WASHINGTON INSIGHT

ON THE LINE: Did the CIA try to exert influence on the government’s case against Gen. Manuel A. Noriega? The possibility emerged last month when Dexter Lehtinen, the former U.S. attorney in Miami, told a Senate committee that he had been contacted by CIA officials outside normal channels about an unspecified investigation by his office. . . . Lehtinen provided no details, although he said he refused to respond. But investigators said the CIA contact came in connection with the government’s tapes of phone calls Noriega made from jail before his trial. One source said the CIA might have been trying to find out what Noriega was saying during the calls. This might let Noriega claim in an appeal that the contact amounted to undue influence on the case. Said a source: “The CIA was clearly out of bounds.”