Bush Tears Up Kemp Flyer Criticizing Him on Abortion

In front of a startled audience Monday, Vice President George Bush read and then tore up a campaign flyer of rival presidential candidate Jack Kemp.

“ Fini! “ (finished), Bush said in his most emphatic French.

The one-sheet political flyer accused Bush of changing his position on abortion and of “promoting abortion” while U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. A student read the charge and asked Bush about it during the vice president’s visit to a Catholic high school here.

“I can understand your asking. Thanks for bringing it up and giving me a chance to answer because it just doesn’t happen to be true,” Bush told the teen-age girl.

“I oppose abortion. I’ve always done that.”

Session Held in Gym

At the time, the vice president was in the middle of a gym, surrounded by 450 students, teachers and residents. The setting was a 45-minute program called “Ask George Bush.”

Because the girl seemed to be reading her question, Bush strode into the crowd and asked to see from what. She handed it over.

“Paid for by Jack Kemp for President,” he read with a scowl. “I see. I guess you’ll just have to write this off as political.”

He then folded the flyer, held it up and ripped it apart with a flourish. He put the scraps in his suit pocket and resumed answering questions.

Bush later said that he had been curious about the question because he had seen someone in the audience wearing a Kemp button and passing out literature.

Publicly ripping up a rival’s materials is a level of protest heretofore unseen in this campaign.

“The heat must be getting to him,” Kemp spokesman John Buckley said.

The flyer was among materials distributed by the Kemp campaign seeking to establish the New York congressman as the most reliable conservative contender in the field.

Foreword to Book Cited

Buckley said that published interviews in the last 15 years showed three different shadings to Bush’s opposition to abortion. And Buckley said the reference to “promoting” abortion stemmed from Bush’s 1973 foreword to a book on world population control. Bush was then ambassador to the United Nations.

The vice president’s tone may reflect some of the frustration he is experiencing in this kickoff caucus state. He is the national front-runner and the target for much of the criticism and barbs of his five chief rivals. Yet, in Iowa, polls show him 15 points behind Sen. Bob Dole of neighboring Kansas.

Last week, the vice president complained about Kemp advertisements in New Hampshire, which recalled that Bush once favored “stabilizing” oil prices when they were dropping. Bush now campaigns against the idea of an oil import fee, which would tend to prop up oil prices, on the grounds that it would be unfair to states dependent on imported oil, such as New Hampshire.

A new Kemp commercial to be broadcast today reportedly charges that Bush and Dole are “Washington insiders (who) want higher oil prices. George Bush told the Arabs to keep oil prices up, and Bob Dole supports a tax increase on imported oil.”

Commercials Denounced

Peter Teeley, Bush’s campaign press secretary, on Monday denounced the commercials to the Washington Post as an example of “public officials’ consciously distorting the records of other candidates.”

“The accusations regarding the vice president and higher oil prices are blatant lies,” Teeley said.

As if to prove the point, Bush criticized Dole Monday on the oil import fee issue, telling business leaders here that Dole’s current support for such a fee on oil would “break” Iowa’s current economic recovery.

“It would hurt Iowa farmers and businessmen just when we are getting competitive in world trade,” Bush told a Rotary luncheon. “A $10-a-barrel oil import fee would cost Iowa $668 million a year . . . every person in Iowa $230 per year.”

Dole has said that he could support an import fee “under certain conditions,” including providing “rebates for any heating oil used in the state of New Hampshire and New England.” Revenues from the fee should be be used to increase the nation’s petroleum reserve, he said during a Republican candidates’ debate on Saturday.

“We import about 42% of our oil in this country,” he said. An import fee “would send a signal to OPEC and make us more energy independent.”

Staff writer Frank Clifford contributed to this story.