LONG, HOT SUMMER FOR GATES: WAS SPY LEFT OUT IN THE COLD?

Iran-Contra, the scandal that will not rest in peace, is stirring again. Special Prosecutor Lawrence Walsh keeps digging away despite weekly excoriation by "The Wall Street Journal" and other commentators. Walsh has spent more than $25 million on the investigation. His criminal convictions of Oliver North were reversed by a higher court. Even the Democrats in Congress want Walsh to go away. They had their chance at the 1987 hearings and they fumbled the ball. Why then does the independent prosecutor persist?

Walsh is tenacity personified. When he grabs on to something, he never lets go. Colleagues from his days in private practice label him as the "epitome of perseverance." In street talk that means that Walsh is a tough son of a bitch. Walsh believes that Ollie North and John Poindexter didn't operate the whole Iran-Contra scam out of their hats. Some key people at the CIA had to be involved in the full sweep of the operation.

To prove his theory, Walsh needed a break. He needed a witness reasonably high up in the CIA hierarchy who would spill his guts either out of conscience or (more likely) fear of going to the penitentiary. What could convince an important CIA operative like Alan Fiers that now was the time to sing? Perhaps another live witness had snitched on him? Possible. A "smoking gun" memo with his signature? Possible. Recordings of conversations? Possible. Whatever it was, Fiers was convinced that he had better tell what he knew.

It now appears to be the recordings. The No. 3 man at the agency, Clair George the super spook head of clandestine operations and Fiers' immediate superior reportedly installed a recording system to preserve oral directives to agents "on station." Some of those recordings dealt with the secret Contra aid program.

The bread and butter of the old CIA was non-disclosure to Congress. It was really none of Congress' business as to what the agency did or where it did it. Until the William Webster years, the CIA systematically thwarted Congressional oversight. The spirit was to tell as little as you could get away with. Clair George implemented that spirit during his years near the top.

Under Director William Casey (1981-86) the spirit was even more bitter: tell less than little and, when in doubt, lie. The very day Casey went to the hospital and was diagnosed as having a brain tumor, he was scheduled to come up and "correct" willfully erroneous testimony he had previously given to Congress.

The Contra operation in Nicaragua was Casey's pet. He conceived it and directed it, at least according to Oliver North. Casey's men were ordered to work with Ollie North to sell arms to Iran and to help make sure arms got to the Contras despite Congressional prohibition.

For the moment, the unresolved question is: were all of Casey's top men involved in deliberately breaking the law and lying to Congress? The #1 and #3 men were involved up to their eyeballs. What about the #2 man, Robert Gates, now nominated by President Bush to be the Director? He was a Casey loyalist, unlike his predecessor who was eagerly dumped by Casey in favor of Gates.

Last week, the Senate Intelligence Committee postponed until September its confirmation hearings on Gates as director of the CIA. The Committee has the rest of the hot summer to decide why Gates was our spy who was left out in the cold.