Bush Bites Back

By WALTER SHAPIRO

His first four campaign days of 1988 were all George Bush needed to turn the Republican race into a blood sport. Beginning in Washington with an artful response to the taunts of his principal rival, Bob Dole, and climaxing with a brawling, take-me-on-if-you-dare performance at a Des Moines debate, Bush appeared to have whipped his wimp image. But the Vice President may need all the moxie he can muster, since he suddenly found himself bushwhacked over an issue he hoped had been forgotten: his role in the Iran-contra scandal. The fusillade of what-did-he-really-know charges came mainly from the press, but it was Alexander Haig who put them in sharp political focus when he asked during the debate, "If you can't answer your friends, what in heaven's name is going to happen next November if you are our standard-bearer?"

Moments later Bush turned on Haig with the kind of ferocity that once gave Dole a reputation as a political hatchet man. "Let me turn it around -- what did you tell Nixon during Watergate?" the Vice President jabbed, referring to Haig's service in the White House bunker during the final days. The constricting format of the debate soon forced the Republican contenders to move on to far less electric issues. But the image lingered: Bush lashing out.

And so, in the final month before the 1988 voting actually begins, Bush has clearly become the dominant -- indeed, virtually the only -- issue of the Republican campaign. That is fine with Dole, who wisecracked his way through the debate and tried to cement his image as a just-folks neighbor from Kansas. He felt no political need to further provoke Bush; his sardonic jabs earlier in the week had been enough to move the race toward a two-man showdown.

Gone now is the pretense that the G.O.P. combatants will abide by Ronald Reagan's cherished Eleventh Commandment: "Thou shalt not speak ill of fellow Republicans." With Iranscam taking some of the air out of his heir-apparent appeal, Bush must continue to prove that he can be a candidate of rough-and- tumble as well as resume. Dole's efforts to project smiling serenity never last long; his style is attack, and sarcasm his weapon. As a result, the race has become a sometimes angry clash of personalities.

Although Bush polls better nationwide, Dole is leading in Iowa. A TIME poll of probable Feb. 8 Iowa caucus attendees, conducted last week, puts Dole ahead of Bush 40% to 30%, even though Bush leads Dole 49% to 24% nationwide among those likely to vote Republican. Bush handily tops Dole nationwide on the question of who has more experience and who would be good in an international crisis, but Dole gets higher marks for showing strong leadership. For the moment, the other four Republicans in the race are reduced to praying for a double knockout. In Iowa, none has more than 6%.

The revived debate over Bush's knowledge of the Iran deal challenges the central thesis of his campaign: his loyal service as Reagan's "co-pilot." For more than a year, Bush has clung to the classic Reagan defense: ignorance. The Vice President has insisted that although he supported the arms sales, it was only in late 1986, after the story had broken publicly, that he learned they were little more than a sordid attempt to trade for hostages, and that profits were diverted to help the Nicaraguan contras. Bush was left relatively unscarred by both the Tower commission and the reports of the congressional committees, which portrayed him as a bit player. It was not a heroic image for the Vice President, but it provided a degree of political safety.

That defense was undermined last week when a story in the Washington Post (reprinted on Page One of the Des Moines Register) challenged the plausibility of Bush's denials. There were no dramatic revelations, just an elaboration of the circumstantial evidence that Bush was at too many meetings not to have sensed what was really happening. The fire storm caught Bush's top aides by surprise. "He's saying the same things Reagan said," argued one adviser. "Why shouldn't people believe him?"

That captures the inherent weakness of Bush's position. Unlike anyone else in the Iran-contra affair, the Vice President is bucking for a promotion. His problems are not based on legal culpability, although he will provide sworn testimony to the staff of Independent Counsel Lawrence Walsh early this week. The issues in Bush's case are judgment and veracity. If he was as close to the President as he claims, why did he not recognize the warning signs (evident in the notes of his own meetings) of what was clearly an arms-for-hostages deal? As the proud author of the Administration's tough anti-terrorism policy, how could he have let the President be led into violating a central tenet of that policy, a refusal to make deals with hostage takers? Even his claimed ignorance is a pallid excuse, since it suggests, as Haig put it in an earlier debate, that Bush was not the plane's copilot, but merely "back in economy class."

The day before the Iowa debate, Bush's staff persuaded him to face the press in an impromptu news conference. The scene conveyed as much as the evasive answers: Bush cornered by a knot of reporters, undeterred by the almost arctic temperatures. For 15 minutes he challenged the premise of many questions and repeatedly pleaded a failure to remember. He staunchly refused to discuss what advice he had given the President, although he has portrayed himself at times as a solid supporter of the arms-to-Iran fiasco and at other times as a man who expressed some private reservations.

Dole, who campaigned most of the week in New Hampshire, was by contrast the happy warrior. Every stop provided him with a new opportunity to needle Bush. Nothing too sharp, of course, because Dole knows he must be careful about his own image. "We don't want any of that hatchet stuff," he says with a not- quite-disarming smile. Still, Dole remains incorrigible. Even his blandest remarks about the Vice President have an edge. "George Bush and I have a lot in common," Dole said. Pause. "We're about the same height." Even when Dole claims that Bush is a friend, he cannot resist adding, "the last time I checked."

The Kansas Senator's stump speech is an artful example of invective by indirection. Dole frequently boasts, "I can work with the Congress." (In contrast to guess who?) "I helped save the Social Security system in 1983." (Where was Bush?) "I played a leading role in cutting taxes in 1981." (Bush was on the sidelines.) "I've got a record, not a resume." (Point made.)

But Bush was acting like a candidate whose New Year's resolution was never to turn the other cheek. "I'm not sure that being in Congress all your life is part of the answer," Bush said in Washington. "I think it may be part of the problem." His message to Dole: "So tell him to get off my back. He's just begun to see the Silkworms coming across his bow."

The Vice President launched a sneaky missile in the debate when he challenged his rivals to release their tax returns. Dole was the target; Bush aides estimate he and his wife Elizabeth had combined 1986 incomes of close to $600,000. If true, this figure might undercut Dole's pleas to Iowa voters to regard him as "one of us."

Far more potent, though, is the controversy over Bush's Iran-contra role. It provides a rare window on how the Vice President performs when he is close to the Oval Office. Before the debate, a few Bush strategists were arguing with little success that the Vice President should offer a public apology. The , failure of any Republican to press the issue during the Friday night debate renewed hopes that he might ride out the storm. But if Bush is the nominee, it is an issue the Democrats are sure to revive in the fall.

CHART: TEXT NOT AVAILABLE

CREDIT: TIME Chart by Joe Lertola

CAPTION: Who is your first choice as the Republican presidential candidate?

DESCRIPTION: strength of George Bush and Robert Dole among likely Republican voters nationwide and in Iowa. Color illustration: Red and purple elephants in tug of war.

With reporting by David Beckwith with Bush and Hays Gorey with Dole