THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, October 25, 1994 TAG: 9410250327
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A11 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DAVID M. POOLE, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: ROANOKE LENGTH: Long : 114 lines
Oliver L. North on Monday laid partial blame on U.S. Sen. Charles S. Robb for what North described as a Clinton administration plot to cut Social Security benefits and raise taxes.
His evidence was a memo written by federal budget director Alice Rivlin detailing a wide range of potential policy options to contain the national budget deficit, including tax increases and Social Security and Medicare cuts.
The White House immediately distanced itself from the memo, saying it contained options that President Clinton ``never in a million years'' would propose.
Vice President Al Gore called the memo a ``draft summary of proposals that others have floated'' and argued that ``none of them represented a proposal from the administration.''
But North pounced on the memo as if it were established administration policy. He linked Robb to the memo by claiming the incumbent supports the president most of the time.
``He's going to help Bill Clinton carry out this radical scheme,'' North said. ``They want to go after our senior citizens. That ought to be, for all of us, a moral outrage.''
In Richmond, Robb held a news conference to stoke press reports from the weekend documenting that North, as a White House aide in the mid-1980s, was made aware of drug-smuggling backgrounds of some people hired to help arm the anti-communist Contra rebels in Nicaragua.
Robb particularly questioned North's attempts to gain leniency for Jose Bueso Rosa, a Honduran general and key Contra supporter denounced by the U.S. State Department as an ``international terrorist.'' Bueso Rosa pleaded guilty in 1986 to participating in a plot to smuggle millions of dollars of cocaine into the U.S. to finance the assassination of the Honduran president.
In September 1986, North wrote a memo to his boss at the National Security Agency suggesting that if the Reagan administration did not win leniency for the general, Bueso Rosa might ``break his longstanding silence'' on the Contras.
Robb said North was willing to condone cocaine kingpins if it would help him keep secret his efforts that violated a congressional-ban on arming the Contras.
The North campaign countered those charges by calling a news conference in Northern Virginia with two Reagan administration officials: former Attorney General Edwin Meese and former Assistant Secretary of State Elliott Abrams.
Abrams said that whenever he and others involved in the Contra operation, including North, received even a rumor of drug involvement by the rebels, ``we acted to keep this program clean.''
Abrams said he wasn't surprised that news reports offered no evidence to support North's claim - made under oath before the Iran-Contra committee - that he passed rumors of drug involvement to the Drug Enforcement Administration.
The entire Contra supply operation was covert, Abrams said, so ``you would not use the normal'' channels in passing along suspicions to the anti-drug agency.
Earlier Monday while campaigning in the Roanoke area, North refused to specify what channels he did use. Instead, he attacked Robb for bringing up the drug question. ``This is a desperate attempt on the part of a professional politician whose campaign is foundering like the Titanic,'' he said.
Monday evening, Robb sought to energize the state's black vote with an appearance before about 200 people with former Gov. L. Douglas Wilder, Commerce Secretary Ronald Brown and U.S. Rep. Robert Scott at Norfolk State University's fifth-annual Candlelight March Against Crime and Drugs.
Wilder promised to campaign for Robb - with whom he has had a bitter political rivalry in the past - every day until the election. He canceled a speaking engagement in Las Vegas on Wednesday and said he would be planning events to help get out the vote.
Turnout could be crucial to Robb's chances. In some surveys, as few as 4 percent of African-Americans favor Republican candidate Oliver North, but if they don't vote, Robb's lopsided advantage will be meaningless.
Robb said of Wilder's participation: ``There is no single event in the last few weeks of the campaign that has been more important and more unifying for the party than his formal endorsement and his subsequent follow-through, and we're going to continue right through the election.''
The race's third candidate, independent J. Marshall Coleman, unveiled a criminal justice reform package that includes funds for ``neighborhood emergency zones'' beset by drugs and crime; modification of the exclusionary rule to allow prosecutors to use evidence acquired in good faith; and additional funding for community policing.
Coleman attacked Robb for his support of the federal crime bill, calling the bill a ``smoke screen. It does little to deal with the rapid increase in illegal criminal activity.'' < MEMO: Dwayne Yancey of Landmark News Service, Virginian-Pilot staff writer
Keith Monroe and The Associated Press contributed to this story.
ILLUSTRATION: Staff photo by PAUL AIKEN
Wilder stumps for Robb in Norfolk
Charles S. Robb and his ex-rival-turned-endorser, L. Douglas Wilder,
greet people at a rally Monday at Norfolk State University.
MONDAY
Monday's campaign schedule for the three candidates:
J. MARSHALL COLEMAN: campaigning, Arlington; radio interview,
Washington; campaigning, Fredericksburg; fund-raiser with Sen. John
W. Warner, Washington.
OLIVER L. NORTH: news conference, Vinton.
CHARLES S. ROBB: industry tour, news conference, editorial board
meeting, Richmond; editorial board meeting, Norfolk; appearance with
former Gov. L. Douglas Wilder and Commerce Secretary Ron Brown,
Norfolk State University.
KEYWORDS: CANDIDATE U.S. SENATE RACE
by CNB