WASHINGTON — President Clinton believes that the CIA may have deliberately withheld information from him about the deaths in Guatemala of an American and a Guatemalan guerrilla leader and promised to fire anyone who did, senior officials said Friday.
Despite formal statements of confidence in the CIA, Clinton and some aides are deeply suspicious that the "old-boy network" in the spy agency covered up its knowledge of the two cases, in which a Guatemalan army colonel on the CIA payroll was reported to have ordered the killings, officials said.
"I am not satisfied that we have as many answers as I think some people here, including the President, would like to have," White House spokesman Mike McCurry said. "If there was information that was withheld from the President and from the White House, the President has made it very clear he will fire anyone on the spot who's responsible for that."
McCurry said the White House has no solid evidence that the CIA deliberately withheld information but noted that the agency's inspector general is investigating that issue. The White House plans to review the inspector general's findings carefully, he added.
Other White House officials said that in private, Clinton has complained angrily that the CIA was flouting his authority. "The President . . . has asked very pointed questions about this matter," McCurry said, using diplomatic language that aides said reflected a degree of presidential rage.
In internal discussions, officials said, White House National Security Adviser Anthony Lake has defended the CIA, arguing that there is no clear evidence that the agency tried to deceive the President.
But one said it appeared that the CIA had committed "sins of omission," failing to provide all the information in its possession when the White House asked.
The suspicions revived a charge against the CIA that has recurred ever since the agency's founding in 1947: that the spy service is sometimes a "rogue elephant" that acts in its own interest, heedless of its obligation to follow orders from the White House.
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In this case, the White House was asking for information about the case of Efrain Bamaca Velasquez, a Guatemalan leftist guerrilla who was captured and apparently killed by his country's army in 1992.
Bamaca's American widow, Harvard-educated lawyer Jennifer Harbury, had pressed the Administration to investigate the case through hunger strikes covered by the media in both Guatemala and Washington.
