Clinton Scoffs at Mention of Spy Contact : Politics: He laughs at Rep. Dornan’s suggestion that candidate may have been visited by KGB in Moscow 20 years ago.

Gov. Bill Clinton on Monday night laughed off statements by Rep. Robert K. Dornan (R-Garden Grove) suggesting that Clinton, while on a student trip to Moscow 22 years ago, may have come in contact with intelligence officers of the former Soviet Union.

Dornan had said on the House floor that Clinton, who visited Moscow for several days during his winter vacation in December of 1969 and January of 1970, would probably have been in contact with Soviet tourist officials reporting to the KGB.

Clinton, appearing on CNN’s “Larry King Live” from a campaign stop in this north Florida city, said that his weeklong visit to Moscow was merely one stop on a 40-day European trip he took during a winter break from studies at Oxford University.

“I paid for my own trip; nobody paid for it,” Clinton said, adding: “I was just a student there, and as far as I know I didn’t meet with the KGB.”

While the Arkansas governor conceded that he could not know for certain whether he had encountered such Soviet agents, his laughing dismissal of the charges reinforced his campaign’s insistence earlier in the day that the statements were “silly and complete baloney.”

Dornan, himself, did not claim to have any proof of his allegation, but said it was an “absolute, hard-core fact of life during the Cold War” that American visitors to Moscow, particularly those who opposed U.S. involvement in Vietnam as Clinton did, would have been contacted by KGB officials.

Clinton campaign officials at first had ignored Dornan’s statements. But Monday the conservative Washington Times ran a front-page story repeating Dornan’s allegations. The Bush campaign then used that story as the basis for a statement faxed to news organizations around the country. Those statements then became grist for several radio talk shows across the country, sparking a raft of calls to Clinton’s Little Rock headquarters.

Meanwhile, FBI investigators began looking into the possibility that Clinton’s passport records, on file in the department’s archives, have been tampered with. The State Department’s Passport Office keeps files of citizens’ passport applications and any correspondence that relates to passports or citizenship. Interviews with American consular officers abroad may also be included. It does not keep files on where citizens travel.

Clinton said Monday night that he had learned only recently that such a file existed. Asked by King about rumors that he had at one point sought to renounce his citizenship, Clinton replied “never.”

“This old dog won’t hunt,” he said, blaming the rumors on opposition dirty tricks.

FBI officials declined to comment on the investigation. But another government source said investigators are seeking to determine who may have had access to the documents, which are stored at a federal warehouse in a Washington suburb.

A State Department official confirmed that the issue was turned over to the FBI soon after the Passport Office, following up on Freedom of Information Act requests from news organizations, discovered an apparent discrepancy between the contents of the file and an index of pages.

Lauter reported from Washington and Jehl from Florida. Times staff writers John-Thor Dahlburg in Moscow and Doyle McManus, Ron Ostrow and Robert Stewart in Washington contributed to this story.