TV Clash Seen as Plus for Bush--in Short Run

Officials in Vice President George Bush’s campaign--and some independent political analysts--declared Tuesday that Bush gained valuable ground in his fight for the Republican presidential nomination by standing up to CBS News anchorman Dan Rather and angrily refusing to answer his questions on the Iran-Contra scandal.

Bush himself gloried in a flood of backslapping and phone calls that his staff said was running 10 to 1 in Bush’s favor after the brawling live television interview Monday on the “CBS Evening News.”

“I need combat pay for last night, I’ll tell you,” he joked to a luncheon audience during a day of campaigning in Wyoming. The crowd burst into applause.

“It absolutely was a plus for the vice president,” Bush spokesman Pete Teeley said, “because the American people have seen Rather push people around for 20 years and the fact is that George Bush stood up to the guy and refused to be bullied and went toe to toe with him.”

But other political analysts in both parties--and his chief rival for the GOP nomination--said the gains may be short-lived if Bush continues to turn aside pertinent questions about his role in selling arms to Iran.

“He definitely still has to answer the Iran-Contras questions,” Doug Bailey, a Republican political consultant who is neutral in the GOP presidential race, said in an interview Tuesday, even though Bailey said he thought Bush scored a “knockout” with his aggressive counterattack against accusatory questions from a television newsman who has long been unpopular among Republican voters.

‘Could Be a Negative’

Similarly, Eddie Mahe, another Republican consultant not involved in the presidential race, said Bush probably would be helped in the short run, but “once people focus beyond the emotional confrontation on what it was that was being said, and if they decide that George Bush might have been less than honest about his role, that could be a negative.”

Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole of Kansas, Bush’s chief rival for the GOP nomination, said Tuesday while campaigning in New Hampshire that the Iran-Contra issue would not go away for the vice president: “It’s just going to hang out there. It’s going to be an issue the rest of the year.”

“It’s not an issue as far as I’m concerned, but we get conflicting reports about what did or didn’t happen. What his role may have been,” Dole said.

And Democratic presidential candidate Paul Simon, campaigning in Iowa, said, “In the immediate exchange, maybe George Bush won out,” but he added: “The question comes up again: Is he being candid with us?”

Bush Side Ecstatic

Nonetheless, Bush campaign officials and the vice president himself were ecstatic about Monday’s encounter.

At one campaign stop in Wyoming, Bush encountered a friendly banner declaring: “We’d RATHER Be for Bush!”

At another stop, he told a group of students about the episode, saying: “Look, he’s got to do his thing and he’s free to do it his way. And I’m free to defend my overall record and get my case to the people.”

But, he added proudly, it “was tension city when you’re in there.”

In Cody, where Bush was given a T-shirt that said, “Bush 1, Rather 0,” he said: “I hope my life has evidenced some fiber before going one on one with Dan Rather.” To which a supporter in the audience yelled: “Dan who?” Rather supporters were not in evidence.

Aggressive Questions

During the Monday night broadcast, CBS first aired a segment reviewing evidence of Bush’s possible involvement in the Iran-Contra affair, followed by a live interview in which Rather began to aggressively question Bush about his role. Bush instantly counterattacked, accusing the network of falsely suggesting that he was lying and charging that he had been misled into thinking the interview would be part of a political profile.

Rather, who appeared taken aback and even startled by the vehemence of Bush’s reaction, Tuesday denied that Bush had been misled. “We don’t mislead people,” he said, “we come straight at them.”

Rather told reporters in the lobby at CBS in New York that “It’s important to me that everybody understand . . . that I respect the office of the vice presidency.”

Trailing Dole in Iowa

Teeley predicted the vice president’s performance will help him in Iowa, where he is trailing Dole in the Feb. 8 caucus race, as well as in New Hampshire and the rest of the country. “The American people are suspicious of networks and network news anyway because of their power and Rather is a symbol of that power,” he said.

“Listen to this,” Teeley told a reporter, reading from a list of excerpts of messages to the vice president after the interview: “Pit bull attack on Bush . . . Rather lost control . . . Rather is a scum bag . . . Congratulate the V.P. . . . Rather’s the rudest man I’ve ever seen . . . Bush came off great . . . Dan Rather should be fired.”

