Bush Cites Trust; Clinton Upbeat : Republican: The President hammers away at character issue as he raises new questions about rival’s ROTC documents.

With his bid for reelection down to its penultimate day, President Bush rushed Sunday from the Midwest to the Northeast to sound a closing-hours appeal for Americans to cast their votes on the basis of trust.

Sensing opportunity in the debate over integrity, Bush fended off questions about his own role in the Iran-Contra scandal and instead demanded that voters scrutinize evidence of Clinton’s ambition, his alleged duplicity and his Vietnam-era draft record.

He distilled that message into pure form at a nighttime rally in a packed airplane hangar, saying that the choice facing the nation on Tuesday is “who best to accept the trust of the American people to be in that Oval Office?”

But a closely watched national poll showed his own support slipping, and Bush, who must still pick up support in states crucial to his comeback hopes, also went out of his way throughout the day to call attention to a new charge of abuse related to Clinton’s records.

First in a Michigan sports arena and then in this small Connecticut town, Bush thundered with outrage about the sworn claim by a former military officer that Clinton allies had acted in 1974 to seize records about the Democratic candidate’s military draft history.

As the Oakland County, Mich., arena rocked with chants of “No way, Bill!” the President, whose prospects rest heavily on the industrial state, blamed the alleged seizure of Reserve Officer Training Corps records on Clinton’s “friends and special connections.” He demanded anew that the Democrat “level with the American people” about the steps he took to avoid the military draft.

An account of the incident first appeared in Saturday’s editions of the Washington Times, and the officer, retired Army Lt. Col. Don Cake, signed an affidavit at the request of Bush aides Saturday evening.

The GOP knew of Cake’s allegations in September and tried to interest several news organizations, including The Times, in them. The Times interviewed Cake but could not corroborate key elements of his story.

That Bush chose to give the claims prominence in the waning days of his campaign reflected his continuing need to highlight the traits that he contends render his rival unqualified for high office. “The bottom line is we simply can’t take the risk on Gov. Clinton,” the President shouted from a podium placed beneath a banner that proclaimed: “Bush Wins!”

“His experience and character simply do not match the criterion for the Oval Office.”

In the affidavit, which Bush campaign aides released as Bush finished his speech in Auburn Hills, Mich., Cake said two co-workers told him in late 1973 or early 1974 that two Clinton representatives had demanded and eventually taken from the office Clinton’s ROTC file. Cake admits he did not see the alleged Clinton representatives, and says one of the people who told him this was his boss at the time, Col. Guy Tutwiler--then the commander of the university’s ROTC program.

Last week, The Times contacted Tutwiler, a Republican who is supporting Bush. He denied Cake’s story, although he said he wished it were true. The retired colonel said the only document he remembered involving Clinton was the Dec. 3, 1969, letter to the ROTC in which he backed out of his commitment. Tutwiler said he sent that letter to his commanding general at Ft. Riley in Kansas, on his own initiative, because he considered it politically sensitive. This was in 1974, he said, just as Clinton was involved in his first political campaign, a losing effort to win a seat in Congress.

As Bush flew from Wisconsin to Michigan to Connecticut and on to New Jersey, he repeated in every rally and television interview what has become his familiar refrain: that integrity should matter more than any other trait in the quest for the White House.

With internal Republican polls suggesting that many Americans have not yet finally decided how to cast their votes, White House strategists said that the appeal was intended to overcome Clinton’s lead by persuading his supporters to decide, at the last minute, that they “better not” vote for him.

Bush found his offensive somewhat stalled, however, during an uncomfortable interview on CNN in which he met with a series of questions about his role in the Iran-Contra scandal. That topic has been the focus of Clinton’s counterattack on character issues, and an uncharacteristically testy Bush maintained a bitter silence during commercial breaks.

In the interview, Bush expressed displeasure with the decision of special prosecutor Lawrence E. Walsh to issue a second indictment of former Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger only four days before the election. That indictment included disclosure of a note Weinberger drafted at the height of the affair, listing Bush as supporting the initiative to swap arms for hostages. The President, whose previous accounts appeared to be contradicted by the note, did not rule out the prospect of firing the special prosecutor if reelected.

“I am not going to discuss what I’ll do about that,” Bush said. But “I think it’s been a big witch hunt. . . .”

A CNN/USA Today tracking poll, which earlier in the week showed the President closing to just one percentage point behind Clinton and sparked hope in the Bush camp, late Sunday showed Clinton’s lead widening to 44% to 36%.

Bush aides emphasized, however, that other polls showed the race holding steady at the national level, and they said that internal polling in key states showed the President to be making gains in Georgia, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. Campaign chairman Robert M. Teeter said that he still believes Bush stands “a very good chance” of winning.

The President himself was clearly weary in the final hours of what will be a nonstop nine-day campaign blitz. But he gave no public hint of any internal despair.

But as his aides weighed polls and other evidence to plan for a final day of campaigning, they expressed uneasiness at the signs that the race might no longer be tightening.

In Michigan, where a Detroit News poll showed Clinton holding a 10-point lead, GOP strategists who have regarded a victory in the state as crucial to the Bush electoral battle plan said that their task there has become unexpectedly difficult. They said that they hope Bush victories in states such as Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Kentucky and Tennessee--all of which have been leaning toward Clinton--could help to make amends should Bush fall short in a state he had hoped would end up in his column.

But the tentative road map for Bush’s final day on the campaign trail today served to underscore how little room he has for error. With Clinton holding apparently insurmountable leads in California, New York and Illinois, all-but-final plans call for Bush to try to shore up his own prospects in the battlegrounds of Ohio, New Jersey and Texas, while aiming also at upsets in Pennsylvania, Kentucky and Louisiana.

As he braced for that final blitz, Bush on Sunday maintained an oddly languid public pace, appearing at just two rallies over the course of the day. But aboard Air Force One and at each stop, he gave interviews to local television journalists at an almost nonstop pace.

At the rallies, however, Bush remained relentlessly defiant. Seizing on reports that Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein is planning a massive street party to celebrate his ouster, Bush inspired patriotic eruptions both in Michigan and Connecticut as he vowed once again to confound his wartime foe.

“They are not going to have a demonstration in Baghdad, because they’re going to have to contend with me for four more years,” he said.

Bush voiced similar disdain for Clinton, whom he suggested had plans to play his own saxophone in an inaugural procession. “Hold the phone, Bill,” he counseled his younger rival in an appearance in Auburn Hills. “You are not going to be in the White House, and you are not going to have that parade.”

Today on the Trail . . .

Gov. Bill Clinton campaigns in Philadelphia, Cleveland, Romulus, Mich., St. Louis, Paducah, Ky., Ft. Worth and McAllen, Tex., Albuquerque and Denver.

President Bush campaigns in Madison, N.J., Philadelphia, Akron, Ohio, Louisville, Ky., Baton Rouge, La., and Houston.

Ross Perot campaigns in Dallas and Ft. Worth.

TELEVISION

Clinton is a guest on MTV’s “Choose or Lose: The Home Stretch” at 8 p.m. PST.

Clinton airs a 30-minute commercial on NBC at 8 p.m. PST, CBS at 8:30 p.m. PST and ABC at 10:30 p.m. PST.

Perot airs a 30-minute commercial on CBS at 8 p.m. PST, a 30-minute commercial on ABC at 10 p.m. PST and an hourlong commercial on NBC at 10 p.m. PST.