THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, October 7, 1994 TAG: 9410070656
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DAVID M. POOLE, MARGARET EDDS AND GREG SCHNEIDER, STAFF WRITERS
LENGTH: Long : 106 lines
U.S. Sen. Charles S. Robb and challenger Oliver L. North went nuclear Thursday, with Robb calling his opponent delusional and North saying the senator and President Clinton have betrayed their country.
The statements, delivered separately in unrelated forums, mean the negative campaigning that always seemed one soundbite away has arrived.
Robb suggested in an interview that a recent string of misstatements by North indicates that the Republican lives in a fantasy world. ``I can't imagine anyone being able to continue to (tell) those lies without some sense of self-delusion. I think the problem here is more serious or deeper than has been discussed,'' Robb said outside his Capitol office.
North made his charges before a group of veterans in suburban Richmond: ``There is no nice way to put it. . . . With Chuck Robb's help, Bill Clinton is ruining this country, failing to stand up for the values and institutions that have made this country strong,'' North said. He later said that ``what Chuck Robb and Bill Clinton are doing to the armed forces of this nation is nothing short of a fundamental betrayal of the men and women that they're in office to represent.''
Independent candidate J. Marshall Coleman, whose strategy is to let the two frontrunners annihilate each other, weighed in with a comparatively tame news conference in which a former secretary of state called North a liar.
Robb made his remarks when asked to explain the term ``Ollie's World,'' which is what he called the origin of recent North fund-raising letters pleading poverty for a campaign that has raised about $15 million.
``Ollie's World is truly different. It's a world in which you make up facts that serve your purpose, and then you insist they are true. You even convince yourself they're true.''
The Democratic senator noted that North made a series of questionable statements before students at Falls Church High School earlier in the week. North claimed he never lied to Congress during the Iran-Contra affair, though he admitted doing so in his autobiography; he denied quotes about supporting display of the Confederate flag; and he charged that Robb favors abortion through the ninth month, which Robb says is false.
Robb also noted that Thursday's Wall Street Journal said North continues to tell his staff he had one-on-one briefings with President Reagan during Iran-Contra, even though Reagan and others deny it.
``It doesn't make sense to me if you know that someone is going to fact-check you - particularly if you have a problem with facts - to continue to gratuitously misstate purported facts or make things up,'' Robb said. ``It's clear to me now that this is not just an occasional aberration, but it's a very significant departure from what I call a normal, fact-based understanding of society.''
Asked if he was accusing North of being mentally unbalanced, Robb said: ``I'm not accusing him of anything, but you might want to check with someone else and find out whether that pattern makes any sense.''
It could be, Robb said, that North only appears to believe his misstatements because ``he is a very effective actor. . . . I'm trying to give him the benefit of the doubt, or otherwise you could come to an even harsher conclusion.''
Truthfulness has been a nagging issue for North, who was convicted of obstructing Congress by providing misleading written information during the Iran-Contra investigations. That felony and two others were overturned on appeal.
Asked Thursday night if he would respond to being called delusional, North said: ``Nope.''
He had just addressed a rally at a Mechanicsville Veterans of Foreign Wars post, using language several notches more intense than his usual strong style.
``We confront an enemy that's attacking us from Washington, D.C.,'' North told the group. It is ``an attack against our national defense by an administration of molly-coddling liberals who are openly contemptuous of the men and women who serve today in the armed forces. . . . They are hell-bent on taking our armed forces apart brick by brick. The threat is real. You and I both know it.''
North promised that if he makes it to the Senate, ``no flip-flopping anti-defense yahoo from Little Rock on a mission to disarm the armed forces of the United States is going to tell me how to vote.''
Decrying ``boneheaded left-wing liberal activism,'' North recited a litany of Clinton administration officials touched by scandal. For instance, former Deputy Treasury Secretary Roger Altman ``can't remember that when you go before a congressional committee and raise your right hand, you're supposed to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth,'' he said.
Such scandal might be the reason Robb continues to support Clinton, North said; both Democrats have acknowledged extramarital exploits.
``Maybe Chuck Robb and Bill Clinton share more than just a liberal philosophy. Maybe they even have a penchant for a liberal lifestyle,'' he said. ``It's time we had a senator in Virginia who cared more with a passion about the people of Virginia than . . . about trying to govern his own passions.''
If he is elected, North said, voters will have ``a senator more concerned about controlling the deficit than about controlling (his) own behavior.''
All in all, it was the harshest day of name-calling to date. Coleman was content to let a high-profile supporter wield his cudgel.
Former Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger said North is a man of ``no moral character whatsoever . . . I have no respect for him whatsoever. He wouldn't recognize the truth if it hit him over the head with a baseball bat.''
Robb plans to keep up the attack today with an Arlington news conference featuring former Navy Secretary James Webb and other military men.
There are 32 more days until Election Day.
KEYWORDS: U.S. SENATE RACE VIRGINIA CANDIDATES
CAMPAIGNING by CNB