White House Defends Sununu’s Flights : Ethics: Chief of staff takes an insurance firm’s plane to Iowa fund-raiser as Fitzwater says the free trips aboard corporate jets are allowed by law.

WASHINGTON —  As controversy again swirled around White House Chief of Staff John H. Sununu’s travel arrangements, Sununu headed out of town Tuesday, flying aboard a corporate airplane to attend an Iowa Republican Party fund-raising dinner, White House and Iowa GOP officials said.

The White House, meanwhile, said that President Bush had “full confidence” in his chief of staff and defended Sununu’s use of private aircraft for personal and political trips.

“It’s all fine according to the law, according to the rules and regulations,” White House Press Secretary Marlin Fitzwater said.

However, a friend of the President told The Times that in recent conversations with others close to Bush, there appeared to be a new sense of anger on Bush’s part over his chief of staff’s problems. “I can tell you, something happened (in the President’s view of the situation),” the source said.

The Washington Post quoted sources Tuesday as saying Bush was “upset, angry and perplexed” about another Sununu trip--his use of a government limousine and driver for a personal trip to New York last Wednesday.

According to the Post’s sources, Bush contacted a senior political adviser Sunday to discuss how to deal with the controversy over Sununu’s travels.

Neither Sununu nor a senior aide, Edward M. Rogers, who accompanied him to Iowa, returned a reporter’s telephone calls Tuesday. An aide said that Fitzwater presented Sununu with a set of questions about his travel but was given no answers.

Fitzwater said that in the approximately six weeks since the White House applied stiffer scrutiny to Sununu’s use of Air Force jets, the chief of staff has attended “three or four” political fund-raisers. The Times reported in Tuesday’s editions that the chief of staff has recently been soliciting free trips aboard jets provided by American corporations.

On Tuesday, Sununu and Rogers flew to Des Moines aboard an airplane owned by Kirke/Van Orsdel Inc. for the Iowa Republican Party’s annual Lincoln Day dinner, a $50-a-person fund-raising event, according to Tim Blaney, the state party’s assistant finance director. Kirke/Van Orsdel is a 17-year-old insurance firm that, according to a source active in Iowa politics, writes group insurance policies.

Its chairman, Gerald M. Kirke, has been active in Republican Party circles in recent years, the source said, and the company itself contributed $5,000 to the Republican National Committee before the 1990 elections.

“Their anchor,” the source said of the firm, has been the National Rifle Assn., for whose members the company writes a variety of group insurance policies.

Kirke declined to discuss his company’s role in transporting Sununu to the dinner, which was expected to gross approximately $75,000. Blaney said that the request for the aircraft had been made through Randy Enwright, the state party’s executive director.

An official of Page Avjet in Iowa said that Kirke/Van Orsdel owns a corporate aircraft but declined to say what type of plane it is.

Blaney said that the state party would reimburse Kirke/Van Orsdel for the equivalent of round-trip first-class fares to Iowa for Sununu and Rogers, plus $1, adhering to what he said were Federal Election Commission regulations. Thus, the difference between the approximately $2,500 in fares and the several thousand dollars it would cost to fly the plane from Des Moines to Washington to pick the two up, fly them to Des Moines and back to Washington and then return the aircraft to Iowa would be met by the insurance company.

Before Sununu’s latest travel was disclosed, Fitzwater was asked if Bush was concerned that the use of corporate aircraft may have created the appearance of a conflict of interest. A week ago, Sununu accepted a ride aboard a chartered jet provided by the Beneficial Corp., a consumer credit firm, to return to Washington from a New Jersey GOP fund-raiser.

“The President has full confidence in the governor,” Fitzwater said, using the title Sununu prefers from his days as governor of New Hampshire. But, the White House spokesman said, Bush had not made his views known about the New Jersey trip.

Staff writer David Lauter contributed to this story.