ROANOKE TIMES 

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

DATE: SATURDAY, August 14, 1993                   TAG: 9308140180
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Short

ASPIN VACATION COST TAXPAYERS $35,941

Defense Secretary Les Aspin's five-night vacation in Venice, Italy, last May cost taxpayers $35,941 in food and lodging costs for his staff, security agents and airplane crew, the Defense Department said Friday.

Aspin had said immediately after the vacation that he paid all of his own expenses.

The Danieli hotel in which Aspin stayed with a female friend, steel executive Sharon Sarton of Lake Geneva, Wis., is a converted royal palace that is one of the most expensive lodgings in Europe. Double rooms run $417 to $459 a night and suites upwards of $700.

For weeks following Aspin's vacation, his spokesmen refused to provide estimates of the cost to taxpayers. The figures were released late Friday afternoon and were described in a footnote as "the most accurate currently available." - Associated Press 


 by CNB