Berger case roils both camps

John F. Kerry's presidential campaign yesterday accused the White House of leaking word to reporters Monday about a criminal inquiry into Samuel R. Berger's handling of classified documents, as the Democratic camp tried to deflect growing Republican attacks linking Kerry to controversies vexing Berger and other political allies.

Kerry also disclosed yesterday that he had not known until this week that Berger was the subject of a criminal probe over his removal of classified materials dealing with counterterrorism from the National Archives.

"I didn't have a clue, not a clue," Kerry told NBC's Tom Brokaw in an interview last night. Asked whether Berger had told Kerry about the criminal inquiry, the senator repeated, "I didn't have a clue."

President Bush, meanwhile, used the White House bully pulpit yesterday to elevate the Berger controversy to "a very serious matter," prompting Democratic outcry that the president was hyping an ongoing criminal inquiry into Berger's actions to deflect attention from an independent commission's report on the 9/11 terrorist attacks, which is expected to be released today.

Berger, a national security adviser under President Clinton, resigned as an informal adviser to Kerry on Tuesday after reports that, in October 2003, Berger had violated National Archives rules by removing from a secure room there classified documents and notes relating to counterterrorism, terrorist plots to disrupt the 2000 millenium millennium celebrations, and Al Qaeda from a secure room there.

"It's a very serious matter that will be investigated by the Justice Department," President Bush said. He declined to say whether he was told about the an unfolding criminal inquiry targeting Berger or respond to suggestions from Democrats that the disclosure of the probe was politically motivated.

The New York Times reported today that senior officials in the White House counsel's office were told about the inquiry months ago by Justice Department officials.Berger said yesterday his actions were "an honest mistake," and he repeated earlier statements that he returned all the classified materials he could locate. Some copies of a report about year 2000 attempts by terrorists to attack targets in the United States and other countries may have been thrown away, Berger has said.

"Last year, when I was in the archives reviewing documents, I made an honest mistake. It's one that I deeply regret," Berger said. "I dealt with this issue in October 2003 fully and completely. Everything that I have done all along in this process has been for the purpose of aiding and supporting the work of the 9/11 commission, and any suggestion to the contrary is simply, absolutely wrong."

A day after the presumptive Democratic presidential candidate announced that Berger was stepping aside to deal with the criminal inquiry, the Kerry campaign e-mailed a memo to White House reporters saying that the disclosure of the Berger investigation "wasn't the first time the Bush White House has used the 'leak' as a political tactic."

Kerry advisers offered no evidence that the White House leaked word to embarrass Berger, and by extension Kerry, except to note that three Republican senators seized on the Berger imbroglio to criticize Kerry on Tuesday -- shortly after the three reportedly attended a lunch of Senate Republicans with Vice President Dick Cheney and Ed Gillespie, Republican National Committee chairman.

"Were they in fact at the lunch? What happened at that lunch? What was it that Cheney and Gillespie said?" the unsigned memo from the Kerry campaign said.

Leading Democrats argued yesterday that the White House and Bush's reelection campaign has become increasingly aggressive about tearing down allies of Kerry, not only to tarnish Kerry as he prepares for the Democratic National Convention in Boston but to minimize any publicity bounce that Kerry enjoys after the convention ends.

"The Republicans are trying to tar me as a surrogate to John Kerry, just like they're trying to tar Sandy Berger, because they can't beat Kerry on the issues," said former ambassador Joseph Wilson, who is involved in a dispute with the Senate Intelligence Committee about his investigation of Iraq's prewar nuclear weapons program. "Right now, I'm a member of Kerry's foreign policy advisory group, but I'm spending most of my time fighting against the Bush camp."

"The Republicans are throwing up anything on the wall and seeing if it sticks," added Graham Allison, another Kerry foreign policy adviser, and a professor at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government.

Another chief target is a close Kerry friend and campaign surrogate, former senator Max Cleland, who drew Republican attacks Monday. Cleland said President Bush had "flat out lied" about why he the United States went to war in Iraq and argued that Bush chose to topple Hussein "because he concluded his daddy was a failed president" for not ousting Hussein in the first Gulf War.

The Bush campaign shifted into full attack mode against Whoopi Goldberg, Chevy Chase, and other performers after a Kerry fund-raiser this month at which Bush was attacked as a "thug" and Goldberg made a sexual pun about the president.Republicans have been pressing cable talk-show hosts, newspaper columnists, and other members of the media to hold Kerry accountable for the words and actions of surrogates.

For his part, Kerry has consistently refused to rebuke his allies in public, saying only that he may not share their exact views.

Patrick Healy can be reached at phealy@globe.com.