Informed Sources

EMBARRASSING THE CIA

Former Drug Enforcement Administration chief Robert Bonner suggested two weeks ago on CBS's 60 Minutes that CIA agents might be criminally liable for failing to stop a Venezuelan official from running drugs to the U.S. CIA officials then tried to persuade the DEA to disavow Bonners remarks, but current DEA officials agree with him. The CIA pleaded that Congress might cut funding for the CIA's covert counternarcotics program, but this argument fell on deaf ears; where covert narcotics operations are concerned, the DEA calls the CIA "amateurs."

YOU OWE ME ONE, BILL

Last August, President Clinton assured freshman Representative Marjorie Margolies-Mezvinsky, a Pennsylvania Democrat, that if she voted for his budget bill he would visit her district for a conference on entitlement spending; Margolies-Mezvinsky then cast one of the deciding vote in favor of the bill. The conference will take place on Dec. 13, and the Congresswoman's office says Clinton will give a speech and moderate an in-depth discussion. A White House official, however, says Clinton will "deliver remarks" and "participate"-- but no more.

A SECOND HOT LINE

Throughout the cold war, the hot line-- really a direct telex-- between the U.S. President and the Soviet Premier was used several times in critical moments. Defense Secretary Les Aspin will soon announce the establishment of a defense hot line between himself and the Russian defense chief, General Pavel Grachev.