GOP Sent Condolences to Communists : Diplomacy: Clinton’s message to North Korea echoes notes issued by Republican presidents upon deaths of Mao Tse-tung and Stalin.

When President Clinton expressed condolences to the North Korean people for the death Friday of their president, Kim Il Sung, Republicans lambasted him for insensitivity to the families of the 54,000 Americans killed in the Korean War.

“I don’t think we sent any condolences when Mao Tse-tung died,” sniffed Rep. Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) this week.

But the record shows that is not true. In fact, Gingrich and some other Republicans such as Sen. Bob Dole (R-Kan.) are attacking the Democratic President for an action quite similar to what their own party did when it occupied the White House at the time of Mao Tse-tung’s death.

Files obtained by The Times from the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library indicate that on Sept. 9, 1976, the day Mao died, the Republican President sent his condolences for the death of the Chinese leader--whose troops fought side by side with Kim Il Sung’s army against American forces in the 1950-53 Korean War.

“Mrs. Ford joins me in extending to you our deepest sympathy on the death of Chairman Mao Tsetung,” wrote the Republican President in a signed note on White House stationery. “Chairman Mao had a profound impact on his era. . . . Please accept my personal condolences.”

In a sense, Ford’s condolences concerning Mao went one step further than Clinton’s. They were addressed directly to “Madame Mao”--that is, Jiang Qing, then a political leader of the ultra-leftist, anti-American forces in Beijing.

Thus, they gave a dollop of White House recognition to Mao’s wife, at a time when she and her allies, known as the “Gang of Four,” were striving to consolidate control of the Chinese leadership. (They failed, and a month after Mao’s death, she was imprisoned.)

If Clinton had followed Ford’s example, he might have addressed his condolences to Kim Jong Il, who is Kim Il Sung’s son. But he addressed his message to “the people of North Korea.”

Clinton’s condolence statement, issued Saturday, said in its entirety:

“On behalf of the people of the United States, I extend sincere condolences to the people of North Korea on the death of President Kim Il Sung. We appreciate his leadership in resuming the talks between our governments. We hope they will continue as appropriate.”

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Dole, who is now preparing a possible run for the 1996 Republican presidential nomination, has been the most determined and vehement critic of Clinton’s condolence message on Kim Il Sung’s death. But in 1976, at the time of Ford’s Mao Tse-tung condolence message, Dole was Ford’s vice presidential running mate.

Dole’s criticisms of Clinton have been picked up and rebroadcast by conservative talk-show host Rush Limbaugh.

“Perhaps President Clinton has forgotten that Kim Il Sung was responsible for the war that caused the loss of more than 54,000 American lives and 100,000 Americans wounded,” Dole declared last weekend.

In fact, Mao was at least arguably responsible for far more American deaths than his Korean counterpart. China intervened in the Korean War in October, 1950, at a time when Gen. Douglas MacArthur was driving North Korean forces toward the Yalu River border with China and American forces were widely thought to be within a few weeks of victory.

Well over half of America’s casualties in the Korean War took place after Mao’s forces entered the conflict.

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On Tuesday, Clarkson Hine, Dole’s press secretary, insisted that there were “significant differences” between Ford’s condolences and Clinton’s.

“First, unlike President Ford, President Clinton took the liberty of extending his condolences ‘on behalf of the American people,’ ” Hine said. “If President Clinton wants to extend his personal condolences, Sen. Dole has no quarrel with that. The problem is that President Clinton signed the name of every American to the Kim Il Sung sympathy card. Second, China had already taken positive, concrete steps to improve relations.”

Following Dole’s criticisms, Clinton defended his message, saying that his condolence note concerning Kim Il Sung was “to the point and appropriate and very much in the interest of the United States.”

Democratic Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) pointed out Tuesday that the Eisenhower Administration sent its own condolences after the death of another brutal leader--Josef Stalin, who died in 1953.