Clinton and Perot Assail Bush Over Economy in First Debate : Campaign: President pushes his attack on Democratic rival’s anti-war activities. Texas independent proves to be a skillful speaker in role as presidential spoiler.

President Bush pressed his attack on Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton’s anti-war activities as a college student, but the first presidential debate of the 1992 campaign was dominated Sunday night by assaults on Bush’s own economic record by Clinton and independent Ross Perot.

Bush, insisting the American economy is not as troubled as his opponents say, declared that his own “revival” plan would provide a significant boost, announced that if reelected he would name White House Chief of Staff James A. Baker III his “economic coordinator” and pledged to “protect the American taxpayer against the spend-and-tax Congress.”

“I don’t think we’re taxed too little,” he said. “I think we’re spending too much.”

But Clinton and Perot repeatedly dismissed such statements as traditional GOP rhetoric and suggested the President does not recognize the magnitude of the nation’s problems. “We’ve created a mess, don’t have much to show for it and we have got to fix it,” declared Perot.

Sunday’s nationally televised debate, the first of three scheduled to take place in the next eight days, was the first ever to include a candidate other than the GOP and Democratic nominees, and Perot proved to be both a formidable debater and a thorn in the President’s side. The Texas independent repeatedly attacked Bush’s record. And when the President raised Clinton’s Vietnam War activities, Perot turned the issue back on Bush:

“When you’re a senior official in the federal government spending billions of dollars of taxpayers’ money and you’re a mature individual and you make a mistake, then that was on our ticket,” Perot said, excusing Clinton’s conduct as that of a young man in his “formative years.”

Bush, sounding the theme of character and judgment on which he said the election should turn, contrasted his own World War II combat experience with Clinton’s record as a college student who traveled to Moscow on vacation and helped organize anti-war demonstrations abroad during the Vietnam War. “I think it’s wrong to demonstrate against your own country or organize demonstrations against your own country on foreign soil. I just think it’s wrong,” Bush said.

The President said he was not questioning the Arkansas governor’s patriotism, as he had seemed to do earlier in the campaign, but asked how Clinton could serve as commander-in-chief of the nation’s armed forces after helping to organize anti-war protests abroad.

Calling attention to his own World War II combat record, Bush said that while some might say Clinton’s behavior was “a youthful indiscretion, I was 19 or 20, flying off an aircraft carrier and that shaped me to be commander-in-chief of the armed forces and I’m sorry, but demonstrating--it’s not a question of patriotism. It’s a question of character and judgment.”

That led to the most emotion-charged moment of the debate:

Clinton charged that Bush was still impugning his patriotism and accused him of “McCarthyism.”

Bush tried to protest, but Clinton, speaking forcefully and gesticulating with both hands, said, “You even brought some right-wing congressmen into the White House to plot how to attack me for going to Russia in 1969-70 when over 50,000 Americans did. Now, I honor your service in World War II. I honor Mr. Perot’s service in uniform and the service of every man and woman who ever served, including Admiral (William J.) Crowe (Jr.), who was your chairman of the Joint Chiefs and who’s supporting me.

“But when Joe McCarthy went around this country attacking people’s patriotism, he was wrong. He was wrong. And a senator from Connecticut stood up to him named Prescott Bush. Your father was right to stand up to Joe McCarthy, you were wrong to attack my patriotism. I was opposed to the war but I loved my country and we need a President who will bring this country together, not divide it. We’ve had enough division.”

Clinton’s remark about Bush’s late father, Sen. Prescott Bush (R-Conn.), referred to a speech the senator made two years after taking office, on Dec. 1, 1954, in which he accused the Wisconsin senator of having caused “divisions among the American people because of his attitude and the attitude of his followers.”

The elder Bush played a leading role in the Senate in bringing down McCarthy, helping to rally fellow Republicans to oppose his red-baiting crusade.

All three candidates spoke forcefully and none appeared to have made a major gaffe. But Bush clearly was on the defensive much of the time, because both Perot and Clinton repeatedly assailed the record of his fours years as President and eight years as vice president.

Perot, answering the first question of the debate about what distinguishes him from the other two candidates, said he was unique because he was a candidate of neither major party and was put on the ballot by millions of people in 50 states.

“I go into this race as their servant and I belong to them,” he said. “So, this comes from the people.”

Clinton said, “The most important distinction in this campaign is that I represent real hope for change, a departure from trickle-down economics, a departure from tax-and-spend-economics, to invest in growth. . . . Tonight I have to say to the President: Mr. Bush, for 12 years, you’ve had it your way. You’ve had your chance and it didn’t work. It’s time to change.”

