TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/051391/0513100.000

Text File | 1992-08-28 | 10.5 KB | 220 lines

                                                                                NATION, Page 16

Fly Free Or Die


While Sununu stonewalls, TIME uncovers further evidence of ethics
violations stemming from his business-and-pleasure junkets

By DAN GOODGAME/WASHINGTON -- With reporting by Michael Duffy/
Washington and Rod Paul/Concord


    Most people who work at the White House treat an order
from the President as holy writ. So everyone expected quick
action when George Bush, embarrassed by news stories on the
freeloading travels of chief of staff John Sununu, directed him
to "get it all out" and make "full disclosure" of his expensive
trips aboard Air Force executive jets to ski resorts in Colorado
and to his home in New Hampshire.

    Instead, Sununu stonewalled. At Bush's insistence, he
issued a list of his White House travels, but it has proved to
be incomplete, inaccurate and misleading. It conceals crucial
information that TIME has obtained concerning at least four
family skiing vacations and a fifth trip to his New Hampshire
home that were financed by corporate interests -- in violation
of federal ethics laws. Sununu declined requests for interviews
about his travels, smugly assuring associates that if he simply
hunkered down and said nothing more, "this whole thing will blow
over.'' But Sununu's troubles are not going away just yet.
President Bush, who had earlier tried to defuse the matter by
suggesting that White House travel policies might need updating,
last week reversed himself and authorized White House counsel
Boyden Gray to investigate whether Sununu has violated existing
travel and ethics rules.

    The situation was clearly irritating to Bush, who at
week's end suffered a heartbeat irregularity that is often
associated with stress. Stricken with shortness of breath while
jogging at Camp David, the President was rushed to Bethesda
Naval Hospital, where initial tests showed no serious heart
damage. The incident took the spotlight off the high-flying
chief of staff -- but only momentarily.

    Though junketing on government aircraft is a common
practice among high Washington officials, including many members
of Congress, it does not sit well with the public at a time of
recession, rising taxes and budgetary belt tightening. Eyebrows
were raised last week, for example, when CBS News reported that
Vice President Dan Quayle and Transportation Secretary Samuel
Skinner had taken an Air Force execujet to Georgia for a golf
weekend that cost taxpayers an estimated $27,000.

    But Sununu's conduct raises questions that go far beyond
the use of taxpayer-funded planes and invites a new twist on
the New Hampshire motto: LIVE FREE OR DIE. Since he joined the
Bush Administration, Sununu and his family have taken at least
four ski trips and one trip home to New England that were
financed in large part by corporate interests. Yet federal law
forbids officials to accept valuable gifts, including travel and
recreation, except from certain charitable and educational
organizations. Items:



    THE CHRISTA MCAULIFFE SABBATICAL FOUNDATION, named after
the New Hampshire schoolteacher killed in the 1986 explosion of
the space shuttle Challenger, raises money to give teachers time
off to pursue further studies. The foundation, which was
organized by Sununu in 1986, holds a four-day fund-raising ski
event each February at the Waterville Valley Resort in New
Hampshire. For the past three years, Sununu and unidentified
members of his family have flown to the event on Air Force
executive jets. The Su nunus in 1989 flew up on Air Force Two
with Vice President Quayle. In response to written questions
submitted by TIME to the chief of staff, a Sununu aide explained
that his boss paid no reimbursement to the government because
he and his family were Quayle's "guests." In 1990 and 1991 Sunu
nu took his own jet and deemed the ski weekends to be "official
business" for himself; the government was reimbursed $845 in
1990 and $4,430 in 1991 for the equivalent of commercial coach
airfares for his wife and children.

    An aide to Sununu claimed that the McAuliffe Foundation
paid for the family's airfare. But the organization's books,
examined by TIME, show no such payment. Thomas Corcoran,
president of the Waterville Valley Resort, told TIME he wrote
checks for the airfare, lodging and expenses of the Sununu
family and other "celebrity" skiers out of a separate account
funded by corporate sponsors of the McAuliffe event. Among them:
Coca-Cola, McDonald's and Siemens Nixdorf, the electronics firm
that was awarded a $7 million computer contract by the state of
New Hampshire while Sununu was Governor in 1988.



