FORMER DETECTIVES SQUABBLE OVER BOOKS ABOUT SIMPSON CASE.

Byline: Linda Deutsch Associated Press

A war of words has erupted between the cops-turned-authors who once investigated the O.J. Simpson criminal case.

Former police Detectives Tom Lange and Philip Vannatter denounced former colleague Mark Fuhrman on Wednesday for comments he wrote in his new book trashing them as incompetents who blew the Simpson case.

Fuhrman, a disgraced former detective who was later branded a racist during Simpson's criminal trial, responded by accusing the two former senior detectives of writing fiction in their own book.

``Mark Fuhrman's book . . . is a desperate, cynical and cowardly attempt to redeem himself at our expense,'' Lange and Vannatter said in a 15-page, single-space statement.

They suggested if Fuhrman's book was a sworn affidavit, he would risk another indictment for perjury.

Fuhrman, who was reached by phone during a tour to promote his book, ``Murder in Brentwood,'' said he would gladly submit to an affidavit or deposition under penalty of perjury because ``I can verify everything in my book.''

Of Lange and Vannatter, his former colleagues in the Los Angeles Police Department, Fuhrman said, ``They're embarrassed and defensive because they wrote a book that was inaccurate. What they couldn't remember, they made up.''

The two retired detectives, who headed up the Simpson probe, have their own book, ``Evidence Dismissed,'' which they are promoting as the ``definitive story of the police investigation.''

Their statement, which disputes dozens of specifics in Fuhrman's book, ends by denouncing him as ``a proven racist and perjurer who took the Fifth Amendment rather than defend his work in our case.''

``They attacked me personally and this is not a personal issue,'' Fuhrman insisted. ``I like both of them. . . . I wish it didn't have to come to this. I wish they could be a little more humble.''

Fuhrman acknowledged, however, that his book skewers an assortment of trial figures including Judge Lance Ito and his wife, police Capt. Margaret York, defense attorney Johnnie Cochran Jr. and prosecutor Marcia Clark, just to name a few.

``It isn't revenge,'' Fuhrman insisted. ``I just got tired of being dumped on.''

In an hourlong phone interview, Fuhrman left no doubt that he is a bitter, angry man, resentful of having to plead no contest to perjury for denying that he uttered a racial epithet for African-Americans. He insists he was persecuted by those with political agendas.

``There are political people cognizant that there's a strong minority vote in California,'' he said. ``It was a political issue.''

Fuhrman openly accuses California Gov. Pete Wilson, Attorney General Dan Lungren and state Sen. Tom Hayden of mounting a campaign against him and blasts the criminal trial defense team for making him a scapegoat.

``At some point, it was not allowed to be the Simpson trial for some reason and it was my trial,'' he said.

When the plea bargain was offered for him to plead no contest to perjury, he said he had no choice but to accept.

``How could I get a fair trial,'' he asked, ``when I had been annihilated in every venue in this country.''

Fuhrman insists that his racist ramblings, tape recorded by screen writer Laura Hart McKinney and played in court at the end of Simpson's trial, were mere bluster, an effort to create a fictional screenplay that might rival Joseph Wambaugh's ``The Choir Boys,'' one of his favorite books about rogue policemen.