WASHINGTON — Samuel "Sandy" Berger, a former White House national-security adviser, plans to plead guilty to a misdemeanor and will acknowledge intentionally removing and destroying copies of a classified document about the Clinton administration's record on terrorism.

Berger's plea agreement, which was described yesterday by his advisers and was confirmed by Justice Department officials, will have one of former President Bill Clinton's most influential advisers and one of the Democratic Party's leading foreign-policy advisers in a federal court this afternoon.

The deal's terms make clear that Berger lied last summer when he said that in 2003 he twice inadvertently walked off with copies of a classified document during visits to the National Archives, then later lost them.

He described the episode last summer as "an honest mistake." Yesterday, a Berger associate who declined to be identified by name but was speaking with Berger's permission said: "He recognizes what he did was wrong. ... It was not inadvertent."

Under terms, Berger has agreed to pay a $10,000 fine and accept a three-year suspension of his national-security clearance. A judge must accept these terms before they are final, but Berger's associates said he believes that closure is near on what has been an embarrassing episode during which he repeatedly misled people about what happened during two visits to the National Archives in September and October 2003.

Lanny Breuer, Berger's attorney, said in a statement: "Mr. Berger ... accepts complete responsibility for his actions, and regrets the mistakes he made during his review of documents at the National Archives."

The terms of Berger's agreement required him to acknowledge to the Justice Department the circumstances of the episode. Rather than misplacing or unintentionally throwing away three of the five copies he took from the archives, as the former national-security adviser earlier maintained, he shredded them.

The document, written by former National Security Council terrorism expert Richard Clarke, was prepared in early 2000 detailing the administration's actions to thwart terrorist attacks during the millennium celebration. It contained considerable discussion about the administration's awareness of the rising threat of attacks on U.S. soil.

Archives officials have said previously that Berger had copies only, and that no original documents were lost. It remains unclear whether Berger knew that, or why he destroyed only three of the five versions of a document. Officials have said the five versions contained slight variations as Clarke's report moved around agencies of the executive branch.

Berger was reviewing materials as a representative of the Clinton administration to the national commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The question of what Clinton knew and did about the emerging al-Qaida threat before leaving office in January 2001 was acutely sensitive, as suggested by Berger's poring over the Clarke report before his testimony.