By Walter Pincus
                  Washington Post Staff Writer

                  A House-passed measure that would prohibit Washington from
                  restructuring Russia's debts unless Moscow closes its multibillon-dollar
                  intelligence eavesdropping facility in Cuba endangers similar electronic
                  collection operations that the United States and its allies carry on from
                  bases around the world, according to Clinton administration officials.

                  Electronic interceptions of telephone calls, cables, faxes and more recently
                  computer data have been a major secret intelligence activity of Washington
                  and Moscow spy services since the early days of the Cold War. Although
                  many of these operations can now be conducted from satellites, the United
                  States, Russia and other NATO countries continue to run ground facilities
                  to collect the growing amount of electronic data being sent around the
                  world.

                  Against that background, a group of anti-Castro House members on
                  Wednesday pushed through a measure barring the Clinton administration
                  from restructuring or rescheduling Russian loan payments until the president
                  certifies that the giant Moscow-run electronic eavesdropping facility at
                  Lourdes, Cuba, has been shut down. The bill would affect $485 million
                  owed to the United States.

                  The measure does provide that the president can waive its provisions if he
                  certifies that the loans are in the national security interest of the country and
                  that Moscow is adhering to nonproliferation and arms control agreements.

                  The bill, which passed the House by a vote of 275 to 146, must pass the
                  Senate and be signed by the president before it becomes law. Nonetheless
                  the measure and the debate surrounding it brings into public view electronic
                  intelligence gathering that gets little publicity within the United States.

                  Rep. Porter J. Goss (R-Fla.), chairman of the House Intelligence
                  Committee, said the Russians pay more than $200 million a year in rent to
                  Cuba for the facility, which he said employs 1,500 Russian technicians and
                  is that nation's largest gatherer of intelligence about the United States. It
                  gathers not only military communications but also "personal information
                  about American citizens and proprietary information about U.S.
                  corporations," Goss said.

                  But the Clinton administration noted that for both the United States and
                  Russia, an important function of such signal intelligence operations is "to
                  collect information to verify arms control agreements." In its official
                  statement on the bill, the administration said the legislation "may rebound
                  adversely to the United States by inviting Russia and other countries to
                  pursue similar charges against U.S. facilities they characterize as
                  threatening."

                  Ironically, a U.S. electronic collection program in Europe run for years by
                  the Pentagon's National Security Agency under the name Echelon has
                  drawn protests from committees of the European Parliament that are
                  similar to those the legislators made against the Russian operation.