Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, March 19, 1993 TAG: 9303190107
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B1 EDITION: STATE
SOURCE: ROB EURE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Long
ROBB GUILTY, WILDER SAYS
U.S. Sen. Charles Robb may have escaped unscathed from a 19-month federal investigation, but Gov. Douglas Wilder says Robb is an unindicted co-conspirator in the leaking to reporters of an illegally tapped Wilder telephone call.In a dramatic news conference Thursday, Wilder compared Robb and the taping incident to the scandal that disgraced former President Richard Nixon. He placed Robb at the center of a conspiracy to use the contents of the tape to undermine him and his office.
Wilder called Robb a liar and said he has not decided whether to try to unseat his fellow Democrat next year. He left little doubt that he would relish the race, however, and predicted he could defeat Robb and the Republican front-runner, Iran-Contra figure Oliver North.
"I don't think [Robb is] fit for the job," Wilder said. Asked whether Robb or North would make the better senator, Wilder answered with a question: "Which is the best form of execution? Whichever form takes place, the result is the same."
North was convicted in the arms-for-hostages deal, but the convictions were overturned on a technicality, Wilder said. Robb escaped indictment by using "special treatment," he said, adding that "I don't think there's a great deal of difference."
Robb, through a spokeswoman, declined to respond Thursday. His press secretary said "the 21 citizens who served on the grand jury . . . came to a different conclusion" about the senator's involvement in the tape affair than Wilder did.
"Ever since Senator Robb met with Governor Wilder to discuss this matter 21 months ago," added Robb press secretary Peggy Wilhide, "the senator has declined to say or do anything that would contribute to the perception or the reality of a feud."
Wilder sought a national stage to present an outline of what almost certainly would be his case against Robb if he runs next year. He said he was speaking now because Wednesday's guilty plea by Bruce Thompson, a former social companion of Robb's at Virginia Beach, ended the federal case.
Wilder asserted that Robb got special treatment from federal authorities, citing their decision to let him testify a second time before the grand jury and to have a senior Justice Department official instruct the grand jury that they need not indict Robb "if you don't want to."
Wilder suggested the outcome of the case against Robb either was racially motivated - he said he and other blacks would not have received the same treatment - or came from the Bush administration as repayment for Robb's vote to confirm Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.
Wilder missed few opportunities Thursday to score Robb on issues both public and private, mentioning specifics that rekindle controversies over the taping incident and Robb's off-duty social life during the past 12 years.
Wilder spoke of former Roanoke beauty queen Tai Collins, who alleges she and Robb had an affair in the early 1980s. The governor also mentioned Billy Franklin, the Norfolk private investigator whose probe of Robb on behalf of Virginia Republicans resulted in a book that charged that Robb associated with cocaine dealers, used the drug himself and consorted with prostitutes during his oceanfront visits while governor.
While reminding reporters of those stories - all of which Robb has denied - Wilder maintained that the conspiracy Robb and his former staffers hatched against him worked. They used the tape of Wilder's 1988 telephone call with a supporter to deflect attention from controversies surrounding Robb and to discredit Wilder, the governor said.
Wilder said Thompson, who delivered the tape to Robb's staff, and three former Robb aides convicted of minor violations in the taping case, "were not rogue operators; they were all the senator's men."
David McCloud, Robb's former chief of staff; Robert L. Watson, his former state director; and Steven Johnson, his former press secretary, along with Wilder's current state staff director Christine Bridge, "drafted and carried out elaborate schemes to quash investigations of the senator, threaten opponents into making comments and sabotage the reputations of others merely to provide a diversion from their own political problems," Wilder said.
The governor dismissed as "stupid" Thompson's suggestion Wednesday that Wilder owes Robb an apology for fueling their rivalry. He invited federal officials to reopen the case to investigate Thompson's assertion that Wilder aides knew of the existence of the tape just weeks after the Robb camp acquired it in February, 1989.
Wilder said the first he heard of the tape was in May 1991, from a Washington Post reporter.
But Wilder directed most of his fire at Robb. He called the case "an enormous breach of public trust. Americans have had to put up with too many scandals, with too many actors and too much blame to place. But in this case, all the blame rests squarely on the shoulders of one man, who employed his top aides in shenanigans that had nothing at all to do with serving the people and everything to do with protecting his career."
Wilder said a peacemaking meeting with Robb in Washington in June 1991, shortly after the tape became public, was "one of the biggest mistakes of my life."
He said Robb told him he knew nothing of how the tape came to his office or any efforts to leak it to hurt Wilder. Robb's claims have been contradicted by a Bridge-written memo discussing options for using the tape and by McCloud's statement to the grand jury that Robb was kept informed of staff plans for the tape and had ordered preparation of a transcript.
Wilder said Thursday that his June 1991 meeting with Robb was when he first "became very suspicious that the senator was involved in what was taking place."
Wilder said he has "been as vilified as anybody in Virginia history," largely at the hands of media manipulated by Robb's campaign against him.
Where once Wilder said he and Robb had no personal differences, Wilder now said "obviously there is no friendship between the senator and myself. I'm not a hypocrite."
Memo: shorter version ran in the Metro edition.