ONE OTHER JOURNALIST RECALLS GORE'S DRUG USE, BUT SAYS USE WAS 'NOT
REGULARLY'

If Al Gore used marijuana routinely while a Tennessean reporter in the
1970s, it was not known to almost three dozen staff members who worked
closely or socialized with him, they say.

Only two of the 36 journalists who worked at the newspaper with Gore
and were interviewed for this story said they had ever seen him smoke
marijuana. Three others would not say what they did or did not see.

None, except former reporter John Warnecke, said he or she was
pressured by Gore to give a false account of Gore's drug use.

In 1987, Gore admitted using marijuana on "infrequent and rare
occasions" while serving in the Army in Vietnam and later while living
in Nashville, where he worked as a Tennessean reporter and editorial
writer and attended classes at Vanderbilt University.

The two Tennessean staffers who said they witnessed Gore using
marijuana -- Warnecke and Ken Jost, another former reporter --
disagreed on the extent of Gore's drug use.

Warnecke said Gore used marijuana "hundreds and hundreds of times" and
quit only after announcing he would run for Congress in 1976.

Jost said the Gore marijuana use he witnessed was much less
frequent.

"In the times I was around him socially, he used it occasionally,"
said Jost, now a staff writer with the Congressional Quarterly. "Can I
swear to the number of times? No. It was a long time ago. It was more
than once. It certainly wasn't every time I saw him and not regularly."

After leaving The Tennessean, Jost worked for Gore during his tenure
in Congress and during his 1988 presidential campaign.

The three staffers who would not say what they did or did not see are
Tennessean editor Frank Sutherland; Andrew Schlesinger, a former
reporter; and Nancy Rhoda, a Tennessean photo editor formerly married
to Warnecke.

Several current or former Tennessean staffers described Gore as a
hard-working, intense and passionate reporter who, they believe, could
not have kept up the pace if he were a routine drug user.

"He was very, very driven by the issues. Very serious," said Elaine
Shannon, a Time magazine reporter who worked in the Tennessean's
Washington bureau during Gore's tenure at the newspaper.

"I don't know when he would have had the time. You could tell he was
going places and that he wanted to go places. He made no secret about
that."

Former Tennessean staffers also said it was unlikely that Gore could
have kept regular drug use a secret from his newshound peers.

"There were some people who did have that reputation, and Al was not
one of them," said John Haile, who worked with Gore as a reporter and
is now editor of the Orlando Sentinel.

Other current and former staff members who say they never saw Gore use
marijuana and were never pressured to give a false account include:

John Seigenthaler, Tennessean editor during Gore's tenure, now
chairman emeritus of the newspaper; Lloyd Armour, then executive
editor in charge of the opinion page, now retired; Philip Sullivan,
then an editorial writer, now retired; Gene Wyatt, then associate
editor, now retired but writes film reviews for the paper; Wayne
Whitt, former managing editor, now retired.

Jim Squires, then a city editor, now retired; Frank Ritter, then a
reporter and city editor, now a columnist; James Carnahan, then state
editor, now retired; Charles Fontenay, then rewrite editor, now retired.

Larry Daughtrey, then a political reporter, now a columnist; Jim
O'Hara, a former editorial writer and reporter, who recently left a
position as deputy assistant U.S. secretary of health; Doug Hall, then
a reporter, now CEO of Earth Satellite Corp. in Rockville, Md.; Tom
Ingram, then a reporter, now president of the Knoxville Area Chamber
Partnership; Marsha Vande Berg, then a reporter, now an independent
journalist and consultant in San Francisco; Alan Carmichael, then a
reporter, now retired; Bill Preston, then a reporter, now an
administrative specialist with the Tennessee state attorney general;
Candy McCampbell, then a reporter and copy editor, now personal
finance editor.

Frank Gibson, then a reporter, now political editor; George Zepp, then
a reporter, now a night regional editor; Gloria Ballard, then a
reporter, now assistant features editor; Sandra Roberts, then a
part-time librarian, now managing editor/opinion; Kirk Loggins, a
reporter then and now; Dwight Lewis, then a reporter, now a columnist
and weekend editor; Keel Hunt, then a reporter, now spokesman for
Ingram Book Group.

Jack Hurst, then a Music Row reporter, now retired; Sandy Campbell, an
editorial cartoonist then and now; Tom Squires, then a sports
reporter, now editor and publisher of Sports Specialty Publications;
Larry Woody, a sports reporter then and now; Jimmy Davy, then a sports
reporter, now retired.