Improprieties Alleged Against Gore 2000 Chief

WASHINGTON — As head of the U.S. pavilion at last year’s World Exposition in Portugal, Vice President Al Gore’s campaign chairman, Tony Coelho, approved “questionable payments” to contractors and oversaw an operation marked by overspending, lax management, and hiring of relatives, according to a State Department audit.

A report by the Office of Inspector General cites improper use of free airline tickets, luxury cars and apartments provided for the taxpayer-funded exposition; the hiring of Coelho’s niece and two stepsons of ambassador to Portugal Gerald McGowan; and approval of excessive payments on contracts.

The Center for Public Integrity, a nonprofit watchdog group, released both the audit and its own report on Coelho’s tenure. The center said, for example, that Coelho stayed in an apartment in Portugal that cost $18,000 a month.

Coelho is not mentioned by name in the IG audit, which refers to him instead as the “commissioner general,” a title that gave him rank as an ambassador. On one occasion, the audit says, the commissioner general spent $800 for a chauffeur-driven Mercedes-Benz for himself--an “especially troublesome” expenditure, the report said, because “the U.S. pavilion had a fleet of six vans, which were underutilized.”

It detailed how Coelho pressed to have a contractor reimbursed $26,000 for travel, relocation and other expenses even though the contract didn’t call for such payment and government officials found no basis for the reimbursement.

Coelho, a Portuguese American former California congressman who now oversees Gore’s campaign, was tapped by the Clinton administration in 1996 to head the U.S. pavilion for Expo ’98 and to raise private funds to build and run it. The expo ran during the summer of 1998 on Lisbon’s riverfront and drew 8 million visitors.

The audit report noted the American exhibit opened on time and was popular with visitors. And it blamed officials at the U.S. Information Agency for failing to give Coelho adequate guidance for planning and managing the exhibit. The IG report added that when Coelho was unable to raise enough private funds, he turned to government agencies, which paid $6.7 million--82% of the total cost.

The IG report did not recommend seeking reimbursement of any of the taxpayer funds. It said “specific culpability” for some of the deficiencies it uncovered “could not be readily determined because we were hampered by, among other factors, the destruction of certain records and the unavailability of some officials.”

In a letter in April responding to a draft of the report, Coelho said that it contained some “inaccurate” details and that he hadn’t been interviewed by investigators--though the audit report says he was interviewed.

Gore campaign officials have not seen the report and will have no comment, a spokesman told the Associated Press.

Coelho did not return phone calls. Stanley Brand, his attorney, said it is “unfair” for the report to “paint someone with a broad brush and not recommend further action.”

He said Coelho checked with USIA officials “every opportunity he had. . . . If USIA had told him not to do it that way, he wouldn’t have.” He said Coelho did not recommend his niece for a job, but gave her resume to his deputy and longtime associate Fred Hatfield, who hired her after checking the propriety with USIA officials.

The IG audit challenged USIA’s approval of the hiring Coelho’s niece, saying it was a violation of anti-nepotism regulations. The niece’s salary was $2,500 monthly--$900 a month more than the office manager was paid.

The center said Coelho ordered many of the exposition’s records destroyed before it closed in September 1998.