Dukakis to Take Stronger Role in Control of Campaign

Democratic presidential candidate Michael S. Dukakis, his campaign reeling from the embarrassing resignations of two top advisers, said Thursday he would become more involved in the day-to-day management of his campaign while a search goes forward for a new manager.

And the chaos in the Dukakis campaign is so enormous right now that the Massachusetts governor decided to hang onto another top adviser even though, Dukakis acknowledged, field director Jack Corrigan was also involved in giving the media a copy of a videotape that began the unraveling of Delaware Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s presidential campaign. The tape showed the similarities between a Biden speech and a speech of British politician Neil Kinnock.

In Hartford Thursday, Dukakis accepted the endorsement of 37 Connecticut legislators. Then, in a press conference, he discussed the impact on his campaign of the Wednesday resignations of his campaign manager and longtime confidant John Sasso, and his national political director, Paul Tully. Sasso had prepared the tape, while Tully later denied a magazine report that the Dukakis campaign was involved in the incident.

Asked why he did not immediately fire Sasso after learning that he had passed along the tape, Dukakis said: “I wanted to be sensitive to John and his family. They are like a part of my family. John is the closest thing to a brother I have. . . . Is waiting 22 hours (to accept Sasso’s resignation) too long? That’s less than a full day to make this kind of a decision.”

Asked about Corrigan’s involvement and his continued presence in the campaign, Dukakis said: “He told me he had no prior knowledge of the making of the tape but that he had given a copy to NBC. I told him that was a serious error.” Dukakis’ willingness to keep Corrigan on can be attributed to the precarious position he finds himself in. On the one hand, Dukakis has raised more than $8 million--far more than any of the other candidates--and he has set up a huge political operation in Boston, Iowa and New Hampshire.

But that operation is suddenly in the hands of 33-year-old Leslie Dach, a biology graduate of Yale who only spent a significant amount of time with the governor in the spring. Dach was the communications coordinator before Sasso hand-picked him to be the acting campaign manager Wednesday.

Dach, who also has a master’s degree in public administration from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, was the scheduling coordinator when Geraldine A. Ferraro ran for vice president in 1984.

“I had a staff of 80 in the Ferraro campaign,” Dach said in an interview. “This campaign is easy to manage because of all the good people Dukakis has attracted.”

Dukakis said in his Thursday press conference in Hartford that “this is a bump in the road. I said when I announced my candidacy there would be some good days and some not-so-good days. Wednesday was a not-so-good day.”

Dukakis said Thursday: “When I learned that there was going to be a story (in Time magazine) saying that we might have been involved in releasing the Biden tape, I called my campaign manager (Sasso) and told him to get on it. But I could not conceive of John being involved. . . . This was a terrible personal tragedy.”

Acknowledging that the Biden tape incident was especially harmful since he had been campaigning as a “good government” candidate, Dukakis said: “I am a person who abhors negative campaigning. I am running for President, not against someone else. . . . But I’m responsible. I’m the candidate. I have to be held accountable.”

Dukakis flew to Iowa Thursday night to begin three days of campaigning.