Bradley, DeConcini Assail Bush on Drugs

After weeks of giving Republican nominee George Bush an open field in California, Michael S. Dukakis’ presidential campaign began blocking and tackling on Monday.

Minutes before Bush spoke beside the San Diego harbor, Democratic Sen. Dennis DeConcini of Arizona held a press conference nearby and assailed Bush for what he called the vice president’s “failure” in the war on drugs.

Rips Into GOP Nominee

In Los Angeles, at almost the same moment, Mayor Tom Bradley ripped into Bush on the drug issue at the annual Labor Day breakfast held by the Catholic Labor Institute.

“Don’t watch Bush’s lips,” said Bradley, mocking Bush’s acceptance speech at the GOP National Convention. “Look at what this Administration has done in the last eight years” in the war on drugs, the mayor said in what, for him, was an unusually harsh attack.

DeConcini said, “Southern California today, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration, is the No. 1 point of entry of illegal narcotics in our nation. We are losing the drug war right here. What has George Bush done to stop it?”

‘Achilles’ Heel’ of Drug War

The senator noted that Bush went along when the Reagan Administration slashed funding for the Anti-Drug Abuse Act and that Bush headed the National Narcotics Border Interdiction System, which was judged a failure by the General Accounting Office and was called by the DEA “this Administration’s Achilles’ heel for drug enforcement.”

“Where was George Bush?” DeConcini asked. “Building a record--not of accomplishment but of embarrassment.

“Bush has to explain to the public why (he) claims he wants to be commander in chief in the war on drugs (but he) chose Gen. Manuel Noriega’s public relations man to head his running mate’s campaign,” DeConcini added.

Hired by Panama

That was a reference to the disclosure last week in The New Republic magazine that Stuart K. Spencer, a Newport Beach GOP consultant, was paid $350,000 to represent the Panamanian government for 12 months in 1985-86. The report was based on U.S. Justice Department documents.

Last February, a federal grand jury indicted Panamanian strongman Noriega on charges of participating in a drug-running operation, and the Reagan Administration has been trying to get him to step down.

Spencer, who was President Reagan’s chief political consultant in the 1980 and 1984 campaigns, now is advising Bush’s running mate, Indiana Sen. Dan Quayle.

Use of Surrogates

Until the tough talk on Monday by Bradley and DeConcini, Bush had campaigned recently in California virtually unchallenged and had attacked Dukakis on such issues as crime and the Pledge of Allegiance. And such Bush surrogates as Secretary of Education William J. Bennett and Arizona Sen. John McCain have traveled the country to criticize Dukakis on specific issues.

The Dukakis camp has announced that it will now use surrogates. But DeConcini expressed exasperation, saying he could not understand why the campaign had been so slow in attempting to blunt Bush’s recent attacks.

Before the highly critical Republican campaign against Dukakis, the Democratic nominee “was very reluctant to do anything but talk about issues,” DeConcini said. “I talked to him and said this was going to be a tough, rough campaign and the gloves are going to have to come off . . . .”

Support From Van de Kamp

In an interview after the Los Angeles breakfast, California Atty. Gen. John Van de Kamp said that he and other Democratic law enforcement officials would speak out on Dukakis’ behalf on crime issues.

“I support him without equivocation on law enforcement matters,” Van de Kamp said, but he added that “more will have to be done” to blunt the Bush-Quayle attacks on Dukakis.