PANEL'S TOP DEMOCRAT AIRED DOUBTS ABOUT LAKE.

Byline: Elaine Sciolino The New York Times

The highest-ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee said Tuesday that he warned the White House on Saturday that he had developed strong reservations about Anthony Lake's qualifications to be the nation's spymaster, and that he might not win Senate confirmation.

Sen. Bob Kerrey, D-Neb., whose views hold considerable weight with the eight other Democrats on the Intelligence Committee, said he told both John Podesta, the deputy chief of staff, and Charles Ruff, the White House counsel, that he needed more information about Lake's handling of National Security Council barriers against White House political and fund-raising operations.

Specifically, Kerrey said in a telephone interview, he was deeply concerned about Wall Street Journal articles about a major Democratic contributor with a checkered background, Roger Tamraz, who got unusual access to NSC staff members.

Tamraz ended up meeting with President Clinton several times despite objections from an NSC staff official. Lake apparently did not know about the incident.

Kerrey said that his concerns were not allayed in conversations with both White House officials again Monday. He then called Lake. Shortly afterward, Lake met with Clinton and withdrew his nomination, blaming the confirmation process, which he described in a letter to the president as ``nasty and brutish without being short.''

On Tuesday Clinton repeated Lake's assertion, blaming the Republicans and a process of ``political destruction'' for sabotaging the nomination.

But the fact that Kerrey was concerned that Lake's nomination was in trouble as early as Saturday raised questions about whether the White House could have responded in a way that might have preserved the nomination.

Although there were ugly moments in the three days of Senate questioning of Lake, it was by no means as difficult and mean-spirited as the process endured by Robert Gates to become director of the Central Intelligence Agency in 1991.

But as the confirmation process dragged on with no fixed date for a Senate vote, a much more basic question was raised by senators: whether a man who seemed to have difficulty running a 151-person NSC staff could run the more than 16,000-person CIA and the 12 other intelligence agencies.

Kerrey said he and other senators were also troubled by the fact that the FBI briefed two of Lake's NSC senior staff members about potential efforts by China to use campaign donations to try to influence the 1996 presidential election and Lake never knew about it.

``It never went to the top, never went to the president,'' Kerrey said, adding: ``I think it goes to the management capability. Was he capable of managing?''

Although Kerrey has never said directly that he would vote in favor of Lake as director of the CIA, as the ranking Democrat on the committee conducting hearings on his nomination, the White House saw his role in the process as crucial to the nomination.

Mike McCurry, the White House press secretary, said that as a result of Kerrey's warnings, White House officials began sounding out Capitol Hill for the degree of support for Lake. Still, there was an overall feeling in the White House that Lake had the votes for confirmation both in the committee and the Senate as a whole.

Despite Lake's extraordinary intellect and loyalty to the president as national security adviser, he was not known for running an efficient NSC. He jealously guarded access to the president, who was often briefed by Lake on Cabinet-level meetings rather than attending them himself.