GOP Ad on S&L; Crisis Infuriates Democrats : Politics: The national governors’ conference ends in partisan discord. Bush’s handling of probe is criticized as rival party vows retaliation.

The National Governors’ Assn. conference concluded here Tuesday on a harsh note of partisan discord as Republicans and Democrats each sought to blame the other for the savings and loan crisis.

The GOP got in the first shot with an ad taking up nearly three-quarters of a page in the Mobile Register displaying photos of 12 present and former Democratic congressman and senators over the headline: “These are the guys who let the S&L; problem explode into a $325-billion national crisis.”

Infuriated Democratic governors, gathered at a breakfast meeting to discuss 1990 campaign strategy, responded by adopting a resolution criticizing the Bush Administration’s handling of the savings and loan investigation and calling for appointment of an independent prosecutor “to investigate charges of fraud, mismanagement and criminal activities associated with sick thrifts.”

Democrats vowed to retaliate more directly with countercharges of their own, some pointing out that the party’s failure to rebut Republican attacks in the 1988 presidential campaign contributed to the defeat of their standard-bearer, Massachusetts Gov. Michael S. Dukakis. “Let’s not make the same mistake Mike Dukakis made in 1988,” Dukakis himself told a reporter after the breakfast meeting.

Some Democrats specifically recalled 1988 GOP charges that the crimes committed by Massachusetts convict Willie Horton while he was on a weekend furlough were a sign of Dukakis’ permissiveness. Ohio Gov. Richard F. Celeste, head of the Democratic Governors’ Assn., said: “If there is a Willie Horton on S&Ls;, it’s Neil Bush,” a reference to the President’s son, who has been accused of conflict of interest as a member of the board of directors of a Denver savings and loan.

Earlier in the three-day meeting, Democratic governors received approval from the association’s executive committee for a resolution calling for creation of an independent commission to investigate the savings and loan crisis.

Some Republican governors grumbled then that the Democrats were trying to shift the blame for the mess from Congress to the Administration and were also seeking to the give the impression that the Administration’s handling of the affair was faulty.

Nevertheless, a modified version of the proposal was adopted.

Some Republican governors seemed pleased with the latest attack on their Democratic counterparts. “The Democrats are the ones who are trying to make the most political hay out of this disaster for American taxpayers,” Republican Gov. John R. McKernan Jr. of Maine said in an interview. “The Republicans want to make sure people know there’s enough blame to go around.”