September 28, 1977

Press Searching For 'Smoking Gun'

Where is the "smoking gun"?

The press believes there is an incriminating counterpart to the Watergate tapes stashed away in President Jimmy Carter's secret closet and will continue searching until the evidence is found.

The real target of the so-called Lance Affair was not the free wheeling budget director - but his boss.  Everyone concerned about Lance and his government job were willing - even anxious - to overlook his practices as a swinging banker.

The day before Carter appointed Lance, a close friend of the latter, Associate Attorney General Michael Eagan, obligingly killed a Justice Department investigation of illegal overdrafts.

The Senate Confirmation Committee gave Lance a brief tea-party, a round of applause and comforting words about his "smearing" by the press.

Three White House aides - including Carter Attorney Robert Lipshutz - suppressed an unfavorable FBI report about Lance's personal finances last January.  Carter says he had no knowledge of Lance's problems until just recently.

In the old Watergate days we called these kind of activities obstructing justice, whitewashing, stonewalling and cover up.

Until the very end Lance had strong defenders on the Senate Committee, in the White House and among the press.  In fact, Lance became a sort of folk hero worthy of a brass-band reception when he returned to his home town of Calhoun, Georgia.

Eat your heart out, John Ehrlichman.

The pressure by the press on Lance was just part of the adversary journalism with which we have been plagued in recent years.  The fad started in Eastern press circles as a fun sport to bedevil Richard Nixon.  But along the way the "investigative reporter" found respectability, fame and fortune.

Books, movies and television shows bring in quick cash in huge amounts.  Now we have a new breed of newspaper employees who care neither for journalism, government nor the country.  They have become bounty hunters.

Having established that presidents are fair game, the trend setting newspapers must prove there was nothing personal in their Nixon vendetta by bringing down another sitting chief executive.  The blood letting will not stop until there is a second sacrifice, and Carter may be it.

In Carter they have a convenient goat.  He speaks with a non-Harvard accent and espouses conservative policies under the mantle of liberality - a sort of latter-day treason.

Thus, it can be expected that the investigations of Lance will continue.  His over drafts - seven while in office - are illegal without question.  He mixed his private, business and political activities willy nilly while flying about in a bank-owned airplane.  He borrowed two loans with the same collateral, an action that would land you and me in jail toot sweet.

These messy matters must be disposed of some way - probably with admonitions -but the officials who obstructed justice, whitewashed and covered up must be taken off the hook.

Then, the big artillery will be trundled out.  What are the details of the loans to Carter by his protégé, Lance?  Were they as loosely constructed as the other sweetheart deals set up by Lance?

What was Jimmy Carter doing in the Manufacturer's Hanover Bank talking to the vice-president of correspondent accounts while his buddy was arranging a personal loan, later backed up with a no-interest correspondent account?  Was the front runner in the presidential campaign applying subtle pressure on behalf of his friend?

Why has Erwin Rabhan - a nursing home promoter who was another personal friend of Carter - fled the country?  Is there something illegal about those regular monthly contributions to Carter and the frequent trips on Rabhan's private plane?

What deals were made by Carter, Lance and the Teamsters' Union to move a two million-dollar account to the National Bank of Georgia?

The press knows that you don't rise to the top in Deep South, one-party politics without winking at pay offs.  They view the president's holier-than-thou attitude as a smoke screen.  They want to know what is being hidden.

The Lance Affair was a preliminary skirmish.  Nobody won.  Not Lance, not Carter, not senator Ribicoff, not the press.

Other close associates of Carter can expect merciless scrutiny - starting with Jody Powell.  He cut his own throat with the press by the "dirty trick" of trying to plant a false rumor about Republican Senator Charles Percy.  The Carter press secretary accused Percy of taking political plane rides and failing to pay campaign debts.  As it turned out, the company named didn't have a plane, and a cancelled check proved Percy's honesty.

Eventually Carter will stand naked and alone before the cold eye of the Press.  Will he have the "smoking gun" in his hand?

Author: Lindsey Williams