>From the NY Times
http://www.nytimes.com/library/politics/camp/051900wh-gop-bush.html
May 19, 2000
THE GOVERNOR'S SPEECH Bush's Words to Staunchly Conservative Group Remain a Mystery By JIM YARDLEY
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HOUSTON, May 18 -- The Council for National Policy is a little known group whose members are often very well known and very conservative. There are radio personalities like Oliver L. North and James C. Dobson; religious broadcasters like Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell; and lawmakers like Senator Jesse Helms of North Carolina and Representative Dick Armey of Texas.
It is the sort of group a Republican presidential hopeful would presumably want to address, which is exactly what Gov. George W. Bush of Texas did last October when the council held a two-day conference in San Antonio. But what exactly did Mr. Bush say?
Skipp Porteous has tried to find out, though as yet without success. Mr. Porteous is national director of the Institute for First Amendment Studies, a Massachusetts-based group with about 3,000 members nationwide that tries to keep watch on the council. He regards the council as a secretive umbrella group plotting strategy for the Republican right.
The council says such talk is silly. It calls itself a nonpartisan educational foundation.
In recent years, Mr. Porteous said his group had planted a spy in several meetings.
But he found his group shut out when the council met in San Antonio.
Eager to know what Mr. Bush might say in private to conservative leaders, Mr. Porteous sent for audiotapes of the conference. The council sells audiotapes of conferences to members only, but the institute had obtained an order form from the company, Skynet Media, that handles the recording.
So when a package arrived earlier this year, Mr. Porteous thought success was at hand. But the tape of Mr. Bush's speech was not included.
Morton C. Blackwell, the council's executive director, said all speakers were asked for permission to include their remarks on the tapes and that the Bush campaign had declined.
"The Bush entourage said they preferred that the tape not go out, though I could not see any reason why they shouldn't," he said.
He added: "It was a standard speech, basically the same one. Basically everything he said, he's said before, and I've heard since."
Ari Fleischer, a spokesman for the Bush campaign, said if anyone was "hoping to hear something that the governor would say that he hasn't said publicly, then they're on a wild goose chase." He declined to characterize the speech, saying, "When we go to meetings that are private, they remain private."
In fact, Mr. Fleischer said, "as far as we know, there is no tape."
But Mr. Blackwell said the Bush campaign should have a copy.
Curt Morse, president of the recording company, Skynet Media, said that he had a copy and that one was provided to the campaign after the speech.
"Maybe they lost it," he said.
He offered to make them a copy.
-- John K. Taber