According to The Post, in a report confirmed by officials of the State Department and the Peace Corps, the incident occurred last March while Mr. Savage was on an official visit to Kinshasha, Zaire. The American Ambassador, William Harrop, arranged a dinner for Mr. Savage, several embassy and Peace Corps officials and the Peace Corps volunteer, who officials said had been chosen to brief Mr. Savage on the group's activities in Zaire. After dinner, the party, at Mr. Savage's request, went out in three cars arranged by the embassy to visit night spots. Mr. Savage insisted that the woman ride alone with him. Once in the car, the woman told The Post, ''he grabbed me.'' She was quoted as saying, ''He tried to force me to have sex with him.'' She said Mr. Savage kept touching her despite her demands that he stop. This continued for two hours as the group went from bar to bar, The Post said. The group ended up at a disco in Mr. Savage's hotel, where the woman finally walked out after a ''tense public encounter,'' in the words of an embassy official. The embassy information officer, Daniel McGaffie, escorted the woman home, and the next day she complained to Peace Corps officials.
The State Department has forwarded to the House ethics committee an allegation that Representative Gus Savage sexually accosted a young Peace Corps worker in Zaire
Lawmaker Is Accused of Sexual Impropriety
By MICHAEL ORESKES, Special to The New York Times
Published: Thursday, July 20, 1989
The State Department has forwarded to the House ethics committee an allegation that Representative Gus Savage sexually accosted a young Peace Corps worker in Zaire, State Department and Congressional officials said today.
Mr. Savage, a Democrat from Chicago's South Side, refused to speak with reporters at the Capitol today but did live interviews with Chicago television.
''Let me get something straight,'' Mr. Savage said in an interview with WBBM-TV. ''I did nothing. That's what I did. This lie is being leaked by the State Department for political reasons. You know I have been No. 1 on the Reagan Republican hit list.''
Mr. Savage, 64 years old, told the station that the woman had got in and out of his car three or four times after visits to night spots. ''If there was any kind of abuse,'' he asked, ''then why would she get back in the same car? Some of the cars were American embassy cars, so she could have gotten into those cars.''
Representatives Patricia Schroeder of Colorado, Matthew F. McHugh of New York and Barney Frank of Massachusetts, all Democrats, asked the ethics committee to investigate the allegation against Mr. Savage.
The three said they did not know anything other than what they had read in an article in The Washington Post this morning. ''But we believe the accusation is sufficiently serious to justify your looking into it,'' they said in a letter to Representative Julian C. Dixon, head of the ethics committee.
The committee is scheduled to meet Thursday morning to consider an unrelated complaint against the House Republican whip, Newt Gingrich of Georgia. Mr. Dixon, Democrat of California, said committee members might also want to discuss the allegation against Mr. Savage. Night Began With Dinner
According to The Post, in a report confirmed by officials of the State Department and the Peace Corps, the incident occurred last March while Mr. Savage was on an official visit to Kinshasha, Zaire. The American Ambassador, William Harrop, arranged a dinner for Mr. Savage, several embassy and Peace Corps officials and the Peace Corps volunteer, who officials said had been chosen to brief Mr. Savage on the group's activities in Zaire.
After dinner, the party, at Mr. Savage's request, went out in three cars arranged by the embassy to visit night spots. Mr. Savage insisted that the woman ride alone with him.
Once in the car, the woman told The Post, ''he grabbed me.'' She was quoted as saying, ''He tried to force me to have sex with him.'' She said Mr. Savage kept touching her despite her demands that he stop.
This continued for two hours as the group went from bar to bar, The Post said. The group ended up at a disco in Mr. Savage's hotel, where the woman finally walked out after a ''tense public encounter,'' in the words of an embassy official. The embassy information officer, Daniel McGaffie, escorted the woman home, and the next day she complained to Peace Corps officials.
Ambassador Harrop then confronted Mr. Savage, State Department officials said. Department Referred Complaint
The department has referred the case to the ethics committee, said Jill Gross, executive assistant to the department's Inspector General.
Peace Corp officials said the woman had been returned to the United States for counseling and had been reassigned.
But Mr. Savage said she had been returned ''because she was suffering some kind of emotional breakdown.''
photo of Rep. Gus Savage (Stan Barouh)
