WASHINGTON -- In asking the Bush administration to disclose internal memos from Supreme Court nominee John Roberts' 1989-93 tenure as principal deputy solicitor general in the George H. W. Bush administration, Democratic senators on the Judiciary Committee have portrayed the documents as vital to understanding Roberts' constitutional views.

Sen. Edward Kennedy, D.-Mass., has said that memos from 16 cases Roberts was involved with in the solicitor general's office would establish "whether he still holds the views he expressed in the 1980s" in documents released from the appeals court judge's time as a young lawyer in the Reagan administration.

But some lawyers familiar with the workings of the solicitor general -- including the man who occupied Roberts' old job in the Clinton administration -- think the importance of the documents has been exaggerated.

Even some attorneys who think the papers would be enlightening don't think their value to the Senate would override the importance of safeguarding the confidentiality of the internal deliberations of the solicitor general's office.

"I'm inclined to think my fellow Democrats are making a mistake wasting a lot of energy -- indeed, wasting any energy at all -- on these memos," said H. Jefferson Powell, a professor of law at Duke University and principal deputy solicitor general in 1996.

"Despite all of the references to 'senior policy maker,' the principal deputy solicitor general isn't really that," Powell added. "If he is doing his job right, he is trying to make good strategic and tactical decisions that advance the overall perspective and program of the administration he is serving -- a perspective and program which are basically determined at a level above his pay grade.

"It is rather unlikely that memos signed by the deputy solicitor general will be crassly or even overtly political. What is said will be said, almost certainly, in terms of supposed 'professional' judgments about what would persuade the Supreme Court."

"That Roberts is a conservative Republican willing and no doubt enthusiastic to be part of Bush I, we already knew," Powell continued. "We will not learn much else from any memo from his time at the solicitor general's office unless [improbably] a personal note from him to the attorney general was revealed."

Paul Rosenzweig, senior legal research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, agreed that release of the memos would be anti-climactic.

"Often the deputy solicitor general is simply passing on and concurring with something someone else has written," Rosenzweig said. "Hypothetically, there could be a case sometime where Roberts would say that some position conflicted with the administration's political agenda, but I doubt Roberts would ever be so blunt or bold as to say this."

Richard W. Garnett, a law professor at Notre Dame University and, like Roberts, a former law clerk for Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, agreed that the memos would reveal "lawyerly debates about how we make the best arguments. It's a jump to say that this tells us something about John Roberts' soul."

On the other hand, some lawyers familiar with the solicitor general's office think the Roberts memos could be enlightening.

"There's likely to be more informality in the memos, which will be more revealing of Roberts' cast of mind," said Mark Tushnet, a Georgetown University law professor. "There may also be advocacy of positions that were rejected."

Harry Litman, who served in the Department of Justice's Office of Policy Development before being appointed by President Clinton as U.S. attorney for Western Pennsylvania, said, "It's easy to see why the senators would like to have the memos from Judge Roberts' time as deputy solicitor general.

"Aside from what they might reveal about his substantive views, the memos could shed light on his views about the role of the court he will be joining," Litman said. "More than any other administration official, the solicitor general has to take account of the Supreme Court's institutional interests and its regard for legal stability, and those considerations can sometimes butt up against an administration's political agenda.

"Knowing how Judge Roberts suggested drawing the balance would probably tell you something about the sort of justice he might be, and in particular how hesitant he would be about voting to overrule past Supreme Court decisions."

That said, Litman said he believes the memos probably shouldn't be disclosed.

"You don't want your senior advisers thinking that their memos to you in the most politically sensitive cases could wind up becoming political footballs, or you'll never get the best advice they can give in the first place," Litman said.

Powell agreed.

"I am very reluctant to see internal stuff revealed except where there is some clear public reason for doing so," Powell said. "No one seriously thinks that Roberts is a raving lunatic, and as a pragmatic matter he is simply not going to be defeated. So neither on public nor partisan grounds do I think that my presumption of confidentiality is overcome."

Tushnet, however, is not convinced by the argument that Roberts' memos to the solicitor general were covered by attorney-client privilege.

"He was working for the people of the United States," Tushnet said.

Lawyers sympathetic to Roberts suggest that the Democratic senators know that the documents from Roberts' days in the solicitor general's office wouldn't add much to what is known about his views. They are seeking the documents, the argument goes, to create a political distraction.

And while some who have raised questions about the Roberts nomination have called the memos crucial evidence of the nominee's judicial philosophy, the administration's refusal to turn them over has not prevented some groups from taking a position against his confirmation.

Last week People for the American Way joined other liberal groups in urging the Bush administration to release the memos, which a spokesman said would provide an "unvarnished view" of Roberts' thinking. Then on Wednesday, the organization announced its opposition to Roberts, saying that "in the absence of these internal memos, senators must assume that the views expressed in the solicitor general's briefs signed by Roberts are his own."