Robertson Finds Success Means Increased Scrutiny : Iowa Finish Puts Focus on Church, State Views

At Pat Robertson’s campaign headquarters in Chesapeake, Va., the telephones have barely stopped ringing since the Republican presidential candidate blasted past Vice President George Bush and into a second-place finish in last Monday’s Iowa caucuses.

One minute it’s London calling--a television producer wants to fly a campaign aide over for a talk show. The next minute, it’s a radio talk show host in New Hampshire. Then, an impressed voter wants campaign literature.

Robertson and his supporters are riding high on the inevitable wave of increased attention after the Iowa success. The surge “has given us instant credibility,” campaign spokesman Scott Hatch says, thumbing through a stack of telephone messages 5 inches high. “If we could have gotten a 747 jet into Dixville Notch, N. H., we could have filled it with reporters.”

However, the new attention is also drawing renewed attention to many of Robertson’s controversial views on religion and government. For example, People for the American Way, a group that monitors religion in politics, is launching a campaign to, as executive director Arthur Kropp put it, “nip (Robertson’s success) in the bud.”

Campaign officials acknowledge that Robertson’s positions are certain to face intensified scrutiny. But top aide Kerry Moody said: “That’s the price you pay for success. We’re ready for it.”

Key Topics Listed

Among the topics at issue:

--Government and God. In his 1984 book, “Answers to 200 of Life’s Most Probing Questions,” Robertson wrote: “Government was instituted by God to bring his laws to people and to carry out his will and purposes.” He went on: “Perfect government comes from God and is controlled by God. Short of that, the next best government is a limited democracy in which the people acknowledge rights given by God but voluntarily grant government limited power to do those things the people cannot do individually.”

In a 1985 broadcast on the “700 Club” show on his Christian Broadcasting Network, Robertson said that “individual Christians are the only ones really--and Jewish people, those who trust the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob--are the only ones that are qualified to have the reign (serve in government) because hopefully they will be governed by God and submitted to him.”

--Robertson’s ability to perform miracles. He has claimed to have turned a hurricane away with prayer. He was filmed telling the storm: “In the name of God, I command you” to veer north from Virginia. When the storm did turn, Robertson took credit.

--His claim that God frequently speaks to him. For example, he said his decision on whether to seek the Republican nomination was dependent on whether God would approve. He has quoted his conversations with God in his books and on the “700 Club.”

Conversation Cited

In his book “Shout It From the Housetops,” Robertson said, “God came to me while I was praying, and said ‘Congress is going to pass a bill requiring all television sets to be equipped with UHF,’ ” a message of particular importance to him as a broadcaster.

He has also claimed to have spoken to Satan. Satan once told him “Jesus is playing you for a sucker,” Robertson wrote. He replied that “Jesus is my Savior. Even in hell I’ll praise him.”

--Discussing the ills of “unbridled capitalism,” Robertson noted that the Bible “contains a solution to the problem of excess accumulation of wealth and power. It is the year of Jubilee. Under Old Testament law, every 50 years there was a cancellation of all debts. . . . All the money was redistributed and the means of production was placed back in the hands of the original families. Personal property and city land that had been accumulated could be kept, but wealth resting on debt was canceled.”

Robertson and his aides contend that his beliefs and statements as an evangelical minister have little or no bearing on his campaign for the presidency.

In ads before the Iowa caucuses, Robertson drew attention to charges John F. Kennedy faced in his 1960 presidential campaign that Kennedy was “an agent of the Pope.” Kennedy faced a Protestant Ministerial Assn. in Houston that year and vowed to uphold the Constitution. “I’ve said the same thing,” Robertson contends.

Reaffirms Strong Beliefs

Robertson does not deny that he still holds strong beliefs as an evangelical Christian. But in an interview with the New York Times, he said: “As President of the United States, I would have to administer that office, in a very dispassionate sense, in relation to all people.”

He noted that his concept of a “limited democracy” was “a republic using the precepts of God, which is America . . . a confederation of states with representatives of every state coming together in a central government which is limited by the Constitution in terms of the reserved rights of the states and the reserved rights of the people.”

But in his recently issued authorized biography, Robertson also noted: “We have in this country freedom of religion. But nobody ever intended freedom from religion.”

