All of the officials interviewed by the Times said they knew of no evidence to support the assertion, and none has been produced. They said there was also no evidence that the Chinese had in any way aided the Serbian war effort, though one NATO diplomat said it was impossible to rule out the possibility that the Chinese shared information with the Serbs.

Officials rejected the idea that the Chinese Embassy was being used for rebroadcasting and said they did not suspect during the war that it was doing that. General Kelche said photographs taken after the strike showed ordinary antenna on its roof, not microwave dishes that would have been used in military communications.

The officials said that after the bombing they did learn a great deal about the embassy's intelligence operations, including the background of the three Chinese journalists who were killed and who American officials say were in fact intelligence agents.

''It is -- or was -- considered the major collection platform for Europe,'' a senior defense official said. ''One could say it was a silver lining to the bombing, but it was not deliberate.''

The European newspapers also said there had been a list of targets ruled off limits for air strikes that included the Chinese Embassy, at its actual address, not the mistaken one and that the embassy at some point was removed from the list.

According to the officials interviewed by The Times, American commanders in Europe did maintain such a list of buildings, like hospitals, churches and embassies. The Chinese Embassy was on that list, officials said, but at its old address and was not removed. They said the embassy was also listed at the wrong address on a similiar list in Britain.

Roy W. Krieger, a lawyer who represents one of the supervisors who was reprimanded by Mr. Tenet, said neither his client nor any of the others intended to bomb the embassy. ''No sinister conspiracy exists, only a systemic failure masquerading as a conspiracy,'' he said.