THE CHEERFUL GIVER

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That wasn't West's only Washington coup. Clinton had named Opperman in 1993 to an advisory panel that, among its many tasks, would review the first government report to recommend broad copyright protection for West's kind of reproduction of publically available information. The idea was potentially a saving grace for Opperman, whose franchise was considered to be threatened by a 1991 Supreme Court decision stripping copyright claims from publishers who assemble nonoriginal work, such as the phone book. By early 1996 the author of the report--Patents commissioner Bruce Lehman--was promoting the Opperman-friendly copyright measure and seeking to incorporate it in an international treaty. The timing was terrific for Opperman, who was in the process of making a deal to sell his Minnesota-based company for $3.4 billion to Thomson Corp. of Canada. With its copyright protection more secure, West would be able to preserve its bargaining position. The merger, like others of its size, needed approval by the Justice Department.

That decision came amid an extraordinary convergence of events for West. In May of last year, even as Lehman was presenting the U.S. treaty proposal in Geneva, Opperman was co-chairing a $250,000 campaign event for Gore in Minneapolis. The next month, Opperman attended a fund-raising coffee at the White House with Clinton. Several weeks later he dined with the Gores in Nashville, Tennessee. By that time, he had something to celebrate: the Justice Department had conditionally approved the merger. (Justice officials say that the White House never interfered with its investigations of West Publishing.) By December, the Administration abandoned the treaty proposal after scientific users of online data assailed it. But Opperman had already cashed in.

It may not have been clear at the time, but Opperman gave as good as he got in the '96 campaign. With so much at stake in Washington, he was wary of openly financing Clinton's party, fund raisers say. So he and his wife gave little to the Democratic National Committee ($30,000), instead scattering a total of $329,000 across 10 state parties. "I've been a political activist way before I had business interests," says Opperman. "I don't think there's any convergence." But it's a pairing that has rarely failed him.

--With reporting by Melissa August and Wendy King/Washington