JOINT DECLARATION: AL TRIED TO COVER 'POT'

A longtime friend who says he supplied pot "regularly" to Al Gore now
charges that the Democratic presidential hopeful leaned on him to
"stonewall" the press about their alleged dope-smoking sessions.

John Wernecke, who worked with Gore at the Nashville Tennessean
newspaper, charges that during Gore's failed bid for the Democratic
presidential nomination in 1988, the candidate pressured him to cover
up how much he'd smoked pot in the past -- and how much he enjoyed
it.

"He put the pressure on me to stonewall," Wernecke, 53, told the
online magazine Salon. "Al asked me not to tell the truth [to
reporters]."

And the former reporter and recovering alcoholic -- who says he's now
in a 12-step program -- hinted he can prove his story if the Gore camp
brands him a liar.

"If they make this a war of who is telling the truth, then I've got
things ... and I'll keep coming back with more and more information,"
he said.

"He called me three times in one morning [during the 1988 race] and he
said, 'Don't talk to the press at all about this,'" Wernecke said.
"That's a stonewall, and it's another form of lying.

"The story I said was the opposite of truth. Because he and I smoked
pot every day for I don't know how long," Wernecke said. "And he loved
it."

In an earlier interview with the Web site stopthedrugwar.org, Wernecke
said, "I was [Gore's] regular supplier. I didn't deal dope, I just
gave it to him."

Gore spokesman Chris Lehane told The Post the veep "doesn't remember
ever having a conversation like that."

Lehane also repeated Gore's statement that "since he made the decision
to enter public office, he's never used [marijuana]."

Wernecke -- the son of John Carl Wernecke, who designed President
Kennedy's grave site -- now says he toked up with Gore until 1976, the
year the veep first ran for Congress.

"I smoked with him right before he ran, and if my memory is correct I
smoked with him one time during the campaign," Wernecke said.

Wernecke told Salon he's not speaking out because of a "vendetta"
against Gore.

"I've been living with this for years, and feeling horrible about it,"
said Wernecke, who added, "I like Al. I'm going to vote for him ... I
think he's the best candidate of them all."

The dope imbroglio heated up on the eve of today's Iowa presidential
caucuses.

In 1987, Gore -- then a senator from Tennessee -- admitted smoking pot
on "infrequent and rare" occasions in the late 1960s and early 1970s,
and said he last smoked around 1972.

Wernecke's allegations surfaced in relation to a book about Gore
written by Newsweek reporter Bill Turque that reportedly features the
new pot claims. The magazine reportedly killed an excerpt about the
pot use.

A Newsweek spokesman would only say the magazine is working on a
Turque excerpt to run "in the coming weeks."