Dole Hits Bush Tactic on Family Finances

Republican presidential candidate Bob Dole called rival George Bush’s circulation of a newspaper article detailing Dole family financial transactions “much like the Dukakis-Biden affair” and said Sunday that he will publicly release his tax returns “in due time.”

The Kansas senator’s remarks, offered on ABC’s “This Week With David Brinkley,” follow two days of efforts by Bush staff members to shift the campaign’s focus from the vice president’s role in the Iran-Contra scandal to the candidates’ financial disclosures.

After two days of smarting over renewed interest in his knowledge of the foreign relations debacle, Bush came out swinging in a Des Moines debate Friday night, demanding that all presidential candidates release their tax returns. The move was targeted to show voters that Dole is a wealthy man, contrary to his self-characterization as an average Midwesterner.

Newspaper Story

On Saturday, Bush aides showed reporters copies of a Kansas newspaper story that said a former Dole aide bought an interest in a building from Elizabeth Hanford Dole’s blind trust 10 months before the aide’s company was awarded a $30-million federal contract. The story was part of a sheaf of campaign-related articles carried by Bush aides.

As published in the Hutchison News, Dole’s wife’s trust sold half an interest in an Overland Park, Kan., office building to a firm owned by a former Dole Senate aide, John Palmer. As part of the deal, on Dec. 30, 1986, Palmer executed a $279,000 promissory note to the Elizabeth Hanford Dole blind trust, the newspaper said. Palmer’s firm later sold the interest, but apparently maintained the promissory note.

The Hutchison News did not say whether the trust or Palmer’s firm realized a profit. Ten months after the transaction, the firm--EDP Enterprises, of which Palmer is sole stockholder--received a no-bid contract to provide food services to the Army’s Ft. Leonard Wood in Missouri. The contract was awarded by the Small Business Administration’s program for minority-owned businesses.

The newspaper did not say there was anything improper about the transactions, and on Sunday Dole said he had no knowledge of the blind trust’s dealings. Trusts such as that are typically set up so that beneficiaries do not control or know about decisions with financial repercussions. The Kansas senator said he did try to help Palmer get a federal contract, but added: “There wasn’t any undue influence.”

‘Friend of Mine’

Dole said Palmer is “a very bright, outstanding young black entrepreneur and friend of mine.”

Dole said the Bush campaign’s circulation of the newspaper article was reminiscent of the actions of Democratic presidential candidate Michael S. Dukakis’ aides in releasing a videotape that ultimately forced candidate Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. from the race. The tape contained a Biden speech that mimicked a speech--also on the tape--by British politician Neil Kinnock.

“Here’s the Bush campaign, maybe not the vice president himself, but (Bush campaign manager) Lee Atwater and others out distributing things that they think might reflect on Elizabeth Dole for some reason,” Dole said. “I don’t understand that. . . . It’s much like the Dukakis-Biden affair.”