
        Dole Dumps an Old Friend and Lies About His Finances        

                        by J. Orlin Grabbe

        Every day Bob Dole looks more and more like Bill Clinton. There 
are differences, to be sure:  Dole is not a coke-head.

        Then there is that matter of taxes.  But if the Republicans
are serious about cutting them, they can do just as well without Bob
Dole.  In 1983 Newt Gingrich called Bob Dole "the tax collector for
the welfare state".

        The similarities between Dole and Clinton relate to personal and 
political finances, lying, and the ready disposal of old friends.  This was 
highlighted last night (August 20) on ABC's Nightline with Ted Koppel, 
which carried an investigative report by Brian Ross.

        The story concerned charges brought by David Owen, former
Kansas Lieutenant Governor who became Dole's right-hand man and financial  
manager.  David Owen managed Dole's 1974 and 1980 Senate campaigns. 

        David who? Dole says he doesn't remember that he and Owen were 
friends. Dole says he doesn't remember having knowledge of financial 
transactions in his wife's supposedly "blind trust". Bob Dole says he didn't 
know a thing about how campaign money was being collected on his behalf.
Like Bill Clinton, he didn't see and can't recall.

        But Bob Dole is lying, and David Owen is telling the truth.
In fact, evidence for this was collected in a joint Justice Dept./FBI 
investigation conducted in 1988.  The investigation was initiated by
George Bush when Dole was running against Bush for the 1988 Presidential
nomination.  Since the FBI has recently proven so liberal with the dispersal 
of its "confidential" information, perhaps they would consider making public
these records also?

        David Owen resigned on Jan. 14, 1988, as national finance
co-chairman of Dole's 1988 Presidential campaign, because of questions
relating to Elizabeth Dole's blind trust.  Owen was the trust's financial
advisor when the trust bought and sold a building in Kansas City during
1986.  Owen was driving Dole through the neighborhood one day, when Dole
said, "I understand we own a building here."  Then Owen got word to sell  
the building because of a coming change in the capital gains tax rate. The 
trust was never actually "blind".  Knight-Ridder reported at the time that 
the transaction netted $250,000 for the Elizabeth Dole trust.  

        EDP Enterprises, a company run by Dole's former aide John Palmer, 
served as intermediary in the sale.  "In January 1986, 11 months before 
the sale, EDP received a $26 million government contract through a Small
Business Administration program to aid minority businesses.  The contract
was to provide food services at the Fort Leonard Wood Army base in Missouri.
Last weekend Dole publicly acknowledged that he urged the SBA to award the
contract to Palmer's firm.  Yesterday, however, he said, 'I really didn't
do very much.  I was asked to make a phone call, and I wouldn't do it'"
(*Washington Post*, January 15, 1988).
        
        The loyal Owen lied about Dole's knowledge of the building purchase 
and sale to protect his friend.  Owen went to prison.  Dole, meanwhile, had 
profited enormously from Owen's financial expertise and the management of 
his campaigns for Senator.  But suddenly Dole claimed he hardly knew Owen.    

        Similarly in 1996 Bob Dole claimed to know nothing about the 
innovative way to raise funds practiced by the Chairman of Aqua-Leisure 
Industries, Simon Fireman, who was Dole's national vice-chairman for finance.  
The "company's executive assistant handed some workers stacks of $100 bills 
last year. Then they were told to return with checks made out to 'Dole for 
President'" (*Kansas City Star*, April 21, 1996).  Such practices are called
"laundering campaign contributions".

        Similar examples of campaign laundering may be found in Bob Dole's 
Skeleton Closet, located at http://www.realchange.org/dole.htm#launder.

        Dole has little more regard for the truth than he does with 
campaign finance limitations.  The 1996 Dole campaign paid New York-based 
Campaign Tel $1 million to make phoney phone calls smearing his opponents--
sheer falsehoods, such as saying the Iowa Farm Bureau had passed a 
resolution opposing the Forbes flat tax.

        Someone should really ask Dole about that Fifth Column packet he 
got, the one that induced him to resign his position as Senate Majority 
Leader in June 1996.  (And the packet didn't even discuss Elizabeth's 
foreign bank account.)

August 21, 1996
Web Page: http://www.aci.net/kalliste/



