THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, October 14, 1994 TAG: 9410140563
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A17 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DAVID M. POOLE, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 70 lines
U.S. Sen. Charles S. Robb said Thursday that a television ad tying him to convicted drug dealers in Virginia Beach is the ``most blatant lie'' he's ever seen.
To counter the ad, which Republican challenger Oliver L. North began airing Wednesday, Robb's media consultants worked late into the night Wednesday to produce a response.
The resulting Robb advertisement began airing around the state on Thursday and concludes with the line: ``Oliver North - People are starting to wonder if he knows what the truth is.''
Robb denies that he has ever knowingly been around anyone using drugs, and proclaimed in an interview: ``Good Lord strike me dead if I am misrepresenting that in any way, shape or form.''
Robb has admitted to conduct ``not appropriate for a married man'' during his 1982-86 tenure as governor. North's ad touts the fact that Robb got a nude massage from a beauty queen and frequented Virginia Beach parties where cocaine allegedly was used by other guests.
It asserts that four of Robb's ``party friends'' went to prison for selling drugs. One of the four cited, however - Virginia Beach businessman Alex S. Hargroves III - was not imprisoned for selling drugs; Hargroves spent 90 days behind bars for failing to tell authorities that an employee was selling drugs.
Campaigning Thursday in Roanoke and in the Shenandoah Valley, Robb asserted that the North ad is a lie because it implies he was close friends with four individuals whom, he said, he only met in passing at Virginia Beach parties.
``There are some names of people who scroll across the screen who apparently met me once at some gathering - it could have been a school gathering, for all I know,'' he said. ``But I had nothing to do with any of their activities, and it's a complete deception.''
Robb's hastily produced television ad insists that the real issue in the campaign is public service. ``North's public record includes putting himself above the law by selling arms to terrorists and backdating documents to conceal that some of the money went to his personal use,'' the narrator says.
The statement refers to the fact that North was convicted of three felonies stemming from the Iran-Contra scandal of the Reagan administration, though all three convictions were overturned on appeal.
The convictions were for drafting false chronologies about the Iran-Contra diversion; concealing and destroying documents; and accepting an illegal gratuity in the form of a $13,000 home security system from an arms dealer.
North made no public appearances Thursday, but his spokesman said the war of accusations will continue.
``We're not going to let Chuck Robb point his self-righteous finger at Ollie North when Chuck Robb is no one to be judging someone else's character,'' said Mark Merritt, North's deputy campaign director.
Independent candidate J. Marshall Coleman decried the negative campaigning during an appearance in Blacksburg, and said he must win the election to prevent North or Robb from becoming ``the most preposterous senator in the United States.''
Coleman got a boost this week when he won an endorsement from The Free Lance-Star, the usually Democrat-leaning Fredericksburg newspaper. MEMO: The Associated Press and Elizabeth Obenshain of Landmark News Service
contributed to this report.
KEYWORDS: U.S. SENATE RACE VIRGINIA CANDIDATES
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