Bush Retreats on ‘Family Values’ Issue, Asks Tolerance

President Bush urged a note of tolerance on the Rev. Pat Robertson’s Christian Coalition on Friday night, telling the organization that in his emphasis on “family values,” he was not passing judgment on the sort of families that make up American society.

Bush, who has de-emphasized the family values issue in recent campaign speeches, dealt with it in the gentlest of fashions, giving his audience of Christian political activists a verbal nudge by saying that “families are not measured by what kind but by how close.”

“I don’t mean to suggest we should somehow go back to the days of Ozzie and Harriet. That may be wrong,” Bush said, while his audience remained silent. “Nor do I pass judgment on the kind of family you live in,” whether it has one or two parents working, or one or two parents in the home.

Bush’s language seemed designed to calm critics who view the issue of family values as an expression of discrimination against those who live outside of conventional lifestyles. At the same time, Bush sought to maintain the support of the conservative religious wing of his party.

Speaking to what he called “the heart of America’s evangelical community,” Bush rejected suggestions from some advisers that he deliver a no-nonsense message that would tell the followers of Robertson, a religious broadcaster, to back off in their fervid judgment of political leaders based solely on such issues as opposition to abortion and school prayer.

Bush dealt with the topic only briefly in an address that focused otherwise on the economic message that has become the central element in his reelection campaign this week.

The President ventured into the increasingly sensitive world of “family values” at the end of a campaign day in which the centerpiece had been his announcement that he would permit the sale of up to 72 F-15 jet fighters to Saudi Arabia--a decision likely to produce thousands of jobs in such key political states as Missouri and California.

Robertson, who ran unsuccessfully for the Republican presidential nomination four years ago--and emerged from the Iowa caucuses that year ahead of Bush--founded his Christian Coalition in 1989, and it has grown to achieve considerable political position since then. Among the delegates to the Republican National Convention this year, were 300 members of the Christian Coalition.

It claims 250,000 members in 50 states and, working in the political sphere, it has opposed gay rights proposals in Oregon and Colorado.

The President spoke at a time when he was unlikely to receive much national news coverage, delivering his address well past the initial deadlines of most major East Coast newspapers and after the television network evening news programs had been broadcast.

With critics saying that the term family values is actually a politically loaded code-phrase that, as used by the Republicans, stigmatizes gays, single parents and others who do not live in two-parent families, Bush is said to have become sensitive about the way the issue is being perceived.

While the President says he supports family values, he does not endorse all of the positions taken by the Christian Coalition, a campaign official said.

The sale of the 72 F-15 warplanes could be worth as much as $9 billion, Administration officials said, although the company put the figure closer to $5 billion. The White House said the deal would produce thousands of jobs for aerospace workers at the McDonnell Douglas factory in St. Louis and others among suppliers in California and 43 other states.

Hughes Aircraft in Los Angeles said the sale would save 1,000 jobs at its operations over four years, and could mean $1.5 billion in new business for California.

In another boost for Hughes and California, Bush on Friday also lifted export restrictions on the sales of satellites and components to China, including a $140-million Hughes-built communications satellite. The move was expected following Chinese agreement to abide by accords restricting sales of offensive missiles.

In St. Louis, Bush told a hastily assembled audience of several thousand McDonnell Douglas Corp. workers waving American flags that “I have decided to notify Congress to sell up to 72 of your F-15s to the country. . . . “ He was drowned out by cheers before he could say “. . . Saudi Arabia.”

Making it clear that the economic impact the decision would have in a politically important state was as much on his mind as Saudi Arabia’s security needs, Bush told the crowd:

“I have been sensitive about the impact of this contract on your production line, your jobs.”

“In these times of economic transition, I want to do everything I can to keep Americans at work,” he said.

The stop in St. Louis followed a similar visit last week to the General Dynamics plant in Ft. Worth, where Bush announced that he would permit the sale of 150 F-16 fighters to Taiwan, a deal valued at $6 billion.

Although the stop in St. Louis was announced only hours before Bush arrived there, a huge banner, declaring “President Bush and McDonnell Douglas--Jobs for America,” was prepared as a backdrop, and two F-15s were rolled out to provide a muscular military setting.

Several workers waved hand-lettered signs reading “Missouri Says Thanks,” and “Thank You, Mr. President.”

