Dirty Tricks

Back in 1994, when my office was burglarized in what local police characterized as a professional job and, strangely, nothing was stolen, I thought maybe--just maybe--the break-in might have something to do with our news agency's high-profile investigative reporting into Clinton administration scandals. I didn't make any accusations, however, because I wasn't even certain that the White House knew we existed.

In the latest crisis to rock Europe's beleaguered political mainstream, the head of Germany's opposition Social Democrats quit Monday in the wake of a 6-year-old "dirty tricks" scandal. Coming amid scandals that have left Italy's government in tatters and drove France's former prime minister to suicide, the blow to Germany's oldest political party deepens what is fast becoming a collective crisis of confidence in the Continent's political establishments.

If Wanda Cavanaugh develops a cauliflower ear, she can blame it on the perpetrators of one of the most clever dirty tricks played during the recent election. Cavanaugh, who leads a "ragtag group" fighting annexation of a rural valley north of Escondido by the city, spent the weekend on the telephone, trying to undo the damage done by an unauthorized edition of the Lehner Valley News, the anti-annexation group's home-grown newspaper circulated throughout the rural valley.

A jetliner vanishes in the Amazon jungle. Drug smugglers fly through undetected. Gold miners poison rivers with impunity. Brazil wants to put an end to all of that by building a $1.4-billion radar network that would peer behind the curtain of mystery obscuring 2 million square miles of jungle. Construction hasn't begun, and already the project is swamped with charges of fraud, corruption and even CIA dirty tricks. The Amazon Surveillance System, to be built by Raytheon Corp. of Bedford, Mass.

As the race for the job of Los Angeles' new police chief enters its final stages, the men who reside in the Police Department's upper reaches are locked in some of the worst bickering and back-stabbing in the force's history. Publicly and privately, a number of the department's top contenders to replace Chief Daryl F. Gates have been trying to sully each other's reputations in the fashion of politicians rather than policemen. Some have gone so far as to accuse their competitors of dirty tricks.

The FBI tried to explain Monday how it got stung by its own sting, an operation it mounted against an official in President Bush's campaign based partly on information from a man who has sent reporters on a wild goose chase and whom Soldier of Fortune magazine called: "Scott Barnes: My Favorite Flake." "The FBI investigates alleged violations of federal criminal law, irrespective of any political circumstance," said FBI Director William S.

Independent candidate Ross Perot's campaign aides charged Thursday that the news media are unfairly defining the 1992 presidential election as a race strictly between President Bush and Democratic challenger Bill Clinton.

Argentina's "dirty war" against suspected subversion ended early in the 1980s, but some of that era's dirty tricks did not. Authorities say they have broken up a gang of former police and security officers--as well as some who were still on active duty--that has been kidnaping businessmen for ransom.

Independent presidential candidate Ross Perot, expressing particular disdain for President Bush and the Republican Party, said Thursday night that people who support the incumbent are wasting their vote because Bush cannot win reelection. Appearing on CNN's "Larry King Live," Perot also defended his controversial charges that the Republicans last summer were plotting a dirty tricks campaign to wiretap his telephones and embarrass his daughter Carolyn.

In his first public foray since controversy erupted over his unsubstantiated allegations of Republican dirty tricks, Ross Perot obeyed his own promise Wednesday to ignore the firestorm and stick to his prescription for a better economy. "OK, let's get right to it," Perot said as he stepped onto the stage of the civic auditorium Wednesday night. "Are you ready to put America back to work?"