WASHINGTON INSIGHT

ONCE BURNED: Judging from his annual financial disclosure report, Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.) is still smarting from the firestorm of controversy he sparked among Jews earlier this year by suggesting that at least $330 million in U.S. foreign aid could be shifted from Israel to Eastern Europe, Panama and the drug-fighting countries in Latin America.

In a special cover letter attached to his 1989 report, Dole emphasized that a $2,000 honorarium he received from the National U.S.-Arab Chamber of Commerce did not go into his pocket.

In fact, he said, the money never even touched his hands. “No honorarium from this organization was accepted,” he wrote, “but was donated instead directly to charity by the sponsoring organization.”

Dole reported no honorariums from pro-Israel groups.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT: Also in the quest for honorariums last year, Rep. Charles Hatcher (D-Ga.) may have set a new record for the largest number of fees received by a member of Congress in a single day. On June 19, 1989, Hatcher took in 19 honorariums ranging in size from $150 to $1,000 each.

Total receipts: $4,400.

Just reading the list of Hatcher’s benefactors on that day could inspire a healthy appetite. They include the California Pear Growers, California Bean Growers, California Beet Growers, California Apricot Growers, the Prune Bargaining Assn., California Kiwi Fruit Commission and California Grape and Tree Fruit League.

Hatcher’s administrative assistant, Krysta Harden, explained that the groups got together and invited Hatcher to talk with them at a joint meeting in Sacramento shortly after he was appointed chairman of an Agriculture subcommittee that holds sway over the domestic marketing of these fruits.

HOUSE CALLS: Rep. Anthony C. Beilenson (D-Los Angeles) was only 31 when he was elected to the California Assembly in 1963. Now, his son Peter, 30, seeks to follow in his father’s footsteps--by running for a seat in the Maryland House of Delegates.

Peter Beilenson, a Baltimore physician, is challenging three incumbent Democrats in the September primary. With three seats open, the three biggest vote-getters will be nominated. In the heavily Democratic district, winning the nomination is tantamount to election.

Beilenson, who would be the only physician in the Maryland Legislature, is running on a slogan: “Baltimore needs a doctor in the House.”

His father has advised him to go door to door, as he did in his own first Assembly race. Beyond that, the younger Beilenson, a father of three himself, said: “His biggest help is that he and mom baby-sit our kids so my wife can join me campaigning.”

OOPS! Although most members of Congress rely on their staffs or their accountants to fill out the annual financial disclosure report, Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) clearly does it himself.

On a page provided for them to list their “liabilities”--mortgages, personal loans and other debts--there was a large ink blot. Something had clearly been inked out.

And underneath, in hand-printed capital letters, was this notation: “Oops! Wrong page.”