By Philip Shenon
WASHINGTON -- The Clinton administration has notified members of the Senate that Richard Holbrooke is close to a deal with the Justice Department to settle conflict-of-interest allegations, and that his nomination as chief American delegate to the United Nations is likely to be sent to the Senate within days for confirmation, government officials said Wednesday.
Under terms of the agreement, they said, Holbrooke will pay a penalty of a few thousand dollars to settle Justice Department allegations that he violated federal lobbying laws in his contacts with the American Embassy in South Korea in 1996.
Officials said negotiations between the department and Holbrooke, the architect of the 1995 peace settlement in Bosnia, were down to their final hours, with both sides close to the final wording of a settlement. "It's very close," said a Justice Department official.
A friend of Holbrooke's, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said that the veteran diplomat continued to believe "he's done absolutely nothing wrong." But the friend said he had agreed to a settlement to put the seven-month inquiry behind him and to allow the White House to move forward with his nomination.
Prosecutors had asserted that Holbrooke's contacts with the ambassador in Korea, weeks after he resigned from the State Department to join an investment banking firm, amounted to a civil violation of laws that bar officials leaving the government from a variety of lobbying contacts with their former colleagues. Congressional officials said administration officials had informally notified Democratic members of the Senate that a deal with the Justice Department was close. "We were told to be ready, and that none of the allegations were serious enough to pose any threat to the nomination," said a congressional official, speaking on the condition of anonymity. Another congressional official said that Sen. Jesse Helms, R-N.C., who is chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, would doubtless call for a review of the information turned up by prosecutors, but expressed the hope that "we will probably be able to deal with this fairly quickly and get him confirmed."
A spokesman for Helms said the senator had no immediate comment on Holbrooke's chances for confirmation. The Justice Department and a lawyer for Holbrooke had no comment on their recent negotiations.
Former senior diplomats have rallied to Holbrooke's defense.
James Laney, a former ambassador to South Korea, has insisted that Holbrooke did nothing wrong in asking for his help in 1996 to set up an interview with South Korean leaders. The request, he said, was simply good manners, since Holbrooke was well known and could easily have set up the meeting himself.
