European Press Gets In Its Digs

Foreign newspapers from Moscow to Paris reported the scandal that on Friday ended Gary Hart’s presidential campaign--and their treatment ranged from sensational to conspiratorial to disbelieving.

The biggest-selling daily in Sweden commented: “The TV news could just as well have been ‘Dallas’ or ‘Falcon Crest.’ ”

“The Beauty Who Sank Hart,” headlined the conservative Greek daily Eleftheros Typos.

“La love-story catastrophe de Gary Hart,” ran the headline in the socialist French daily Le Matin.

Le Matin also ran a cartoon depicting Pope John Paul II as the only candidate clean enough to run in the United States.

The Soviet government newspaper Izvestia said the U.S. mass media had conducted a “campaign of persecution” against Hart.

“The former senator was the victim of a sophisticated psychological attack from his opponents, the goal of which was to ‘neutralize’ the most likely Democratic candidate and weaken the chances of the Democrats in the upcoming election,” Izvestia said.