DATE: Thursday, March 27, 1997              TAG: 9703270463

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B9   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS 

DATELINE: RICHMOND                          LENGTH:   42 lines

GILMORE TRAVELED TO PHILIP-MORRIS HEADQUARTERS FOR FUND-RAISER

Virginia Attorney General James S. Gilmore III flew to Philip Morris Cos. Inc. headquarters in New York City last week, where he raised $50,000 for his campaign for governor.

The March 19 trip by Gilmore, the likely GOP nominee, came on the eve of a rival tobacco company's admission that cigarettes cause cancer.

Gilmore traveled on a Philip Morris plane and was accompanied by several Philip Morris officials from Richmond, Gilmore aides and a Philip Morris spokesman told the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

Philip Morris operates a cigarette manufacturing plant in the Richmond area. Last fall, Gilmore joined Virginia to a tobacco industry lawsuit that challenges new Food and Drug Administration regulations on tobacco. But Gilmore also pushed for a new state law to have alcoholic beverage control agents enforce a ban of cigarette sales to children.

``I am surprised that the attorney general would accept money from Philip Morris while the FDA regulations are being challenged in court,'' said Carter Steger of the American Cancer Society's mid-Atlantic Division.

Susan Platt, manager of Democratic Lt. Gov. Donald S. Beyer Jr.'s campaign for governor, said Gilmore's trip amounted to a failure to avoid an appearance of impropriety.

``Mr. Gilmore has promised the people of Virginia that he can remain attorney general and his political ambition would not undermine the office, and that is now in serious question,'' she said.

But M. Boyd Marcus Jr., a Gilmore consultant, defended the Philip Morris trip and dismissed Platt's criticism. He said Gilmore's fund-raising activity had no impact on setting policy.

``They're a major employer and business in Virginia, and they're interested in this election,'' Marcus said. ``They've given contributions to both Don Beyer and Jim Gilmore.''

Beyer, who has criticized the state's involvement in the tobacco industry's FDA case, received $10,000 in campaign donations from Philip Morris in 1996; Gilmore received $12,000.

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