By Vernon Loeb
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, October 24, 1998; Page A20

Lavishly praised for his role in hammering out a new Middle East Peace accord, CIA Director George J. Tenet skipped yesterday's dramatic signing ceremony in the East Room of the White House, his empty chair symbolic of his secretive agency's considerable unease after playing such a high-profile role in so public a process.

Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright hailed Tenet for his "critical assistance," and President Clinton, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat all thanked him for helping pave the way to agreement.

Clinton noted that his CIA director "had an unusual, almost unprecedented, role to play because of the security considerations" involved in the negotiations.

But Tenet passed on the praise and the pomp and slipped quietly back to the shadows of CIA headquarters in Langley, where he checked in briefly at his office on the 7th floor before heading home to spend some time with his wife and son.

"They had a seat for him, and he would have been welcome," a senior intelligence official confided. "But he would prefer a low profile."

Tenet and the CIA have been deeply involved in the Middle East peace talks in an increasingly public fashion since the process nearly collapsed in the fall of 1996, using the agency's longstanding relationships with Israeli and Palestinian intelligence agencies to broker cooperation between the two over anti-terrorist security issues critical to a final peace accord.

But the agency has made almost no official comment on its involvement, even as Tenet's participation became critical in the difficult talks this week, and as the accord ultimately forged gave the CIA an ongoing role in carrying it out.

"One of the things both sides like about the CIA is, we're not out there running around and talking about everything we know and seeking attention about our role," the senior intelligence official said.

The text of the Wye River Memorandum signed yesterday establishes a "high-ranking" U.S.-Israeli-Palestinian committee that will meet at least every two weeks "to assess current threats, deal with any impediments to effective security cooperation and coordination and address the steps being taken to combat terror and terrorist organizations."

While the memorandum makes no explicit reference to the CIA, it states that the Palestinians will immediately share with U.S. officials a working plan for cracking down on terrorism. The document calls for a U.S.-Palestinian committee to meet every two weeks "to review the steps being taken to eliminate terrorist cells and the support structure that plans, finances, supplies and abets terror."

It also establishes a U.S.-Israeli committee "to assist and enhance cooperation in preventing the smuggling . . . of weapons or explosive materials into areas under Palestinian jurisdiction."

Former CIA director Robert M. Gates said there is "ample precedent" for the CIA's involvement in high-level negotiations and in monitoring compliance with security agreements.

But Gates acknowledged that the CIA's highly visible role in the negotiating process and its day-to-day role in monitoring compliance with the accord signed yesterday do entail "some downside risks."

"Because of the highly visible role, the agency runs the risk of being caught between these two parties -- the meat in the sandwich -- in a way it hasn't been before," Gates said. "And there's somewhat greater operational risk -- the high-visibility role makes the agency a more attractive target to certain extremist groups. But there is ample precedent for CIA being involved in negotiations of this kind, and that should not trouble people."

But some inside the agency and numerous intelligence analysts outside the government are troubled, questioning the administration's wisdom in involving the CIA in such a way that it could force the agency to take sides in the highly charged process of fighting terrorism.

"There are too many cooks in the American foreign policy kitchen already," said Raymond H. Close, a senior CIA specialist in Middle East affairs for three decades who now works as a foreign business consultant. "The CIA should stick to what it does very well -- collection and analysis of information -- and let this job be handled by experienced diplomats."