LATEST ALLEGATIONS SPARK HOT DENIALS BY BUSH FAMILY

New Biography Says Former U.S. President Got 1972 Drug Charges Against Son
Dropped

(Washington) -- A contentious new biography of U.S. presidential
contender George W. Bush says he was arrested for using drugs 27 years
ago, but avoided charges because his prominent father intervened to
have the arrest struck from the record.

The allegations of drug possession are the latest against Mr. Bush,
the Republican Governor of Texas, who faced similar accusations in
August. Although Mr. Bush has given ambivalent answers about his past,
it has not hurt his high-flying campaign, which is raising money and
garnering endorsements at a breathless pace.

Yesterday, both the candidate and his father, former president George
Bush, denied any wrongdoing.

"I will not play the Washington game of responding to rumour and
innuendo," the younger Mr. Bush said in a statement his campaign had
previously issued in response to allegations that he used illegal
drugs. He called the reports ridiculous, but refused to elaborate. In
the past, he has said that answering such reports only invites more of
them.

His father was more blunt. "This is a vicious lie," the senior Mr.
Bush said in a statement released in Houston. "This kind of nasty,
groundless attack is the reason that many good people are unwilling to
enter politics."

Fortunate Son: George W. Bush and the Making of an American
President, was written by Texas author J. H. Hatfield, who has also
published a biography of actor Patrick Stewart of Star Trek. His
latest book will reportedly be published today by St. Martin's Press.
It was originally scheduled to appear in January, but the publisher
advanced the date because of the startling allegations.

The book says that Mr. Bush was arrested for cocaine possession in
1972, when he was 26. It alleges that his father, who was then U.S.
ambassador to the United Nations, intervened. With the help of a judge
- -- called "a fellow Republican and an elected official" -- he was able
to clear his son and expunge the charge.

But there is little hard evidence to support the book's claim. Mr.
Hatfield relies on three unnamed sources to report that Mr. Bush did
community service in Houston in 1972, which the governor's campaign
staff denies.

Moreover, District Attorney Carol Vance, the main prosecutor when Mr.
Bush was allegedly charged, says there were no Republican judges
handling criminal cases in 1972. Even if there were, she said, it was
impossible to expunge a criminal record.

Ms. Vance, the county prosecutor from 1966 to 1979, also told the
Agence France-Presse news agency that she would have learned about

the charge if it had been made.

According to the irreverent on-line magazine Salon, the book quotes a
former classmate from Yale as saying: "It was one of those 'behind
closed doors in the judge's chambers' kind of thing between the old
man and one of his Texas cronies who owed him a favour. . . . There's
only a handful of us who know the truth."

This is not the first time that Mr. Bush, the overwhelming
front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination, has faced
allegations of drug use. He faced similar accusations in the summer,
but did not address them directly. He said that he could pass a
"background check" of his behaviour for seven years. Then he broadened
that to 15 years, and finally 25 years. The time of his supposed
arrest in 1972 would be 27 years ago, outside his 25-year range of
denial.

So far, the rumours and allegations of drug use have not hurt Mr.
Bush, whose towering popularity has driven candidates from the field
and given him a huge lead over those who remain, such as publisher
Steve Forbes and former cabinet member Elizabeth Dole.

The only Republican candidate making any ground is Senator John McCain
of Arizona, who is positioning himself as the alternative to Mr. Bush,
and has showed strong support in New Hampshire, the influential first
state primary.