Activist Defies Efforts to Stop Anti-Clinton Ad : Politics: Creator of Willie Horton footage dismisses President’s characterization of commercial as ‘filthy.’

Despite President Bush’s efforts to stop him, a defiant conservative activist forged ahead Wednesday with attempts to air a TV ad linking Democratic presidential nominee Bill Clinton to a former nightclub singer who claims he had a lengthy affair with her.

Floyd G. Brown, whose Willie Horton ad is among the best remembered of the 1988 campaign, dismissed Bush’s effort to brand his latest anti-Clinton commercial as “filthy” and reactivated a Nevada telephone number where callers can hear tapes of snippets of alleged conversations between Clinton and Genifer Flowers.

Brown, whose independent political action committee’s support for Bush has been heavily backed by California contributors, said he is pursuing his efforts because he is much more willing than the Bush campaign to engage its enemies.

David Bossie, executive director of Brown’s PAC, the Presidential Victory Committee, said Wednesday: “We will be on the air very soon. We’re not going to announce anything until we’re already on the air because last time political pressure came to bear,” which he contended stopped the ad from being broadcast.

Brown, 31, whose baby face belies his hard-slugging tactics, helped another conservative group produce the Willie Horton commercial, which attacked Democrat Michael S. Dukakis’ administration of Massachusetts’ prison furlough system in the 1988 presidential campaign.

Bush, the White House staff and GOP campaign officials went to unusual lengths Tuesday to disassociate themselves from Brown’s work and to block his efforts.

Clinton campaign officials had protested that while the President had denounced Brown’s campaign work, he was not taking legal action such as making a complaint to the Federal Election Commission. The Clinton camp suggested that the situation was a repeat of 1988, when Bush aides publicly condemned the Horton ad but did little legally to stop it--and, in fact, then vice presidential nominee Dan Quayle wrote letters praising the conservative producers of the commercial.

Bush on Tuesday ordered his reelection committee to urge the FEC to shut down all fund raising by the Presidential Victory Committee, the avowedly independent group headed by Brown. White House Chief of Staff Samuel K. Skinner also told reporters aboard Air Force One, as they flew to California, that the President had asked aides to look into the possibility of a lawsuit against Brown.

“We’ll do everything we can to stop any filthy campaign tactics,” Bush told the press Tuesday at a stop in Salinas.

“We consider this guy a political leper who is much more damaging to us than to our opposition,” Bobby R. Burchfield, general counsel of Bush-Quayle ‘92, said of Brown.

Brown’s efforts received a boost Tuesday in Dallas when District Court Judge David Cave lifted a temporary ban against the ad that was imposed Friday at Flowers’ request. She went to court complaining that she was being victimized by Brown’s use of the tapes of her alleged conversations with Clinton, which she had released at a news conference in January. Clinton has denied there was anything more than a casual friendship with Flowers, and news organizations have determined that the tapes were selectively edited.

Brown’s TV ad invites viewers to call a phone number to hear snippets of the alleged phone conversation, but an aide to Brown acknowledged Wednesday that the ad was not currently on the air. Cable stations, including Time Warner New York City Cable Group, have declined to broadcast the ad.

Robert Jacobs, general counsel of the cable firm, said the system refused to run the ad because it had been repudiated by Bush, the candidate the ad purports to support. The New York system was a prime outlet for Brown, who hoped to air the ad during the Democratic National Convention there.

Brown, who voiced confidence that some outlets would broadcast the ad, declined to identify them on grounds that this would lead to pressure from the Clinton forces to keep the ad off the air. As an indication of his confidence, the phone number in Nevada was reactivated Wednesday after being disconnected Tuesday.

The actions by Bush and his campaign also followed a CBS report Monday night that accused Brown of using “police state tactics” in seeking to develop material for another possible ad against Clinton.

The report concerned two investigators who were paid by Brown’s PAC to look into an alleged affair between Clinton and a woman who committed suicide 15 years ago. In the report, the sister of the woman called Brown and his aides “tricksters.” She said the investigators had burst into the hospital room of a man being treated for a stroke to question the dead woman’s mother about the suicide.

Reporters have been unable to substantiate any part of the allegation--contained in a letter from an anonymous source--that Clinton had had an affair with the suicide victim.

Brown himself, in an interview Tuesday, admitted that his own investigation had determined the allegation to be groundless.

In the interview, Brown said the President Victory Committee has raised about $750,000. FEC records show that, between Feb. 1 and May 31, the PAC had raised $679,751 from more than 300 contributors and spent $671,142, most of it on direct mail.

Brown’s largest California contributors include R.C. Follis of San Francisco, $5,000; C. Roy Carmichael, Vina, $2,150; Donald W. Crocker of Rolling Hills Estates, $2,000; Leland J. Houck of St. Helena, $1,000; R. H. Kreuber of Piedmont, $1,000; Lucille H. Larson of Coronado, $1,000; Patricia Shreter of Berkeley, $1,000; Rozene R. Supple of Palm Springs, $1,000; and Harvey von Wald of Hemet, $1,000.

Houston reported from Washington and Ostrow from New York. Staff writers James Gerstenzang and David Savage contributed to this article.