
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, April 12, 1991                   TAG: 9104120679
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B4   EDITION: STATE 
SOURCE: Landmark News Service
DATELINE: RICHMOND                                LENGTH: Medium

ANTI-ROBB BOOK DUE OUT IN JUNE

A Virginia Beach private investigator who alleges that U.S. Sen. Charles Robb, D-Va., regularly used cocaine during the mid-1980s has found a publisher for a book detailing his evidence.

The publisher? Himself.

Billy A. Franklin announced Thursday that he has formed his own publishing company and is printing 12,000 copies of a book guaranteed to "shock you with its revelation of public lies and personal deceit."

Robb's press secretary said the announcement was aimed at generating "another round of free publicity. . . . Apparently he has had no luck engaging the services of a reputable, real-life publisher."

Asked whether Robb was contemplating legal action against Franklin, spokesman Steve Johnson replied: "We'll talk about that when the time comes."

The volume, which Franklin claims will provide "proof positive" that Robb used cocaine while governor from 1982 to 1986, will be called "Tough Enough" and is scheduled for release in early June, the investigator said.

Franklin, 56, who began investigating Robb in 1988 when Franklin was hired secretly by a Republican activist, acknowledged that he approached three publishers before deciding to publish the book himself.

Hampton Roads Publishing, a local company, "was afraid of it," but will handle distribution, he said. A New York company did not consider Robb's name big enough for national sales, and a Washington, D.C., company wanted to delay publication at least until fall, Franklin said.

"I wanted this book out, and I wanted it out the way I wanted it," he said.

Franklin said "Tough Enough" will quote five people who say they saw Robb use cocaine. All are on tape and several have taken polygraph tests, he said.

Robb has acknowledged socializing as governor with young professionals and business people in Virginia Beach who later were caught up in a federal drug investigation. Numerous sources have confirmed that cocaine was present at parties Robb attended, but the senator has denied ever seeing the drug, much less using it.

Franklin refused to name his witnesses, saying that many of them will be quoted in an upcoming NBC News report on Robb.

by CNB