Mystery ‘Windfall’ Buys Ads on TV : American Independent Senate Candidate Is Beneficiary

A last minute flurry of expensive television commercials made by Edward B. Vallen, the American Independent candidate for U.S. Senate, were financed by a $120,000 “windfall out of the blue” that still is largely a mystery, Vallen’s campaign manager said Saturday.

Ron Smith, campaign manager for Republican Senate candidate Ed Zschau, immediately termed the last minute blitz “obviously . . . a dirty trick” aimed at siphoning conservative votes away from Zschau.

The Vallen commercials came as polls showed Zschau and Democratic Sen. Alan Cranston in a virtual tie going into the last days of the campaign. In a final effort to defeat Cranston, President Reagan has been stumping through Southern California trying to help Zschau shore up relations with those conservatives who think Zschau may be too liberal.

The Vallen ads say that there are only two Senate candidates--Vallen and Cranston--who have integrity and that only one of those candidates, Vallen, is a true conservative.

Smith blamed liberal Democrats for financing commercials for Vallen’s minor party candidacy.

But Cranston spokesman Kam Kuwata said Saturday that no one had approached the Cranston campaign with proposals for funding independent advertising to help drain votes away from Zschau.

“Occasionally, people have come to us and said, ‘How can we help.’ We always tell them to give money to Alan Cranston or to the Democratic Party to get out the vote,” he said.

Kuwata declined to identify who he was referring to but did say that no one associated with the American Independent political party had approached the campaign.

Federal election laws prohibit large anonymous donations. Vallen and Iris Shidler, his campaign manager, said they can identify--but wouldn’t name--the individuals and political action committees who gave about $35,000 of the total.

But Shidler said the source of the remaining $85,000 is unknown. She and Vallen said they believe the money came from conservative “Christian” Republicans, but, added Shidler “if there’s a big organization behind it, I don’t know who it would be.”

Under federal law, individuals are limited to donations of $1,000 per candidate in each election and political action committees--groups of donors--are restricted to $5,000 per candidate.

Before the money was donated for the commercials, Shidler said the Vallen campaign had raised only a little more than $7,000.

Then, Shidler said, on Oct. 23, a man who identified himself as Mark Barnes of Los Angeles telephoned and said: “I’ve got a deal. What would you think of in the neighborhood of $1 million . . . for spots on television?”

Shidler said the man told her the money would come from conservative Christians, Republicans and political action committees.

After they met and discussed the matter, the man arranged for television time for the broadcasts and Vallen agreed to do the commercials, she said, adding that “I had a sixth sense that this was good, real good.”

Shidler and Vallen said they have never seen any of the money that paid for the television ad.

“We have no control over this money,” Shidler said. “It was to buy TV time. I have not seen one dime of it.”

But, she added, the campaign would report all required information to the Federal Elections Commission which enforces election laws.

Shidler said that an overnight letter identifying the senders as PAC Inc. of Los Angeles and Green Stripe Media Inc. of Newport Beach, arrived on Saturday.

Shidler said PAC Inc. was Barnes’ company and that Green Stripe arranged the television air time.

Neither Barnes nor anyone at Green Stripe could be reached for comment.

Shidler said the letter was a “political recap” which showed that $120,000 had been received for the ads. It also listed the donors of about $35,000 of the $120,000. Shidler and Vallen declined to release the names of any of the donors.

In September, Breck McKinley, the Libertarian candidate for the U.S. Senate, told a news conference he had been approached with an offer for help against Zschau by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which AIPAC officials denied. Murray Wood, a Los Angeles official of AIPAC said Saturday he knew nothing at all about the money that Vallen received.

The American Independent political party was founded in the 1960s by former Alabama Gov. George Wallace.