Experimental investigations have been undertaken to study the multiplet structure in six nuclei near 132Sn: 132,130Sb, 131,129,127Sb, and 132Te. Experiments were performed using ion beams of mass-separated fission products produced by the TRISTAN mass separator at Brookhaven National Laboratory. Extensive four-detector gamma-gamma coincidences, gamma-multiscaling and conversion-electron data have been collected. Ultralarge shell model calculations were performed using the VLADIMIR shell model code on the Cray/CDC 7600 supercomputer system at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. These calculations were designed to look at the performance of the Kallio-Kolltveit and Siemen's g-matiix potentials on the 1-3 quasiparticle nuclides in the gddsh model space. Results show that realistic potentials work well on nuclei near 132Sn but show problems with 129,130Sn and 131Sb which can not be accounted for by core-polarization corrections. Problems are shown to be due to the use of a potential derived with the Scott-Moszkowski separation metl1od. The separation distance was demonstrated to have a weak dependence on the principal quantum number but a strong dependence on the orbital angular momentum. This suggests the Kallio-Kolltveit potential is underestimating the strength of the h11/2 interactions in 129,130Sn and 131Sb.