Sore Topics Keep Candidates on Defensive in TV Forum

President Bush and his Democratic opponent Bill Clinton were each put on the defensive in nationally televised interviews Sunday night, with Bush insisting that the nation’s economy is poised for a “strong recovery” and Clinton contending that he has told the whole truth regarding his draft record.

In his interview, which followed Clinton’s on an NBC News special about the upcoming election, President Bush also denied any involvement in the Iran-Contra scandal that erupted in the last term of Bush’s predecessor, Ronald Reagan.

The matter has come up again because of recent intimations that former Secretary of State George P. Shultz and former Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger believed that Bush was aware of a secret Reagan Administration plan to sell arms to Iraq and use the money to finance the Contras in Nicaragua.

Bush has consistently denied any knowledge of the operation, and did so again on Sunday night.

“That’s been looked into by millions of dollars worth of investigators. If I had done anything wrong they’d have been all over my--like you can possibly imagine,” Bush told his interviewer, NBC anchorman Tom Brokaw.

“Nobody has suggested that I’ve done anything at all wrong at all.”

Clinton, in a separate interview, angrily denied knowing that his uncle had orchestrated a concerted effort in the late 1960s to keep him from being drafted, as The Times reported last week.

He also denied that he misled reporters last week when he claimed not to have known about a Navy reserve enlistment slot that was arranged for him in order to save him from the draft.

When the issue of the enlistment slot came up last week, Clinton repeatedly told reporters that he had no knowledge of it. But later, he acknowledged that he had in fact been told about it in March of this year.

“This is a story that has been made by the press,” a clearly agitated Clinton insisted to Brokaw.

Clinton insisted further that he had told the entire truth about his draft history. Actually, the candidate did not initially acknowledge--until it was reported in February--that he had joined an ROTC unit to avoid the draft for several months in 1969.

He also did not acknowledge having received a draft notice until that, too, was reported in April of this year. He said then that he did not feel that the draft notice was “relevant” to the discussion of his record.

“The truth is that I have told the same story all along,” Clinton insisted Sunday night. “Maybe I haven’t handled it as well as I should, but I told the same story; the facts were clear.”

Clinton and Bush appeared back to back and did not directly question each other. Brokaw said that Bush had won a coin toss and elected to appear second. The hourlong special was timed for the eve of Labor Day, traditionally considered the official start of the presidential campaign.

Much of the discussion with both candidates centered on the economy. Even though the government released ever more bleak economic news this week, the President persisted in taking an upbeat view of the possibilities.

“I think things are getting better and I’ll tell you one thing, we are poised for a strong recovery,” Bush said. “Interest rates are down, inflation is down, the fat has come out of a lot of corporations large and small and we’re poised . . . for dramatic growth.

“So I am not one of these doomsayers about the economy. It’s gone too long in a sluggish way but . . . I’m not prepared to say things are going to get dramatically worse at all.”

Asked if Americans who are out of work could answer affirmatively the question that both he and Reagan asked voters to consider--are you better off today than you were four years ago?--the President acknowledged that some could not.

“Anybody that’s out of work cannot say that he’s better off if he had a job before,” Bush said, adding later that “it’s been tough so what we’re trying to do is turn it around.”

Clinton, during his part of the program, said that his program to invest billions of dollars in America would pull the nation out of its economic decline.