‘Womanizing’ Poses New Issue for Candidates

Gary Hart’s downfall because of reports of extramarital affairs is prompting other politicians to examine their professional relationships with women, a Hart supporter said Sunday.

Rep. Robert G. Torricelli (D-N.J.) said that “people, sadly I think, are going to hesitate in their professional relationships with women on their staffs, women who work on their campaigns. There’s going to be a caution that is not good for getting women involved in public life.”

Torricelli’s assessment, given on CBS’ “Face the Nation” was one of many comments made on network news programs about Hart’s aborted presidential campaign.

On NBC’s “Meet the Press” candidate Rep. Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.) was asked whether he would answer a question as to whether he ever committed adultery, as Hart was asked. Gephardt said: “I’m going to deal with it. When you run for public office in this country, especially for the presidency, you climb into a goldfish bowl.”

Another Democratic candidate, Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware, appeared on ABC’s “This Week With David Brinkley.” Biden said that he would answer: “It is none of your business.”

In another development, the Miami Herald reported Sunday that one of its photographers apparently has corroborated a portion of Hart’s version of events at his Washington town house.

In its initial stories, the Herald said its reporters did not see anyone enter or leave the house between late Friday night and Saturday at 8:40 p.m. Hart, his friend, William Broadhurst, and actress Donna Rice have said that they went out with her friend, Lynn Armandt, for a Saturday afternoon drive.

The Herald reported Sunday that one of its photographers saw people at a car outside the town house Saturday afternoon, but concluded that it was a false alarm because he saw no blonde woman in the group and he did not recognize the people who got out of the car he followed.

He said that his view had been partly blocked, and he later realized he had followed the wrong car, the paper said.

The Herald concluded that the Saturday afternoon drive had not been “a central question . . . but it does raise further questions about the surveillance.”