Much to her shock and surprise, Heather Foley has found herself caught up in the increasingly nasty debate over who deserves the blame for the political scandals surrounding the slipshod financial operations of the House bank and post office.

As the wife of Speaker Thomas S. Foley (D-Wash.) and his unpaid chief of staff for more than two decades, Heather Foley is familiar with the congressional corridors of power. But this is her first experience in the center of a raging controversy and she hates it.

“I don’t expect to be patted on the back for working for nothing but I don’t expect to get beaten up, either,” one associate quoted her as saying. She refuses all interviews.

In a sense, the ordeal that Heather Foley is experiencing after 23 years of service symbolizes the increasing acrimony infecting Congress, which largely has abandoned what once were standards of comity that tended to prevent political disputes from becoming personal attacks.

Her critics describe Heather Foley, 51, as a brusque baroness of Capitol Hill, stifling embarrassing investigations and making unilateral decisions on House decor and policy issues without being held accountable to anyone.

Her friends describe her as an intelligent and dedicated woman who has played a key behind-the-scenes role in her husband’s steady advance up the leadership ladder to the top position of Speaker, which he assumed in June, 1989.

In any case, Heather Foley is certain to remain in the spotlight until a federal grand jury and a bipartisan task force created by the House Administration Committee complete separate investigations of the House bank and post office scandals.

Indeed, she has confided to close associates that she is “tortured” and “bewildered” by the array of accusations against her, which include personal criticism about her aversion to formal socializing and her preference for casual attire and grooming.

The daughter of a diplomatic family who grew up overseas in Pakistan and Greece, Heather Foley was graduated from Pembroke College in Providence, R.I., taught school in Cairo and was married to Foley in Sri Lanka. She received a law degree before going to work on Capitol Hill. The Foleys, childless, have devoted most of their adult lives to the House of Representatives.

While Foley won near-universal approval when he succeeded Jim Wright as Speaker after months of turmoil over ethics charges against the Texas Democrat, there has been muted grumbling about his wife’s unusual role as his top staff aide. How could her judgment be challenged, the critics wondered, without offending the Speaker?

The muttering reached a crescendo in recent weeks as the bank and post office scandals provided an outlet for pent-up partisan anger over Democratic rule of the House for the last 38 years.

Without providing detailed supporting evidence, Republican lawmakers have charged that the Speaker’s wife may have intervened to delay a police inquiry into theft and drug sales at the House post office last summer. The Speaker has called the accusation “outrageous.” Even so, Heather Foley was called as a witness before the federal grand jury that is looking into allegations of a cover-up of post office crimes.

House Minority Leader Robert H. Michel (R-Ill.) has said that Heather Foley, as early as 1989, presented him with a list of names of lawmakers from both parties who had been running up frequent overdrafts at the House bank. Through her, Michel urged the Speaker to cut off credit to those who wrote checks without enough funds to cover them.

The advice was not taken, however, and the private bank continued the lenient policies that culminated in a national furor. Last week, the House Ethics Committee publicly identified more than 300 lawmakers who wrote one or more overdrafts on their checking accounts in a 39-month period. The bank routinely permitted House members to write checks that would not be covered until their next paycheck was deposited.

The Speaker has acknowledged that he did not crack down soon enough–or hard enough–on the bank or then-Sergeant-at-Arms Jack Russ for failing to carry out reforms. But he has deplored efforts to make his wife a scapegoat. “She’s capable. She’s hard working. She’s honest. . . . She has done nothing wrong,” he has said.

Long before the scandals broke, however, Heather Foley drew fire for controversial decisions involving renovation projects that she initiated with the cooperation of architect George M. White.

“Whatever Heather wants, Heather gets,” has become a catch-phrase for critics of the Capitol face-lifts.

The recent installation of marble floors in three House elevators at an estimated cost of $6,000 apiece is an example of her influence.

Heather Foley also was the driving force behind redecoration of the House restaurant, relocation of the House documents room to a more distant site and installation of an enlarged bathroom and shower next to the Speaker’s office. At her urging, the U.S. Capitol Preservation Commission, a privately funded group, acquired a $72,000 Oriental rug for a ceremonial meeting room just off the House floor.

“There’s no disclosure, no bids, no accountability and it seems to happen overnight,” complained a Republican member of the House Administration Committee.

In her defense, friends said that Heather Foley and her husband regard the Capitol as a historical monument and defend the changes as appropriate to keep up the appearance of the building, which receives more than a million visitors a year.

The move of the House documents room, which provides copies of bills and committee reports for the press and public, was defended on grounds that the Senate had moved its documents room out of the Capitol to a nearby office building without any outcry.

In addition, her friends have said that she took the lead in increasing congressional staff contributions to a charitable fund drive, introduced a system of drug and alcohol counseling for staff members and championed the rights of women working in the Capitol.

Heather Foley’s career started almost three decades ago when she arrived on Capitol Hill to work for the late Sen. Henry M. (Scoop) Jackson of Washington. The Foleys were married in 1968. After receiving her law degree from George Washington University the next year, Heather Foley began working for her husband as his office manager. She later was promoted to chief of staff.

Always something of a nonconformist, Heather Foley drew criticism for preferring peasant skirts and sandals to conventional attire. Since recently losing 50 pounds, however, she has begun wearing more fashionable clothes. Even so, she still wears little makeup and finds high heels too uncomfortable to tolerate. Her straight brown hair usually is brushed back.

“In some ways, she never got out of the ‘60s,” said one woman colleague, who reported nothing but positive dealings with her.

Many of Heather Foley’s admirers think she is merely a lightning rod for attacks on the Speaker’s leadership during a time of intense partisanship and second-guessing.

“It’s political, first, and it’s sexist, second,” declared Marylouise Oates, a novelist and former journalist who is a longtime friend of the Foleys. “This is Republican fire-bombing.”

Other Capitol Hill observers said that her strong-willed determination to get things done and impatience with small talk has offended some Democrats as well as Republicans. Washingtonian magazine, for example, recently included Heather Foley in a list of “women men are afraid of.” She was listed by Roll Call newspaper as one of the “Fabulous Fifty” staff aides who have the greatest influence in Congress.

Despite the growing controversy about her role, Heather Foley has refused to respond to her accusers, to grant interviews or to pose for photographs, contending that as a staff assistant who is not on the public payroll she has no obligation to do so.

And whatever her virtues or flaws, she appears likely to retain her stature as one of Capitol Hill’s most powerful aides as long as the man that she calls “Thomas” occupies the Speaker’s chair.

“This is really a very sweet love story,” said a close woman friend. “Tom and Heather Foley love each other very much. You can see that and feel that when you spend any amount of time with them.”