Capitol Ideas / Dope in the White House
Bethell, Tom
"Capitol Ideas / Dope in the White House" however Mr. Nixon may be thought to have abused it, involves issues that go to the heart of effective functioning of the most important public office in our system. But the bulk of the press had...
...One day I asked one of the HUD bigwigs how many blacks, whites, Asians, etc., they had working at HUD...
...The Washington atmospherics may be sodden, but the mental climate is leaden...
...Taxitus succeeded in getting himself elected Tribune, but was the victim of a murder plot engineered by his illegitimate son, known to history as Taxitus Minimus—to differentiate him from his more statist father...
...Yes, it's hard to ignore the allure of political gossip...
...The Times "embarrassed" the FBI, so everyone was happy, except perhaps the poor readers, who, with the Times now on strike, have no doubt turned with a sigh of relief to the Village Voice as an alternative...
...The press rightly cherishes its status as a private and independent institution, albeit one with a special function to perform in our Republic...
...The question in my mind was: Had Byers been involved in prior dealings with the police...
...Spencer himself considered this to be his finest work...
...Earlier on I had spent some rather fruitless hours in the Department of Housing and Urban Development's grim headquarters...
...Probably...
...If only they were content to be rednecks...
...Gleason looked at me rather dubiously, until I explained in further detail...
...Byers was described there as a "police character...
...That special function dictates a need for special protection, but does not justify the claim for total exemption from the obligations, imposed both on other private institutions and on ordinary citizens, that so many in the media currently advance...
...Yet on a sufficient showing of necessity and hardship, a litigant may secure from a court access to the confidential work of an adverse attorney...
...In the course of telling me some of the difficulties involved in running a local government, he said that their police department had been sued by the EEOC because its percentage of black policemen was a point or two below the overall percentage of blacks in the county...
...Then I went to the Post-Dispatch office and read their clips on the story...
...This, as he said, seemed to be a bit like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, in view of the frenzied way the train was jumping about...
...before nodding off to that refrain I stood up to find the refreshment car...
...Softcover $3.00 per volume, $6.00 the set...
...Which was a gross violation...
...Had he been convicted before...
...It will be interesting indeed to see if the media prove to be sufficiently non-monolithic to break this pact...
...Byers apparently is a fence, a well-known fence in SC Louis, Marrosaid...
...Which is no doubt why James Gleason grinned...
...Tax historians now refer to this as the Cro-Magnon Matrix, in honor of the food-gatherer who first noticed that taxes tend to rise...
...He picked up a phone at his elbow and shot the question across to someone else...
...The House Assassinations Committee, which has been "pursuing" the Byers story, almost certainly leaked it to the Times...
...At that point he could write back to Eleanor Holmes Norton of the EEOC and "declare a victory...
...Marro seemed to be much more interested in the fact that the story had supposedly "embarrassed" the FBI...
...Arthur Chester...
...This tendency was excoriated by the Roman economic theorist, Taxitus...
...In 1973 Byers mentioned the "contract" on King to an FBI informer...
...All of which made the prospect of Washington seem even more tedious...
...Civil service application forms do not query race...
...This might seem like a regressive step...
...The Church continued to make new converts, especially in Ireland, which had not yet become a tax haven for tax exiles...
...I was impressed by this display, until on my way home I pondered this elementary question: How did they know how many blacks and whites they had...
...When I worked in the Orleans Parish D.A.'s office years ago, I became accustomed to reading letters from people who claimed to have important information about the assassination of President Kennedy...
...A nice slice of publicity—perhaps enough to encourage the House Administration Subcommittee to approve the additional $790,000 which, two days after the Times' second front-page story, was requested to keep the investigation going a little longer...
...Such was Aristotle's prestige thattaxes remained high throughout medieval and Renaissance times, until the Enlightenment...
...This volume brings together his major and representative writings, including the title essay, "A Plea for Voluntaryism," "The Ethics of Dynamite," and "Salvation by Force...
...No doubt it would be possible, although bad for morale, to go through old newspapers in the Library of Congress and read the dispatches of the reporters in Chester Arthur's day, seeing them agonize their way from one "crisis" to the next...
...If so, what did the committee hope to get out of it...
...He flourished shortly before the withdrawal of the glaciers...
...who might be willing to drop some pending charge...
...Government spending continued to rise...
...I have no idea what they put down in the case of someone whohas both black and white ancestry, such as the Secretary of HUD, Patricia Harris...
...I worked as an investigator in a district attorney's office just long enough to learn that when one hears a report such as this, the first thing one begins to worry about is the "character" of the man making the claim...
...Particularly intriguing was the vast story about the Martin Luther King assassination that came out at the end of July in the New York Times, starting off with two columns on the front page and then covering most of an inside page...
...The era is rightfully known as the Dark Ages...
...Both these men are now dead...
...Being subjected to similar rules, reflecting a special level of protection commensurate with the importance of the press to a free society, would hardly destroy the field of journalism, just as such procedures appear not to have destroyed the legal profession or permanently crippled the Presidency...
