Bush, Dole Tell Campaign Staffs to Stop Sniping

Vice President George Bush and Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole have agreed to order their campaign staffs to stop trading accusations about Bush’s private life and to halt rumor-mongering, aides to both Republican presidential contenders said today.

Dole said Bush called him.

“He said we’ve got people in our campaigns who are getting out of hand,” the Kansas Republican said during an Iowa campaign swing over the weekend.

Lee Atwater, Bush’s campaign manager, and David Keene, a top adviser to Dole, said today the campaigns will observe the Republican 11th Commandment: Never speak ill of another Republican.

Candidates Can Talk

“The vice president and Sen. Dole have talked and have decided just to forget about all that, keep campaigning and stick to the 11th Commandment,” Atwater said. “The sign of a good campaign is when any kind of scrape comes up, the candidates can talk, put it to rest and keep moving. That’s what we’ve decided to do.”

“I think that’s right,” Keene added. “We hope this campaign will be decided on the issues. For those involved in campaigns . . . there is a tendency to involve themselves in peripheral or personal issues that are not really basic to the decision that the American people have to make.”

Atwater added it was during a brief telephone call last week that both candidates agreed that, “We’ve got to get our staffs out of all this stuff.”

Rumors of Affair

In recent weeks, rumors swept Washington about a long-term affair that Bush allegedly had with a female staff member or with the wife of a prominent supporter.

“This thing was coming at us from every point on the compass,” Bush supporter Rep. Robert K. Dornan (R-Santa Monica) said on Cable News Network last week.

Then Newsweek quoted George Bush Jr., the vice president’s eldest son and campaign adviser, as saying he had approached his father and said, “You’ve heard the rumors. What about it?”

“They’re just not true,” the magazine said the vice president replied.

Added George Jr., “The answer to the Big A (adultery) question is N.O.”

Newsweek also fingered the Dole campaign as one of the major sources of the rumors about Bush.