security Adviser Anthony Lake. The Connecticut native was picked to head the National Security Council at the start of Clinton's second term.

Prior to the McGovern campaign, Berger worked in a couple of congressional offices and then spent a short stint with New York City Mayor John Lindsay. From 1977 to 1980, Berger served on the State Department's policy planning staff for President Carter.

Berger has spent much of his private-sector life as a partner in the powerful lawyer-lobbyist firm Hogan & Hartson. While there, Berger was the firm's key contact on international trade matters. Caterpillar Inc., a well-known backer of increased ties with China, was one of Berger's longtime clients.

Berger's influence on foreign policy and intelligence issues shows on several levels. Some of the appointments to positions that would typically be vetted by Berger's NSC have raised some eyebrows.

Take Anthony Harrington, a member of the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, the panel Clinton assigned in mid- March to assess the damage from national security compromises involving China.

Harrington, like Berger, isn't a foreign policy veteran. Harrington was a partner at Hogan & Hartson, Berger's old firm. He was also outside general counsel to the Democratic National Committee in the 1980s and general counsel to the 1992 Clinton-Gore campaign.

Harrington chairs a subcommittee Clinton picked from the advisory board, the Intelligence Oversight Board. His predecessor was Adm. William Crowe, a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

The White House is reportedly also considering former Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif., for the intelligence board.

During the mid-1980s, Harman was registered and active as a foreign agent for the Chinese government. That background led to a mild dust-up with some Republicans when, as a lawmaker, she was picked for both the national security and intelligence committees.

''In my experience in the Reagan administration and every administration that I'm aware of, the vetting process for appointments to presidential boards that have anything to do with national security goes through the (NSC),'' Gaffney recalled.

Timperlake and Triplett lay out several cases where Berger intervened to affect decisions with a connection to China.

Export controls. Based on documents the White House turned over to congressional investigators, Timperlake and Triplett assert that ''(Berger) led the charge to repeal export controls on satellites for China.''

Then-Secretary of State Warren Christopher wanted his department to remain in charge of this sensitive area. Timperlake and Triplett report, though, that Berger lobbied to transfer authority to the Commerce Department.

Berger prevailed, at first. Compromises and controversy eventually forced the program's return to State.

Waivers of trade rules. Berger failed to object to presidential waivers for Hughes Electronics Corp. and Loral Corp. - aerospace firms that illegally transferred technology related to Chinese rocket tests. The requests for waivers came as Justice Department investigators were closing in on the companies.

Chinese missile sales to Iran. When this touchy subject arose during a visit Berger had with Triplett and his boss, Sen. Robert Bennett, R-Utah, Triplett says Berger claimed ignorance and left in a huff. The State Department had reported evidence of such sales, which could have triggered sanctions against Chinese companies.

''What changed was that they allowed sloppy procedures in the tech transfer of the satellites to China. In the past, these were monitored very, very closely,'' former U.S. Ambassador to China James Lilley said.

Unlike other exposes of the Clinton White House, Timperlake's and Triplett's version of events hasn't been challenged. ''No one has said, 'You're wrong about something,' '' Triplett said.

Broader questions about the Clinton national security operation have come from many quarters.

The report by the Senate Government Affairs Committee alleging a link between Chinese campaign donations and access to White House officials noted that the NSC had no system to screen out potentially undesirable foreign national visitors to the White House.

Some also note the increased prominence of a national security adviser serving a president who's clearly more interested in domestic politics.

''I didn't have a bad relationship with the president. I just really didn't have one at all,'' said Clinton's first director of central intelligence, James Woolsey.

Woolsey, who left the CIA after two years, said that Clinton was engaged with intelligence issues, but he didn't tend to intelligence business ''well enough to get the job done.''

Referring to military actions against Iraq, Sudan and Yugoslavia over the past year, Daniel Goure, a military analyst with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said, ''There is this sort of view that the NSC has become not a consolidator, coordinator or arbiter, but kind of an independent actor in competition with the others.''

A series of damaging articles written by New York Times investigative reporters Jeff Gerth and James Risen have drawn further attention to Berger.

Weapons labs lapses. Gerth and Risen reported that Berger learned that top-secret neutron-bomb technology had landed in the hands of Chinese officials in April 1996. Still, he waited more than a year to inform Clinton.

Similar inertia has plagued the government's investigation of suspected weapons lab spy Wen Ho Lee.

Sudan pharmaceutical plant bombing. When the administration launched bombing strikes against terrorist Osama bin Laden in August, Berger said the White House had ''very, very little doubt'' that the Sudanese drug factory leveled by the blasts made chemical weapons or components used in them.

After the strikes, the U.S. froze the plant owner's assets. The owner sued. Earlier this month, in what was widely viewed as an admission that the government lacked evidence, the U.S. freed the owner's assets.