Dole's war record. (cover story)

PRESIDENTS -- United States -- Election; JOURNALISTS; CLINTON, Bill, 1946-; DOLE, Robert J., 1923-; WAR; BIOGRAPHIES

Bob Dole's war record--and Bill Clinton's lack of one-has become a major theme in Dole's drive for the U.S. presidency. According to journalist Katharine Seelye, the G.O.P. strategy is to portray Clinton as "the baby boomer in the White House, who was not born until 1946, a year after Dole had earned two Bronze Stars, and who skirted service in his own generation's war." Most journalistic accounts of Dole's wartime experience pass along, without questioning, the versions from several biographies, some based on interviews with him. INSET: Front man? by David Corn and Paul Schemm.