The Bill Clinton campaign responded to the St. Louis announcement with a press release, distributed at the factory as Bush finished speaking, that mocked him for “pretending to be the political Santa.”

Clinton himself repeated his quasi-endorsement of an F-15 sale, saying “I want to know exactly what’s going to be on the plan, what it will look like before I say yes or no. I think there are some F-15 planes today that could be justified, but I don’t think we should do anything which upsets the qualitative military edge that Israel now has.”

Rep. Howard L. Berman (D-Panorama City), one of Israel’s foremost congressional allies and a leading proponent of arms control, said Friday the sale of the F-15s would “destabilize an already volatile region” by eroding Israel’s qualitative arms advantage. Berman said that he and Reps. David R. Obey (D-Wis.) and Mel Levine (D-Santa Monica) will introduce legislation to prevent the sale.

But he predicted “an uphill fight” because of the short-term economic benefits from the sale to U.S. weapons manufacturers.

Robert K. Lifton, president of the American Jewish Congress, said that his organization “would have little reason to oppose the sale in light of the anticipated jobs and other economic benefits to our own country” as long as Israel’s technological edge is protected.

And White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said Bush broached the subject of the sale in a meeting last month with Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in Kennebunkport, Me., at which time Rabin was said to have told the President it was “not a major problem.”

There have also been frequent contacts with the Israelis in recent days, Fitzwater said.

Zalman Shoval, Israel’s ambassador to Washington, said Friday his country still opposes such a sale “to a country that is in a state of war with Israel” but would not fight the deal. “Israel cannot determine for the United States its policies. . . ,” he said. Bush said that in deciding whether to allow the sale to go forward, he took into consideration its impact on the stability of the Middle East, whether it would weaken Israel’s military “qualitative edge,” which the United States is committed to preserving, the progress of the Middle East peace talks and Saudi Arabia’s defense needs.

The F-15 sale has been under discussion for at least two years when it was envisioned as part of a much larger $20-billion package intended to build up Saudi defenses to protect Gulf interests from Iraqi aggression. The first installment, $7.3 billion worth of tanks, Patriot missiles and other systems, was approved in 1990, but the Administration did not submit the aircraft portion until now.

According to the International Institute of Strategic Studies, Saudi Arabia already has 180 F-15 fighters in its air force which also includes 48 late model British Tornadoes and about 230 older model planes, most of them obsolete F-5s.

Nevertheless, the Administration insists that the latest sale will not materially affect the Israel-Arab military balance in which Israel maintains a substantial technological edge, which makes up for an Arab advantage in manpower.

Israel has about 1,000 modern warplanes, most of them F-16s but including 94 F-15s, as well as about 700 older aircraft.

Counting the value of the F-15 decision, over a period of nine days Bush has taken steps to distribute tangible hope for better economic times in such crucial political states as Missouri, Florida, Texas and California at a pace of over $2 billion a day. All told, when disaster aid, wheat subsidies and airplane sales are added up, the total tops $20 billion--nearly $10 billion from the federal Treasury and the rest from foreign governments.

Fitzwater said the sale of the F-15s would provide 15,000 jobs; Missouri Sen. Christopher S. Bond, a Republican, said it would provide 40,000 jobs, including 7,000 in Missouri--a state that both sides view as important to the election’s outcome, and which Bond said Bush was losing at the moment.

Fitzwater said the job-related benefits of the Saudi deal would reach 45 states, and the greatest impact would be felt in California, Missouri and Connecticut.

Jobs, he said, were “an important factor” in the decision.

Bush began the day in at Missouri Southern State College in Joplin, and then at a job corps center in Excelsior Springs, near Kansas City.

At each, he attacked Clinton for, in his words, “belittling my ideas and playing on fears.”

“I want to talk about limiting the growth of government spending, which my opponent says he agrees with,” Bush said. “But instead of offering any ideas of his own, he simply says, ‘watch out seniors, watch out veterans, watch out disabled Americans.’ This fear campaign must not work.”

Referring to the fearsome character of the “Nightmare on Elm Street” movies, Bush said: “It seems to me Gov. Clinton is running a Freddie Krueger candidacy. He’s more interested in playing on people’s fears than in dealing with this country’s problems.”

Today on the Trail . . .

Gov. Bill Clinton campaigns in Falls Church, Va., and Middleburg, Va.

President Bush at Camp David, Md.