Tully, J

<p>Assisting Barbouti with these investments was New Orleans exporter Don Seaton, a business associate of Richard Secord, the right-wing U.S. Army general turned war profiteer who was so deeply enmeshed in the Iran-contra affair. It was Secord who connected Barbouti with Wackenhut. Barbouti met with Secord in Florida on several occasions, and phone records show that several calls were placed from Barbouti's office to Secord's private number in McLean, Virginia; Secord has acknowledged knowing Barbouti. He is currently a partner of Washington businessman James Tully (who is the man who leaked Bill Clinton's draft-dodge letter to ABC) and Jack Brennan, a former Marine Corps colonel and longtime aide to Richard Nixon both in the White House and in exile. Brennan has gone back to the White House, where he works as a director of administrative operations in President Bush's office.</p>

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<h1>Bush Aide`s Friend Leaked Clinton Letter</h1>

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<div id="mod-article-byline" class="mod-chitribarticlebyline mod-articlebyline"><span class="pubdate">March 22, 1992</span><span class="separator">|</span><span>By Scripps Howard News Service.</span></div>

<p>WASHINGTON — The 23-year-old letter that fueled the controversy last month over Bill Clinton`s Vietnam draft status was leaked to the news media by a man who is a business partner of a White House aide.

I thought it was a disgrace, and I thought somebody should know about it, said James M. Tully, who acknowledged in an interview that he leaked the 1969 letter.</p>

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<p>Young Clinton mailed the letter to an Army official renouncing his commitment to ROTC and saying he wanted to be available for the Vietnam draft solely in order to maintain his political viability.</p>

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Tully said he acted strictly on his own in releasing the letter.

It wasn`t done for anybody, Tully said.</p>

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Tully is a partner with White House aide John V. Brennan in a company that was involved in the sale of military uniforms and helicopters to Saddam Hussein`s Iraq. Watergate figure John Mitchell, who died in 1988, was also a partner.</p>

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Lawyers said the firm, Global Research International, Inc., still exists but is no longer active.</p>

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The White House had no comment.</p>

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Brennan said he has not seen Tully often for the last six or seven years, but said he talked with Tully about the draft letter recently. Brennan said he knew nothing about the letter before he read about in the newspapers.

In a brief telephone interview, Brennan declined to say what his position is in the Bush White House. I don`t do much, he said shortly before hanging up.

A secretary said Brennan is director of the administrative operations division in the office of administration in the White House.</p>

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Tully was not the only one who gave out the letter. He said that when he forwarded his copy to a news organization, he was told they already had another copy.

The letter came in from various sources, said ABC News spokesman Arnot Walker.</p>

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Retired Lt. Col. Clinton Jones, who interviewed Clinton when he applied for the ROTC program in 1969, said he gave a copy of the letter to ABC at the network`s request. Another copy may have come from a former ROTC secretary.</p>

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The Clinton letter, reported on ABC News less than a week before the New Hampshire primary, triggered a firestorm of criticism of the Democratic front- runner.

It is unclear why two or three copies of the politically explosive letter suddenly surfaced just last month after more than two decades. Bitter controversy has swirled around Clinton`s Vietnam draft status at least since his 1978 run for Arkansas governor.</p>

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Tully said he was faxed a copy of the letter from North Carolina by a friend of a friend, whom he declined to identify. He said his source was active neither in government nor politics.</p>

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