ASHINGTON - Several of George W. Bush's advisers had long known about the candidate's 1976 arrest for drunken driving but decided to keep it secret, underscoring the risk the campaign was willing to take, and raising questions about whether it misjudged the impact of withholding the information.
Yesterday, Bush aides said the infraction was minor and that the Texas governor didn't want to admit to his twin daughters that he had been arrested for operating a vehicle under the influence of alcohol. But some political analysts said yesterday that disclosing this information much earlier would have resulted in a minor 24-hour story instead of one that could alter the final days of the campaign.
By keeping the information secret until it was revealed by a Maine television station, the Bush campaign has found itself responding to questions about whether Bush was trying to cover up the matter. That is always a serious question in politics, where the operational wisdom is summed up in the phrase, ''It's not the crime, it's the coverup.''
Political consultant David Carney, who was the national field director for the 1992 campaign of Bush's father, the former president, said he asks many clients who are running for office whether they have committed an offense that would hurt their candidacy. Carney said he had one client who was leading in the polls one week before Election Day but then was the subject of a front-page revelation. The candidate then lost the election.
''Good campaign managers will walk through all of the potential liabilities and you discuss each and every one, and what are the chances of people finding out about it,'' Carney said. ''You need to know about it so you don't get blind-sided.''
Like numerous Republicans interviewed yesterday, Carney said it would have been better to release the information earlier, but he stressed that he felt the story would backfire on Al Gore if it were determined that the Democratic campaign had anything to do with the release of the information.
Bush spokesman Karen Hughes said that she had known about Bush's arrest earlier but that the governor and the campaign decided not to reveal it. Separately, Bush campaign sources said that several top advisers in addition to Hughes were familiar with the arrest. Bush said Thursday night that he kept the matter secret because he didn't want to tell his twin daughters, now 18.
Larry J. Sabato, author of ''Feeding Frenzy: Attack Journalism and American Politics,'' said the story of Bush's arrest is ''incredibly old and irrelevant.'' But at the same time, Sabato said Bush's effort to keep the arrest secret ''is a silly and self-defeating policy for any presidential candidate.''
Sabato offered this theory for Bush's effort to keep the matter secret:
''It is because my generation, the baby boomers, desperately hope to contain the knowledge of their misdeeds from their children and would do just about anything, even if it is irrational, to attain that goal. He just didn't want to tell his daughters. I believe that and it has cost him dearly.''
Bush, throughout his campaigns for the governorship and the presidency, has been asked in many ways whether he used illegal drugs or violated the law. Bush has usually responded by saying that he was ''young and irresponsible'' without getting specific.
For example, when Bush was interviewed by the Globe in September 1999, the following exchange took place:
Interviewer: ''I want to ask you a question that I think is asked of a lot of people applying for a law enforcement job. That is: have you ever broken any laws in your life?''
Bush: ''I'm not going to talk about what I did. I've answered the question to the extent I am going to answer it. Nice try! It was clever!''
Pressed, Bush said: ''It was not clever. I have answered the question all I am going to answer it.''
Yesterday, the Dallas Morning News reported that it had asked Bush two years ago whether he had been arrested after 1968. The newspaper said Bush denied being arrested after that time - a statement contradicted by his 1976 arrest.
Bush and other Republicans have often mocked the way President Clinton initially spoke to the American public about his relationship with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky. Republicans often say Clinton's shadings of the truth are ''Clintonesque.''
Bush, by repeatedly trying to avoid answering questions about his ''young and irresponsible'' days, has used his own locutions to avoid answering direct questions. For example, Hughes yesterday said Bush never denied he had been arrested after 1968.
''The only time the governor was directly asked if he had ever been arrested for drinking, he replied, and I quote, `I do not have a perfect record as a youth,'' Hughes said.
Indeed, Bush has often left the impression that no damaging information was left to be revealed. For example, in an appearance on NBC-TV's ''Meet The Press in late 1999, Bush said: ''If someone was willing to go public with information that was damaging, you'd have heard about it by now. You've had heard about it now. My background has been scrutinized by all kinds of reporters.''
But, because of Bush's decision to keep his arrest secret, reporters yesterday were looking anew into his drinking and questions about whether he used illegal drugs. The story of Bush's arrest has quickly become subsidiary to questions about why the governor did not disclose it. For example, Gore disclosed long ago that he used illegal drugs for several years, smoking marijuana during the 1970s.
