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- GRAPEVINE, Page 11
-
-
- By JOHN GREENWALD
-
- Republican Blame Game
-
- Even as President Bush fought for his political life last
- week, the G.O.P. was dissolving into fratricidal strife. In
- conversations with reporters aboard Bush's campaign train,
- moderate Republicans and White House aides fingered
- conservatives PATRICK BUCHANAN, Jack Kemp and Bill Bennett for
- causing the President's political problems. Outraged
- conservatives struck back the same day. "All three men are
- crisscrossing the country attempting to save the Bush campaign
- . . . whose spokesmen are attacking them," right-wing activist
- Brent Bozell complained in a letter to White House chief of
- staff James Baker. But even before the blame game started,
- Bozell and fellow activists had privately invited top
- conservatives to meet late this week to plot the movement's
- recovery from a Bush defeat.
-
- Japan's Fears About Clinton
-
- Many Japanese officials and industrialists know Bill
- Clinton from his trade visits to Tokyo on behalf of Arkansas and
- consider him, in the words of a senior diplomat, "relatively
- sensible on trade -- especially for a Democrat." But the
- Japanese are worried that CLINTON'S CHINA POLICY, which he
- indicates will focus on human rights, might isolate Beijing.
- That could put Japan's Chinese investments at risk and disrupt
- trade between the two Asian countries.
-
- California, Here We Come
-
- Want a preview of how fiercely insurance companies might
- battle Bill Clinton's health-care proposals? Look at the way
- national insurers are pouring cash into California to defeat
- PROPOSITION 166, which would require all employers to provide
- health coverage for workers. Fearing that medical costs could
- billow under the plan, insurance firms with headquarters outside
- the state have put up more than 80% of the $2.3 million that
- opponents have raised to defeat it. The companies also fear that
- Clinton's proposal for a government-run program for employees
- not covered at work could lead to federal control of health
- insurance. Frets one executive about the Clinton plan: "It's the
- camel's nose under the tent."
-
- Woman of the House
-
- Voters are not the only ones who want to throw the bums
- out. Departing members of Congress can't leave fast enough for
- House Speaker Tom Foley's wife Heather, who serves as her
- husband's unpaid chief of staff. With more than 120 new faces
- expected next year, HEATHER FOLEY has angered members who lost
- primary elections or who plan to retire by ordering them to
- clean out their desks fast. She is worried that the House
- telephone system cannot handle calls for newcomers and
- old-timers alike.
-
- Spy vs. Spy
-
- The exchange spooked CIA officials who have long suspected
- that the Soviet Union had a spy in the agency during the cold
- war. Speaking to an American delegation in Moscow recently, a
- Russian intelligence officer revealed intimate knowledge of a
- 1974 mission in which the U.S. salvage ship GLOMAR EXPLORER
- raised a sunken Soviet nuclear submarine in the central Pacific.
- American experts said such knowledge could only have come from
- a classified film of the supersecret operation. The still
- unanswered question: How did Moscow get the film?
-
- CAMPAIGN QUIZ
-
- Q The whirlwind round of debates produced such memorable
- one-liners as "I'm all ears" (Ross Perot) and "If I make a
- mistake, I admit it" (George Bush). Which candidates made these
- less-often-repeated statements?
-
-
- A "You can read my plan ... I will not raise taxes on the
- middle class to pay for these programs."
-
-
- B "I do not intend to spend one minute of one day thinking
- about re-election."
-
-
- C "Remember the question: `Are you better off?' "
-
-
- D "Nobody's ever criticized me for not having strong
- beliefs."
-
-
-
- A
-
-
- A Bill Clinton
-
-
- B Ross Perot
-
-
- C George Bush
-
-
- D Dan Quayle
-
-
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-