    SKI MAGAZINE and its parent company, Times Mirror, invited
Sununu to ski and speak at its three-day gathering in Aspen,
Colo., in December 1990. As usual, Sunu nu classified this trip
as official business and flew out on an Air Force jet. Ski
magazine officials, however, say they paid for lodging, meals
and ski passes for Sununu and his wife. As reported by TIME last
week, Sununu's office billed a ski-industry lobbying group, the
American Ski Federation, $802 for Nancy Sununu's airfare. A
Sununu aide later explained that the payments by Ski and the Ski
Federation were "billing errors" that would be corrected by
having the White House reimburse these groups and transferring
the bills to the SIA Ski Educational Foundation, an educational
organization from which Su nunu would normally be allowed to
receive gifts of travel and recreation. Some Administration
lawyers, however, question whether Sununu is allowed to accept a
skiing-speaking invitation from a profitmaking corporation, Ski
magazine, then cover for it by billing his expenses
retroactively to an educational foundation.



    THE EAGLE-TRIBUNE of Lawrence, Mass., located only 10
miles from Sununu's home in Salem, N.H., invited the chief of
staff to speak at a newspaper banquet in June 1990. Sununu
declared the trip to be official business and flew to Lawrence
on an Air Force jet, accompanied by an undisclosed number of his
family members. The newspaper, according to one of its editors,
reimbursed the government $1,920 for the family's airfares.

    Apart from the apparent impropriety of some of his travel
arrangements, Sunu nu may be involved in a conflict of interest
stemming from efforts to help a major ski developer. During his
first Ski magazine weekend, in Vail, Colo., in 1989, Sununu was
joined by an old political associate, Philip T. Gravink, who
runs the Loon Mountain ski resort in New Hampshire's White
Mountain National Forest. Gravink was a contributor to Sununu's
political campaigns and let Sununu and his family ski for free
when Sununu was Governor. At the time of the Vail event,
Gravink had an application pending with the U.S. Forest Service
and the Environmental Protection Agency to nearly double the
size of his resort, and asked Sununu's counsel on how to speed
the process. Sununu helped persuade Gravink that, as the
developer later told the Manchester Union Leader, "our problem
isn't environmental, it's political."

    Upon his return from Vail, Gravink wrote a letter to
Sununu at the White House, describing the expansion he wanted.
Sununu passed the letter to the EPA and the Forest Service and
followed up with what one well-informed Washington official
described as "a lot of bullying and bluster" that "made clear
what outcome the White House wanted in this case."

    An aide to Sununu denied that any pressure was exerted on
Gravink's behalf. Yet according to Ned Therrien, acting
supervisor of the White Mountain National Forest, "Sununu has
called several times and asked for updates on the progress" on
Loon Mountain's application. Therrien emphasizes that Sununu
only pressed for speedy action on the matter and did not
specifically call for its approval. But Sunu nu's favorable view
of the project is a matter of public record. "Well-done,
environmentally safe growth should be allowed," Sununu said in
a January 1990 interview with the Union Leader. He added that
"from what I know," Loon Mountain's proposed expansion "falls
into that category." It is mildly ironic that one of the
founders of the Loon Mountain resort is Sununu's political idol,
Sherman Adams, Dwight Eisenhower's former special assistant, who
was forced to resign that position in 1958 because he accepted
a vicuna coat and other gifts from a Boston industrialist.

    The controversy that continues to swirl around the chief
of staff presents his boss with a dilemma. Sununu has been
extremely useful to Bush as a lightning rod, absorbing political
heat that might otherwise burn a popular President. Now Sununu
is generating the heat and turning into a potential liability.
Aides say that Bush, while annoyed at Sununu's excesses,
continues to value his services. The President, they say, hopes
that Gray's investigation will allow Sununu to "correct" his
travel reimbursements and put the matter behind him. But that
can only happen if Sununu stops stonewalling and explains, fully
and publicly, the details of these junkets and the interests
that bankrolled them.


________________________________________________________________
CHARGE IT TO THE TAXPAYER

    John Sununu is not the only high-living official in
Washington. After a dose of austerity under Jimmy Carter, fancy
cars and first-class travel are back for upper levels of the
Executive Branch. Meanwhile members of Congress have their perks,
junkets and expense accounts, which last year averaged $150,000.
A sampler:


    LIMOUSINES

    Full-time cars and drivers are provided to all Cabinet
Secretaries and House and Senate leaders. Agency heads and their
deputies have to settle for door-to-door limousine service when on
official business; ethics rules forbid private use. The vehicle of
choice is a Lincoln Town Car equipped with a cellular phone.

    JUNKETS

    Members of the Administration and Congress can go globe-
trotting as much as they please. A case in point: a 100-member
delegation of congressional representatives, their spouses, aides
and guests are preparing to take a 10-day trip to the Paris Air
Show. Estimated cost to the taxpayers: as much as $1 million.

    AIR TRAVEL

    Government regulations require federal employees to fly coach
when using commercial aircraft, but few Cabinet Secretaries and
other higher-ups observe the rule. U.S. Trade Representative
Carla Hills, for example, logged 104 days of travel last year.
She flew first class on each trip.