Despite the glee in the Bush camp, the dramatic interview, which dominated the program and was extraordinarily long (about 10 minutes), spotlighted once more a nettlesome issue that Bush has tried without success to put to rest several times in the past.

Political Problem

Not only are there specific questions about Bush’s role, there is a difficult political problem: Bush has built his whole quest for the presidency around the assertion that he has been actively and substantively involved in the highest councils of the White House, yet he does not want to be closely associated with Iran-Contra decisions that constitute the most damaging scandal of the Reagan presidency.

Adding to the sensitivity of the issue for Bush have been polls showing that a large percentage of Americans--including 52% of Republicans, according to an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll--believe Bush has not told the truth about his role in the affair.

Bush has insisted that while he supported President Reagan’s covert program that supplied arms to Iran in exchange for help in securing the release of American hostages held in Beirut, he also expressed reservations about the program when discussing it in the privacy of the White House. However, he has refused to say what advice he offered Reagan, declaring it would set a bad precedent to breach his confidential relationship with the President.

Argument on Arms

Moreover, statements by some Administration officials have contradicted his contentions that he never heard Secretary of State George P. Shultz and Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger argue against implementing the program to send arms to Iran.

When Rather pressed him on the point Monday night, Bush insisted that he could not remember hearing any objections raised at a January, 1986, White House meeting.

However, Tuesday on the “CBS Morning News,” Shultz reiterated that Bush had attended a meeting at which he had vehemently objected to the covert program. Weinberger earlier had said he also strenuously opposed the program at the meeting.

Reagan, meeting Tuesday with a group of senators to discuss his request for congressional aid to the Contras, sided with Bush on the issue and told reporters the vice president was not present when Shultz and Weinberger argued against the arms program. And Reagan said Bush was “exactly right” in refusing to discuss his advice to the President on the matter.

Press Frustrated

Rather’s barbed questions reflected not only Rather’s own hard-charging style and the usual adversarial relationship between the press and politicians, but also the frustration of a press corps that has had difficulty gaining access to the vice president and that has bridled at having been told to submit questions on the Iran-Contra affair in writing.

Campaign officials acknowledged Tuesday that Bush had not been caught off guard by Rather’s line of questioning, as they had earlier indicated.

In fact, the Bush campaign learned as early as Sunday that Rather planned to concentrate on the Iran-Contra issue and therefore Bush was primed to counterattack as soon as the interview began, following a five-minute videotaped report that suggested the vice president had been more deeply involved in the affair than he had acknowledged.

Bush used similar counterpunching tactics earlier this month during a televised debate among Republican candidates in Des Moines. Moderator James P. Gannon, editor of the Des Moines Register, had barely asked Bush about the Iran-Contra affair before the vice president began waving his finger and saying he resented the Register’s coverage of the issue and the kind of questions being raised.

Letter From Producer

On Tuesday, Bush campaign officials insisted again that the network misled them about the purpose of the interview and they produced a letter from Richard M. Cohen, a “CBS Evening News” producer, to Bush in support of their contention.

In the letter to Bush, Cohen referred to “a series of candidate profiles” and said: “Dan Rather is very interested in your profile and has decided to do it himself. Mr. Rather feels that because you are the incumbent vice president and a front-runner, that your candidacy deserves special attention.”

Teeley said Bush decided to go ahead with the interview after learning it would concentrate on the Iran-Contra affair because “CBS had us in a box” and if Bush did not appear he would be “hammered” by the network for refusing to do the interview.

Denial by Rather

On Tuesday’s “CBS Evening News,” Rather denied that CBS had misled Bush about the purpose of the interview and said the network had dealt extensively with the vice president’s staff and stated its intentions to question him about the Iran-Contra matter.

Rather, whose interview drew widespread protests from viewers who thought it was unfair or too heavy-handed, said that while he had respect for Bush and the office of the vice presidency, asking tough questions is part of a reporter’s job.

He conceded that the interview had not been conducted as “gracefully” as he had hoped, but he stoped short of apologizing for what many critics thought was the prosecutorial tone of the interview.

Staff writers John Balzar in Wyoming and Frank Clifford and Doug Jehl in New Hampshire contributed to this story.