QUESTIONS REMAIN ABOUT BUSH'S STOCK SALE IN 1990

WASHINGTON -- It is a stock market whodunit that has withstood adecade of scrutiny. Who bought George W. Bush's problem-plagued oilcompany stock just before its value dropped?

The 1990 transaction involving shares of Harken Energy Corp.allowed the future president to pay off a bank loan for his now-famous stake in the Texas Rangers baseball team. The identity of thebuyer of the stock has escaped public disclosure.

Federal regulators who examined the deal as a possible insidertrade never asked. President Bush says he doesn't know and the WhiteHouse declines to ask the broker who handled the transaction.

Corporate scandals and failures that have rocked Wall Street inrecent months have renewed questions about Bush's own businessdealings when he was a Texas oilman. The White House was put on thedefensive again Friday, as Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., wrote Bush aletter saying the president should donate the profits from the saleof his Harken stock to a charity that helps displaced workers.

In the 1990 stock sale, Bush collected $848,560 when he sold212,140 shares he had gotten in the merger of his struggling oilcompany with Harken in 1986. The stock Bush sold for $4 was sellingfor $3 two months later and fell to around a dollar by the end of1990.

By the time of the sale, Harken's finances also were in the red.Daily trading activity in the stock was as little as 1,300 shares onthe New York Stock Exchange. If Bush had tried to sell such a largeamount of Harken stock into the open market, it undoubtedly wouldhave driven the price far below the $4 a share he was paid.

Bush's sale on June 22, 1990, was handled by Californiastockbroker Ralph D. Smith, who says he got a call on June 9 thatyear from an institutional client who wanted to buy a large block ofHarken.

Smith said he then made a couple of "cold calls" to people whoowned Harken stock, including Bush.

The broker said there wasn't any arrangement ahead of time tobail Bush out of Harken.

The sale triggered an insider trading probe of Bush because hewas eight months late in disclosing it to the Securities andExchange Commission.

On Thursday, a Washington group, the Center for Public Integrity,posted internal SEC documents on the Internet showing that Harkeninitially was uncooperative in the insider trading probe.

The company subsequently provided extensive cooperation to theSEC.