4,300 Eat With GOP Elite, Fork Over $9 million

Depending on how much money you paid for dinner of roast tenderloin of beef Tuesday night, you also got a ticket to a private White House reception, or lunch for two at the vice president’s place or a photo opportunity with President Bush. That picture would have cost you $92,000.

Known as “The President’s Dinner,” the huge Republican fund-raiser here Tuesday night was an annual affair. But this year it drew added interest, and sharp criticism, because it fell on the eve of expected congressional approval of campaign finance reform legislation to limit some of the contributions raised at such dinners. Bush has said he will veto the measure.

The take Tuesday night was at least $9 million, making it the grandest of all political fund-raisers, according to former Sen. Howard H. Baker, the chairman. It took in at least $2 million more than last year’s dinner, which had been considered the record haul. And, when all the receipts are counted, said one organizer, Tuesday night’s total may top out at $10 million.

The dinner attracted contributions from an array of major industries that have daily dealings with the government officials attending the affair.

Among them were such big oil companies as Atlantic Richfield, whose chairman Lodwick M. Cook contributed $80,000. Pennzoil gave $40,000, Chevron and Occidental each gave $20,000.

The dinner was held the night of the Pennsylvania primary and the election results gave Bush the opportunity--looking ahead to the anticipated results of caucuses Friday in Maine and Wyoming--to claim more than enough delegates to be assured of renomination.

In remarks to the 4,300 guests, Bush declared himself “halfway through the journey, halfway to the goal” of reelection.

Bush and Vice President Dan Quayle were seated on daises at opposite ends of the Washington Convention Center hall, with Cabinet members and other officials scattered about in a space so cavernous that some guests, many in black tie or evening gowns, were more than a city block from the President or vice president.

As details of the dinner emerged over the past week, including allegations that one fund-raiser fired an employee for refusing to contribute, the White House and Bush’s reelection campaign grew defensive. Eventually, a Bush-Quayle decorative sign was removed from a wall in an apparent effort to put some distance between the White House and the fund raising.

Campaign officials insisted they had little to do with the dinner, which raises money for Republican congressional campaigns and independent Republican efforts to support the national presidential ticket.

At the same time, critics said it epitomized, through scale and opulance, what they said is a grotesque distortion of the political process by a flood of big money.

“Americans are fed up with a system that favors the wealthy and well-heeled lobbyists with access, while the average American gets none,” said Bill Parsons, spokesman for Public Citizen, a 21-year-old organization founded by Ralph Nader that favors public financing of elections.

The access Parsons referred to was to Cabinet members, their deputies, White House officials, members of Congress and, for a select and very wealthy few, to Bush and Quayle.

The largest contribution appeared to come from Michael Kojima, of International Marketing Bureau in Los Angeles. He donated $400,000, according to documents filed with the Federal Election Commission.

The Westwood address Kojima listed with his contribution is the law firm of Cummings & Pantaleo. Josie Dacalos, who answered the phone at the law firm, said Kojima rents an office there but she knows nothing about him, including how he could be reached. “We haven’t heard from him in a while, a couple of months,” she said.

The next largest contribution, according to the most recent records, came from Carl Lindner, a reclusive billionaire from Cincinnati, who gave $250,000. In 1988, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration fined one of Lindner’s companies, the John Morrell meatpacker, $4.3 million for safety violations, a record amount at that time.

Here’s how the dinner worked:

--For $1,500, a contributor got a seat at a table for 10, dinner and desert.

--Buy up a whole table, for $20,000--at a premium over the cost of 10 individual tickets at $1,500 each--and with it came lunch for two at the vice president’s mansion, breakfast for two with Republican leaders of the House and Senate and a choice of a ticket for two to a White House reception or to a reception hosted by the Cabinet.

--Buy two tables--$40,000--and givers received all of the above and a ticket for two to attend a reception at the Capitol with Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole of Kansas.

--$92,000 captured all of these prizes, and a photo with Bush.

The food was contributed by various industries. “We get the beef from the beef industry, the flowers from the rose growers,” said a Republican consultant who helped organize the dinner.

Dessert was served after Bush spoke.

“It gives the people who want to, the chance to work the room and schmooze,” the consultant said. “That’s when the dinner becomes a working dinner.”

Federal election laws prohibit individuals from contributing more than $1,000 per election to any one candidate and more than $20,000 a year to parties that earmark it for individual campaigns. But there are no limits on the amount an individual can give to the political parties for such activities as get-out-the-vote operations, voter registration and some political advertising.

Corporate contributions to individual campaigns are illegal, but they are legal and commonplace when given to national and state political organizations for party-building activities.

In addition to the oil companies, other major contributors were members of the Wall Street and financial community, including Trust Company of the West, $20,000, and its chairman, Robert Day, $45,000. Morgan Stanley gave $40,000 and the accounting firm of Arthur Andersen, one of the largest contractors working for the Resolution Trust Corp., offered up $20,000.

The dinner also drew a large contingent from the high-tech communications industry. It is in the midst of a battle, which ultimately will be resolved by Congress and Administration officials, over control over cable television and related technologies.

This group included Ameritech, Bell Atlantic, NYNEX and Pacific Telesis, which each contributed $15,000.

On the other side of the debate, the Communications Satellite Corp. contributed $20,000.

Among the health care and insurance organizations, which have interest in the outcome of the budding debate over health insurance this year, the American International Group, a New York insurance company, contributed $40,000. Giving $20,000 each were the Cancer Treatment Centers of Barrington Hills, Ill., and the United States Surgical Corp. of Norwalk, Conn.