Candidate Herschensohn Is Back on Air : Ex-Commentator Assails Cranston in a Series of Radio Spots

Former broadcast commentator Bruce Herschensohn is back on radio, but this time it is in his new role as a political candidate.

Herschensohn, who left KABC-TV and radio in January to seek the Republican U.S. Senate nomination, began airing his radio commercials Monday in Southern California.

Not surprisingly, they focus on foreign policy, which has been Herschensohn’s passion since he worked for the U.S. Information Agency more than a decade ago.

3 Radio Spots

There are three separate radio spots. One of them attacks Democratic Sen. Alan Cranston for his recent proposal to end U.S. military aid to Pakistan and Panama because they are run by military dictatorships.

“Alan Cranston wants to stop our aid to Pakistan,” Herschensohn says in the ad. “Doesn’t he know that is how we get supplies to the people of Afghanistan who are fighting the Soviet invaders?

”. . . Alan Cranston wants us to stop aid to Panama. Doesn’t he know that there is a canal there between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans? Does Alan Cranston know what he is doing?”

Another ad states Herschensohn’s positions on such issues as immigration, tax reform and U.S. military strength.

The third ad consists mostly of actor Efrem Zimbalist Jr.’s endorsement of Herschensohn as a man who believes in American superiority in the world. “You know where Bruce stands,” Zimbalist says.

$20,000 a Week

Herschensohn’s campaign manager, Bay Buchanan Jackson, said Monday that her media buyer, Target Enterprises, expects to spend $20,000 to $30,000 a week airing the radio ads.

The ads are supposed to run until at least May 1, and Jackson said the campaign may run television commercials for the last three weeks of the campaign leading up to the June 3 Republican primary.

The radio commercials were played for reporters Monday at a press conference in Los Angeles, but Herschensohn was not present to introduce them.

He is on a personal fact-finding mission to the Philippines, according to Jackson.

Herschensohn, who believes the United States should stand by authoritarian regimes if they are friendly to U.S. interests, has been reluctant to criticize deposed Philippine President Ferdinand E. Marcos.

Describing Corazon Aquino’s rise to the Philippine presidency as a “revolution, not a return to democracy,” he has said he is “skeptical” of the new regime’s attitude toward the United States and its acceptance of a U.S. military presence in the Philippines.