Hart Denies Reports of Weekend Affair

Gary Hart, his presidential campaign in jeopardy after a report he spent Friday night with a Miami model, on Tuesday admitted he made a mistake "by putting myself in circumstances that could be misconstrued," but declared he "absolutely did not" do anything immoral.

The Democratic front-runner denounced the story published in The Miami Herald on Sunday as "misleading and false" and said it had hurt him and his family and left him struggling "to maintain my integrity and my honor."

A determined Hart said he had made a mistake but would continue his bid for the 1988 Democratic nomination.

"Let me assure you that my campaign has just begun," the former Colorado senator said. "As I've said, I don't intend to give up because the cause is more important than the candidate."

"Did I make a mistake by putting myself in circumstances that could be misconstrued? Of course I did. That goes without saying," Hart said. "Did I do anything immoral? I absolutely did not."

In his first public appearance since the story was published, Hart spoke to the American Newspaper Publishers Association about the story, then delivered a prepared 17-page speech about his economic policies.

"Ideas, issues and policies will always be less sensational than rumors and speculation," he said. "But in the final analysis, average Americans will always be more concerned about their families and their nation's future than those rumors."

The story in the Herald said that Hart and Donna Rice, a 29-year-old actress and model, spent Friday night and most of Saturday together at his Washington townhouse while his wife, Lee, was in Denver. The newspaper had assigned reporters to stake out Hart's home following an anonymous tip.

Rice, a former South Carolina beauty pageant winner, denied in an interview Monday that she had spent the night with Hart or had sex with him.

"There was at no time did we spend, did the woman involved and I spend an evening together, or a night together as was suggested. She stayed with the friend that she arrived with in the home of my friend," Hart said.

Hart told the publishers that the story was just wrong.

"Last weekend, a newspaper published a misleading and false story that hurt my family and other innocent people and reflected badly on my character," Hart said. "This story was written by reporters who by their own admission undertook a spotty surveillance, reached inaccurate conclusions based on incomplete facts, who after publishing a false story now concede they may have gotten it wrong; and who, most outrageously, refused to interview the very people who could have given them the facts before filing their story which we asked and urged them to do."

He urged the newspaper executives to scrutinize the candidates, but he said the reporters at least should "do it right."