3 Top Robb Aides Resign Amid Wilder Controversy

Three top aides suspended last month by Sen. Charles S. Robb (D-Va.) resigned on Friday amid the burgeoning political controversy over his office’s receipt of a secret tape of a cellular telephone conversation by then-Virginia Lt. Gov. L. Douglas Wilder.

In announcing the departures of Chief of Staff David McCloud, Press Secretary Steve Johnson and political aide Bobby Watson, Robb said he had found no evidence that any of the three were involved in the 1988 eavesdropping upon Wilder, now Virginia’s governor.

In a written statement, Robb said that the resignations were not a result of the internal office review that he ordered. The three are leaving “as a mutual acknowledgement that it would be extremely difficult to try to put all the pieces back together at this point,” Robb said.

In a brief news conference, Robb acknowledged that he had learned of the existence of the tape before it came into the possession of his office.

Asked if he had urged his aides to get a copy or if he had given them permission to get a copy, Robb said: “I don’t want to get into any of the internals of the investigation at this point.”

He said that the matter would have ended “if I had been unequivocal when I first heard of the existence of the recorded conversation” at a time when the tape wasn’t “in the possession of anyone in the office.”

At the time the tape recording was made in 1988, Wilder was a political rival of Robb’s. In 1989, Wilder became the nation’s first elected black governor, and he is considering a run for the 1992 Democratic presidential nomination.

Transcripts of the tape had Wilder telling a political associate that he believed Robb was finished politically because of reports of Robb’s partying when cocaine was allegedly present at Virginia Beach, Va., while he was governor in the 1980s.

McCloud and Johnson were on Robb’s personal staff, while Watson was political director of the Robb-directed Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.

In his letter of resignation, Watson did not specifically refer to the eavesdropping controversy. He said that he was exploring several job opportunities in the private sector.

The lawyer for Steve Johnson said that his client sent a letter of resignation to Robb Friday.

Thomas M. Buchanan told the Richmond News Leader that Johnson’s decision was “unilateral.” He said that Johnson felt the atmosphere had become so supercharged that he did not want to continue in the job.

Plato Cacheris, McCloud’s attorney, said in a statement that McCloud had fully cooperated with the internal investigation and had voluntarily resigned.