Washington ? After resisting for months, White House officials worked Monday to negotiate a compromise that would allow public release of National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice’s testimony before the independent commission looking into the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, according to administration aides.

These aides said the White House thought Rice’s refusal to testify was becoming a political problem and officials were looking for a way out. The leading possibility is for Rice to submit to another private session with the commissioners and allow them to release a transcript, the aides said.

The aides said they thought no consideration was being given to yielding to the commission’s request she testify under oath and in public. The aides said President Bush thought it would set a bad precedent that could inhibit the advice senior staffers provide future chief executives.

The White House did not allow a recording to be made of what Rice said when she met privately with the commissioners for four hours in February, the aides said. However, the commissioners and their staff members have notes that were described as being nearly verbatim.

The aides would discuss the matter only if they were not named, because the White House is not publicly acknowledging that a compromise is being considered.

Republican officials said Rice’s recalcitrance has helped prolong news coverage of the allegations by Bush’s former national security official Richard Clarke that the White House was inattentive to terrorism before the 9-11 attacks.

Lawyers from the office of White House counsel Alberto Gonzales are discussing possibilities for resolving the issue, the aides said.

“The goal here is to have the American people able to see reflected, or hear, what Dr. Rice has to say about these questions,” a senior administration official said. “There are a lot of different ways to arrive at that shared goal. The details of that are a matter of discussion.”

Rice has said she does not object to the release of her remarks to the commission; so the outcome is a matter of what Gonzales thinks can be conceded without undermining the separation of powers between the executive and legislative branches, the aides said.

An agreement about Rice’s testimony would not end the disputes between the White House and the commission, which has accused Bush’s aides of cooperating grudgingly when they cooperate at all.