n a plea to win back his right to drive in Maine following his 1976 conviction for drunken driving, George W. Bush portrayed himself as a casual drinker, saying he drank ''infrequently'' and had an ''occasional beer,'' according to an official handwritten notation in Maine state records.
His comments, made in a 1978 hearing conducted by telephone, clash with the presidential candidate's more recent recountings of his drinking habits at that time in his life.
Bush said he stopped drinking in 1986 and has not had any alcohol since. But he has acknowledged a hard-drinking past that came to interfere with his life, though he has not been specific about how often he drank.
His comments in the 1978 hearing cast his consumption of alcohol in the softest of terms. Notes from the hearing officer, included in records released by the state to the Globe, note that Bush said he drank about once a month and ''infrequently.'' The hearing officer, David Schulz, also noted that Bush said he drank an ''occasional beer.''
Following the hearing, Bush's right to drive in Maine was reinstated.
When asked if the comments Bush made in 1978 were accurate in light of his more recent reflections on his former drinking habits, a Maine licensing official said, ''You'll have to ask someone who knew him at the time.''
The official, chief deputy Secretary of State Rebecca Wyke, also said there would be no revisiting of the case by Maine officials. ''The time has passed for that,'' she said.
In various interviews, Bush has said he stopped drinking when he turned 40 and realized the toll alcohol was taking on his life. In September, he said ''alcohol was beginning to compete for my affections for my wife and my family.'' In another interview with the Washington Post, Bush gave the following answer when asked if he had ever participated in Alcoholics Anonymous: ''I didn't ... I don't think I was clinically an alcoholic; I didn't have the genuine addiction. I don't know why I drank. I liked to drink, I guess.''
The Bush campaign yesterday did not respond to a request to reconcile such remarks with the self-description Bush offered the state hearing officer in 1978.
The 1978 reinstatement hearing took place after Bush, in a handwritten letter to state authorities, said he was unable to complete a required driver rehabilitation course because he lived in Texas. In the letter, he said he hoped to be able to drive again in Maine as a ''tourist.'' Maine regulations allowed for him to be reinstated without taking the course, but doubled the length of time he had to wait before seeking to restore his right to drive.
Bush confirmed Thursday that he was arrested in Kennebunkport, Maine, following a night of drinking with three friends and his sister Dorothy. Bush, who was 30 at the time, pleaded guilty, paid a $150 fine, and had his right to drive suspended.
The Bush campaign yesterday suggested the drunken driving revelation in the last days of the campaign was the product of dirty politics.
But the man responsible for disclosing the arrest said the news came to him by happenstance.
Portland attorney Thomas J. Connolly, who was a Gore delegate to the Democratic National Convention in August, offered this description of the chain of events:
It began Thursday morning when a Maine man, who said he had been in Biddeford District Court on the same day in 1976 that Bush appeared to answer to the drunken driving charge, remarked to his chiropractor that he didn't understand how the arrest escaped attention by the media.
The chiropractor called a friend of his, whom Connolly identified as a Democratic public official. However, a source familiar with the events said the official was Cumberland County Probate Court Judge William H. Childs, whose father was the Democratic speaker of the Maine house.
At midday Thursday, Connolly encountered Childs at a Portland courthouse and the judge told him of the Bush conviction. The two men then branched out in an effort to gather records that would document the arrest.
Connolly, who was an unsuccessful candidate for governor in 1998, called the clerk's office at the Biddeford courthouse and confirmed the incident. A clerk faxed a one-page case record.
Childs, according to Maine government officials, called the Maine Secretary of State's office and requested a copy of Bush's driving record, which provided further information on the incident. The judge declined to comment yesterday.
Connolly said he attempted to fax the documentary evidence to the Gore campaign in Tennessee, but was unable to successfully transmit the records. The Gore campaign has denied playing any role in the release of the Bush arrest information. Connolly also said he was never in contact with the Gore campaign.
On Thursday afternoon, Connolly walked from his Portland law office to the nearby Cumberland County courthouse and began discussing the discovery with a group that included other lawyers and Childs. The conversation was overheard by a reporter from the local Fox television affiliate, Channel 51, who broke the story late Thursday afternoon.
Connolly said he then returned to his office and faxed the courthouse record to the Gore campaign headquarters in Lewiston, Maine, but never heard from officials in that office.
Until Thursday, there had been only one other request for Bush's driving record in Maine, said Wyke, the Maine official. That request, made Oct. 23 by a man with a Phoenix address, asked for a copy of Bush's record during the past 10 years. Because the drunken driving arrest dated back more than two decades, the man was told the Texas governor's record was spotless.
Many media outlets had requested copies of Bush's Texas driving records before Thursday, but because the charge in Maine was more than 10 years old, it would not have shown up on the Texas files, said a spokesman for the Texas Department of Public Safety.
At his cramped, one-man Portland law office yesterday, Connolly gladly entertained dozens of media interview requests while his secretary kept an eye on his 3-year-old son. ''I'm proud of what I did,'' he said. ''I forced the truth to come out.''
Connolly isn't shy about showing his hostility toward Bush. He created a Web site that attacks the candidate for being ''97% filler with 2% pigs lips and snout along with 1% pure bull coupled with .001% of rodent feces.''
Connolly, who is a criminal defense lawyer, said he did not believe Bush received favorable treatment at the time of his arrest.
He said the law at the time allowed for a maximum fine of $1,000 and/or a month in jail.
Other lawyers agreed.
Bush's drunken-driving arrest came well before Mothers Against Drunk Driving began its effective national campaign.
And in Maine, driving under the influence at that time was considered a type of traffic offense, said Mark Lavoie, president of the Maine State Bar Association.
''It was worse than a speeding ticket certainly, but far less than what it is today,'' he said.
William Head, an attorney who wrote a book on drunken driving defense strategies, said the era in which Bush was arrested could have made it easier for him to avoid the conviction.
Globe correspondent Kathleen Burge and Michael Kranish and Raphael Lewis of the Globe Staff contributed to this report.
