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- Services of Mead Data Central PASE. 10. 105TK LTORY of Level 1 printed in FUL. format. Proprietary to the United Press International 1986 October 27, 1986, Monday, AM cycle SECTION: Regional News | DISTRIBUTION: New York Metro LENGTH: 476 words BYLINE: By BERNARD CULLEN DATELINE: NEW YORK KEYWORD: Debate 7 BODY: | Two gubernatorial candidates agreed Monday to sit for separate 15-minute televised interviews instead of a four-way debate because they refuse to joing == . -» ninor-party candidate in a discussion of campaign issues. a coddl i Republican Andrew O'Rourke and Dennis Dillon of the Right-to-Life Party both agreed to the taped interviews as an acceptable way of exchanging their views without sharing a debate platform with Lenora Fulani, the New Alliance Party Candidate wham they have called ''racist.'’ ''This is the next best thing to a debate,'' Dillon said. Schenectady offered to tape the interviews as a way of breaking a debate deadlock that left the incumbent, Gov. Mario Cuomo, in the awkward position of O'Rourke and Dillon said Public Broadcasting System station WHHT-TV in = debating only Fulani. | co IIR ETI ' ‘tye were told today by PBS that they wanted us to do a 15-minute tape as backup in case the debate fell through,'' said O'Rourke spokeswoman Aloise Buckley. ''We agreed ta do the tape.'' PO A New Alliance Party spokeswoman said late Monday that Fulani had not been asked to sit for an interview. . Dillon and O'Rourke, who for weeks had unsuccessfully needled Cuomo to debate, refused Cuomo's conditions that the debate include Fulani, whose party Z has been charged with being anti-Semitic and affiliated with Black Muslim “4 : sinister Louis Farrakhan. The Cuomo campaign sent a letter to Fulani Monday requesting that she clarify her views on Farrakhan, a New Alliance party spokesman said. 4 .. Spigiy Cuomo campaigniptéscials did not. return. telephone/callssregarding the neon ~Gnterview proposal. On Sunday, a spokesman said Cuomo was checking with Jewish — organizations to determine if he should debate Fulani. At a Manhattan news conference earlier Monday, Fulani said, ‘‘If they still have a debate I will go alone. I will be in Schenectady and I will debate whoever shows up.’’