Old ghost, new cloak

Press, 5 July 1983, Page 10

Old ghost, new cloak

By DAVID NAGY, of Reuter (through NZPA) Washington The ghost of Watergate still haunts Washington and everything indicates that it is here to stay. It is haunting President Ronald Reagan, who has found himself ensnared in a potential scandal over the methods used in achieving his famous success in a television debate with Jimmy Carter just before badly beating him in the 1980 Presidential election.

Behind-the-scenes political capers were seldom reported, let alone investigated, before the revelation of the buggings, break-ins, dirty-tricks and cover-ups which sent many aides of Richard Nixon to jail and drove him out of office in 1974.

Now, any whiff of scandal can lead to real trouble — as Mr Reagan discovered when a Congressional committee and the Federal Bureau of Investigation moved in on the case.

So far, the only thing not in dispute is the incident which started it all. A new book about Mr Reagan revealed that in October, 1980, someone on Mr Carter’s re-election staff had given someone on Mr Reagan’s staff hundreds of pages of briefing papers designed to prepare the President for his crucial televised campaign debate with his Republican opponent.

The papers eventually reached a Reagan campaign aide, David Stockman, now the top White House adviser on budget policy, who admits that he found them “useful” in rehearsing Mr Reagan for the event. There the accused and the accusers — former Carter aides and other Democrats — part company in a welter of claims and counterclaims about what happened and what damage resulted. The key questions, to be pursued by a Democraticrun House of Representatives sub-committee, and the Justice Department with F. 8.1. help, are these: • Was any law broken in the transfer of the Cfrter documents? Or is the vlola-

tion one of ethics alone? • How was the material obtained? By chance, from a disgruntled Carter aide; by subterfuge and theft encouraged by Reagan aides? Did money change hands? Were favours offered? • Who handed it over? Was it more than one person, as two former Carter aides,'• Jody Powell and Patrick Caddell, suspect? ® Who accepted it? Was it Mr Reagan’s campaign manager, William Casey, now director of the Central Intelligence Agency, who says he remembers nothing about the affair? For the moment Mr Reagan seems to have satisfied most critics about two other points central to what the American press is calling “debategate” and “briefinggate”: Whether he knew about the Carter papers at the time and whether they had any significant impact on the outcome of the debate. At a recent news conference dominated by the issue Mr Reagan said that he had never heard of the Carter papers until the story broke and that they had no bearing on his performance.

“Since the material never got to the debater, what purpose did it serve?” he said.

Most commentators and political opponents have taken Mr Reagan at his word on this point. But the issue has swept beyond that to larger questions of law and ethics — and here he has fared poorly since his tense news conference when reporters badgered him for

answers. He tried to laugh off their queries and assert his original view that the row was “much ado about nothing.” But he grew testy under such questions as: did he think the penetration of a rival’s camp was just poli-tics-as-usual? And what did he propose to do about such aides as Mr Stockman and his chief-of-staff, James Baker, who did know about the papers?

On the question of legality Mr Reagan suggested that some disgruntled Carter aide might have provided the papers unasked. “Is it ‘stolen’ if someone hands it to you?” he said. On the ethics of political campaign spying, he said: “No, I think politics should be above reproach and there shouldn’t be unethical things done in a campaign.” But he went on to insist that his own aides had done nothing improper. Those answers were widely greeted as unsatisfactory. “Why is he so evasive and sanctimonious about the ethical issues?” asked a “New York Times” editorial. “Even if the law was not violated, the ethical questions are subtle and perplexing.” The “Washington Post” said: “Something not quite cricket happened whether something far worse occurred awaits the information as to how that document was acquired.” Some analysts took Mr Reagan’s side. A “Washington .Jimes” editorial de“this lust for scandal” as grossly out of pro-

portion. But many echoed the view of a “New York Times” columnist, William Safire, a former Nixon White House speech-writer: “The issue is, now that Mr Reagan knows that at least an unethical lapse took place, what is he going to do about it?” Whatever investigators now turn up, the affair is a classic example for good or ill of the impact the Watergate scandals left upon American politics, journalism, and public attitudes. In just a few days the following developments occurred in a high-velocity chain reaction: • Mr Stockman admitted he had used the papers. • James Baker said that he had seen them and recalled getting them from Mr Casey, who denied any recollection. • Mr Reagan told the Justice Department to investigate vigorously. • Democrats demanded the appointment of a Water-gate-style special prosecutor. White House aides were until recently scoffing at the charges and saying that any comparison with Watergate was nreoosterous.