Political Soap Opera

Why on earth were Virginia's two premier Democrats squaring off like rival schoolyard bullies? For one thing, Senator Charles Robb and Governor Douglas Wilder had resumed their battle for primacy in the political playground. But in creating what Robb called a "demolition derby," they also damaged their own futures and hurt their party on the eve of state legislative elections. And as leaders with reputations beyond Virginia, they embarrassed their already demoralized national party.

The latest feud between Robb and Wilder had its origin in a secret tape -- ostensibly sent to Robb by an anonymous donor -- of an intercepted cellular-phone conversation between Wilder and an ally. When Wilder denounced the eavesdropping caper, a transcript of the tape appeared in two newspapers. Robb responded by suspending three aides, pledging an investigation of his office and pleading for peace talks with Wilder.

Doubtless one reason for Robb's consternation is that some of his advisers had considered the tape a potential weapon against Wilder. Instead it became a boomerang. The conversation was intercepted in October 1988, while Wilder was still lieutenant governor and Robb was running for the Senate. Though allied in most campaigns, the two had also skirmished for years. In the taped conversation, Wilder pronounced Robb "finished" because of reports of his presence at cocaine parties in Virginia Beach. Talking about his own 1989 race for Governor, Wilder said, "I don't want his endorsement, don't need his endorsement."

Wrong on both counts. Robb won easily, and Wilder, ever flexible, used the new Senator's warm words of support in a campaign commercial. Meanwhile, the unsolicited tape showed up at Robb's office. Both federal and Virginia statutes prohibit covert intercepts as well as dissemination of their contents. Robb said he viewed the tape as "political gossip" rather than a legal land mine. In any event, he said, he had ordered the contents kept secret.

But in April a new flash point arose between Robb and Wilder. As NBC prepared a flimsy documentary on Robb's private behavior, including an alleged dalliance with a former Miss Virginia beauty queen, the Robb camp accused Wilder's crew of complicity in the muckraking. The apparent strategy was to paint the expose as resulting from a political vendetta. According to two sources familiar with the episode, two Robb associates -- his press secretary, Steven Johnson, and the political director of Robb's Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, Robert Watson -- briefed a Washington Post reporter on the tape's contents about two months ago. But the ground rules prohibited the paper's direct use of the information at that time.

What happened next is still unclear, but Robb's people became uneasy about having the tape and destroyed it. A transcript survived, however, as did at least one other copy of the tape made by the original eavesdropper. The Richmond gossip circuit became aware of the material, causing Wilder, while on a trip to Europe, to break the story in a phone interview with the Post. It was a shrewd ploy by the Governor, moving attention from the content of the tape to Robb's possession of it and portraying Wilder as the "victim" of a crime.