The President, saying experience distinguishes him from the other two candidates, declared, “I think we’ve dramatically changed the world . . . the changes are mind-boggling for world peace. Kids go to bed at night without the same fear of nuclear war. And change for change’s sake isn’t enough. We saw the message in the late ‘70s when we heard a lot about change, and what happened, that misery index went right through the roof.

“But, my economic program is the kind of change we want. And the way we’re going to get it done is we’re going to have a brand new Congress. A lot of them are thrown out because of all the scandals. I’ll sit down with them, Democrats and Republicans alike, and work for my agenda for American renewal, which represents real change.”

Bush said repeatedly that the American economy is not as troubled as his opponents say but stressed that his “revival” plan would provide a significant boost. His announcement of Baker’s new job as “economic coordinator” was meant as sign of commitment to action on this front.

While spurring economic growth, Bush said, “I am going to protect the American taxpayer against the spend-and-tax Congress. I don’t think we’re taxed too little. I think we’re spending too much.”

Bush hammered away at the elements of his economic plan, including tax incentives to promote investment, research and development and to help first-time home buyers.

Clinton countered with frequent attacks on Bush’s economic stewardship and recited assorted bleak statistics on employment, economic vitality and growth. As President, Clinton said, his “first priority” would be a major program to reverse erosion of good jobs. “This country desperately needs a jobs program,” he said, adding that defense cutbacks have cost 200,000 jobs in California alone.

Clinton cited job growth in his home state of Arkansas, which lately has exceeded the national average, as evidence that he has the answer to the problem.

“We’ve done it in Arkansas,” he said. “Give me the chance to create these kinds of jobs in America. We can do it.”

Perot said that “rebuilding the jobs base” was his great concern and that what to do about it is no mystery. If elected, he said, “We won’t even wait ‘till inauguration” to sit down with key members of Congress and major federal agencies to pull together the best features of the plans already devised to address the problem.

By the time he took office, he said, they would be “off to a flying start” putting them in action and getting results.

Making a “very carefully thought-through phase-over” of sagging defense industries to needed civilian production would be a chief objective, Perot said, with emphasis on making sure the nation did not wind up losing crucial manufacturing industry in the process.

In times of crisis, auto plants can be converted to defense production, he said, but “you can’t convert potato chips to airplanes in an emergency.”

Both Clinton and Perot called for deeper cuts in European military deployments than President Bush has recommended, saying that the savings is needed at home for investment in the domestic economy.

“I want to take every dollar we reduce from defense and put it in the technology for the 21st Century,” Clinton said.

Bush stressed that he already has a plan in place for easing the defense industry conversion. “Look at the job retraining programs we’re proposing,” he said, referring to a five-year, $10-billion package of training benefits he unveiled in August.

Of the nation’s economic course, he said, “. . . It’s not all that gloomy. We’re the United States. We’ve faced these problems before.”

Perot returned several times to the deficit as evidence that the current leadership’s approach to the nation’s economic problems is inadequate. He said debt is so extensive that it is making the United States vulnerable to financiers who could pull out their money and invest it in Germany or anywhere else if they can earn higher interest rates there.

He said he would “clean up” the fiscal disarray with a tough program that is “shared sacrifice,” including an escalating gasoline tax and cuts in Medicare costs.

“We have run up so much debt that time is no longer our friend,” said the Texas billionaire. “I’m doing this for your children. My greatest gift . . . will be to recreate the American dream for your children and grandchildren.”

Clinton, reeling off statistics, said he has a detailed plan for the problem and sharply insisted they were not merely old Democratic “tax-and-spend” approaches as Bush contended.

“Mr. Bush is trying to run against Lyndon Johnson and Jimmy Carter--everybody in the world but me,” he said.

Bush said that in considering the three candidates, voters should take into account who has the experience and proven record to do the job.

He touted his handling of the Persian Gulf War in 1990 and U.S. policy in Bosnia now as proof of his good judgment under pressure.

In deciding not to use American ground forces in the Yugoslav civil war, he said, “I learned something from Vietnam”--not to “put someone’s son and daughter” into combat unless the mission was clear and achievable and provisions for later withdrawal could be made.

Perot and Clinton agreed, although Clinton said further sanctions could be imposed on the Belgrade government to discourage its “ethnic cleansing” of Bosnian Muslims.

Perot insisted that he would be able to put his reform plans into action even though as an outsider, belonging to no party, he would have no power base in Washington. His source of clout, he said, would be “a unique mandate” he received from voters rather than from the traditional party process.

Tossing off one of many colorful remarks, he said that after he took office, lobbyists--”the guys who wear those thousand-dollar suits and alligator shoes”--will “be in the Smithsonian” Institution museum because they will have no further use in government.

Nelson reported from Washington, Jehl from St. Louis. Times staff writers David Lauter, Jonathan Peterson, Art Pine, James Risen and David Savage also contributed to this story.