In an interview with the National Catholic Register last week, Robertson said: “The thing I will not tolerate . . . is a ‘naked public square.’ As President, I want to continue that affirmation, ‘In God We Trust.’ ”

Such rhetoric, combined with his past writings and statements, unnerves some individuals and organizations who see his candidacy as a threat to the separation of church and state.

Requests for Information

For years, People for the American Way has made available to the media an extensive collection of transcripts, video clips and other materials on Robertson--including his statements about talking to God and his belief in faith healing. In the wake of his success in Iowa, the organization has been getting a new wave of requests for the information, according to officials. And the organization has fashioned newspaper advertisements to run in Boston and New Hampshire.

Kropp, of People for the American Way, defended the heightened scrutiny of Robertson, saying that “there needs to be some clarity and definition given to Pat Robertson. He’s trying to duck and weave and evade” his past writings.

Campaigning in New Hampshire, where religion and politics are viewed skeptically, Robertson avoids referring to his career as a minister, concentrating instead on such issues as drug abuse, the AIDS epidemic, big government spending and his opposition to abortion and communism.

Scott Malyerck, executive director of the New Hampshire Republican Party, noted that most polls there show Robertson with negative ratings of 50%. He said Robertson may have had “an invisible army in Iowa, but here his support really is invisible.”

But Robertson has defied the polls before. Despite his poor-mouthing about his potential in New Hampshire, Robertson has a base in the state of about 50,000 members of the “700 Club” who are active contributors, according to Douglas Wead, an aide to Bush.

Sees South as Key

Although New Hampshire is the first test of his ability to attract broad support, he is portraying it as far less important than the South, which votes en masse on Super Tuesday, March 8. So he would not acknowledge a third- or even fourth-place finish in New Hampshire as a crushing defeat.

But the heightened scrutiny is almost certain to interfere with his efforts to broaden his appeal beyond fellow true believers.

“Healing and fervent prayers--these will be part of the pictures people will see,” said Harold Stanley, a political scientist at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. “Those are not the images that a campaign manager would use to broaden his base.”

Reporters pressing Robertson on his past increasingly get testy responses.

After agreeing to hold a news conference Wednesday in a hotel lobby in Lancaster, N. H., Robertson was immediately asked: “Do you consider the passion and faith of your convictions to be akin to fanaticism, as some of your critics have said?”

“That’s nonsense,” Robertson shot back. “Anyone else?”

“Do you believe the Antichrist is alive in the world and what manifestation does he take?” another reporter asked.

‘Get Serious, Fellas’

“Let’s get serious, fellas,” said an exasperated Robertson, stepping away from the microphone. “I’m trying to run a campaign for the presidency.”

Meanwhile, Robertson also faces a court case that could interfere with his campaign.

Robertson Filed Suit

Robertson sued former Rep. Paul N. (Pete) McCloskey (R-San Mateo) after he alleged that Robertson used the influence of his father, the late Sen. A. Willis Robertson (D-Va.), to serve in Japan during the Korean War instead of going on to Korea.

Recognizing the potential for embarrassment and lost campaign time, Robertson officials would like to end the suit, but McCloskey said in an interview that he will only agree to that if Robertson pays McCloskey’s legal fees, which have reached $450,000.

A federal judge set the trial’s opening for March 8, Super Tuesday, prompting one Robertson aide to call the judge’s action “grossly unfair.”

Retorted McCloskey, now practicing law in Palo Alto: “He’s luckier than hell it didn’t come a month earlier. He can drop the suit and pay the fees and let history and the jury of voters decide.”

There are signs that Robertson’s past increasingly competes with his message.

Issue of Combat Service

On Wednesday, at a high school in Colebrook, N. H., Robertson was asked about charges that he had dodged combat service in the Korean War.

Robertson launched into a description of his wartime service, then lashed out with an attack against people who “have lied about me.”

Edward Kerouac, a retired banker from Hudson, N. H., said after hearing Robertson at a Rotary Club meeting Thursday that he liked the candidate but wished he had asked Robertson whether he believes that religion should play a role in government.

“I need an answer on that before I can vote for him,” Kerouac said.

The scrutiny of Robertson usually does not include criticism from Robertson’s rivals. Political observers said Bush and Kansas Sen. Bob Dole believe that he will not win the nomination, and whoever wins will need Robertson’s supporters in the general election.