...Trade expanded, but defense expenditures rose to counter the Hun military build-up...
...James Gleason, county executive of Montgomery County...
...In the past decade many stories resembling the above have appeared in the Village Voice, and until recently the Times would have handled this story very, very gingerly, if at all...
...I doubt that I will ever see, however, an editorial in my local newspaper suggesting that a reporter claiming journalistic privilege might have something to hide...
...In two volumes, with an introduction by Tibor R. Machan...
...He told me that it was compiled by "visual survey...
...Who was he...
...The government has therefore presumably concluded, and no doubt wisely, that it must accept racial self-definition if there are not to be race review courts...
...In Roman times, the collapse of the Republic had led to no end of fiscal disorder...
...1=1 John Nollson Taxes: A Historical Perspective The first person to notice that taxes were too high was an anonymous cave dweller in southern France...
...By the time the NYT's second front-page story came out, in early August, the writers seemed to be aware that they were not making an important contribution to the King assassination inquiry, but theynevertheless had a new and delectable angle...
...In a legalistic environment, this turns out to be indistinguishable from a "race review court," which, if used in connection with government hiring procedures, would be unpleasant enough to melt away most, if not all, support for affirmative action programs...
...28 The American Spectator October 1978...
...Gerald Boyd, a reporter in their Washington office, told me that Byers "has a record of being arrested in several different cases but he was never convicted—supposedly he had ties-with the FBI and the speculation is that that is why he wasn't convicted...
...Then he grinned...
...This is the key point in my argument...
...But the bulk of the press had little trouble dismissing such contentions as so much dodge and subterfuge...
...Chester Arthur...
...Kauffman, "was indicted and convicted [in 1967] on charges that he .sold 100,000 amphetamine capsules to a federal narcotics agent...
...The Right and Wrong of Compulsion by the State, and Other Essays By Auberon Herbert British political theorist Auberon Herbert (1838-1906) is without equal as a defender of liberty...
...But that privilege need not and should not be as sweeping as the media apparently think, and more generally, their arrogance on this score could use some tempering...
...I told Gleason that all he had to do was find half a dozen policemen (or however many were needed) who were prepared to say they were black...
...Jimmy Carter...
...The attorney-client privilege, for example, has far deeper roots in our legal heritage than the concept of "freedom of the press" as it is now understood...
...There is room in our system for a qualified privilege of journalistic confidentiality, and none of us would endorse any form of governmental supervision or censorship...
...On the wall of his cave appear two arrows, each pointing upward, though at different angles...
...Meanwhile, as St...
...Marro's impression was that Byers had been convicted of a federal crime...
...The Civil Service man then told me that they soon would be asking for race on their application forms as they used to years ago...
...The case agent put the information in the Byers file, but never turned it over to the King investigation...
...All Indianapolis, Indiana 46250 The American Spectator October 1978 27 news judgment at the paper...
...Then, oh dear, I also read that one of the two men who Byers said offered him money to kill King, a Mr...
...I fear, however, that this consideration is not likely to appeal to New York Times reporters these days...
...Louis named Russell Byers who was reported to have claimed, in 1973, that two 26 The American Spectator October 1978 men offered him money to "arrange" the death of Dr...
...I decided to check this with the St...
...King...
...But then, buried inside, I read that Byers "was implicated as a buyer of stolen goods in an investigation involving the theft last spring of a well-known Frederic Remington bronze sculpture, the 'Bronco Buster,' but prosecutors later dropped the charge...
...As the Metro-liner heaved and swayed precariously from Pennsylvania Station into New Jersey, I decided that there really must be some deception inherent in politics that works to convince one, day in, day out, that the trivial is crucial, the ephemeral lasting...
...The case has become an embarrassment to the bureau because the Byers account was never pursued by the agency...
...Kauffman's widow told the Times team that she thought Byers had fabricated the allegation about her husband "to help himself get out of the art case...
...He pointed out that an investigative squad from the Interstate Commerce Commission Tom Bethell is Washington editor of Harper's and contributing editor of the Washington Monthly...
...Perhaps to ward off this impression, the man told me that the Civil Service Commission will accept "racial self-identification...
...Then I spoke to Anthony Marro of the Times...
...Louis...
...I mean, have you heard the latest about the Peter Bourne story...
...He did a lot of work as a gobetween—on the periphery of criminal activity...
...Therefore, the only way "racial self-identification" could be challenged would be, again, by some kind of "visual survey...
...Being something of an assassinologist (which can be a full-time occupation in America), I have been following with interest the antics of the House Assassinations Committee and the various stories that have emanated from their offices...
...In another story from that paper I read: "Authorities familiar with Byers described him as a middle man in criminal dealings and generally believed that he would not be approached as a hired killer...
...But in almost every instance further inquiry would reveal that these people were either in jail and wanted to get out, or were not in jail but were in imminent danger of going there...
...The man at the other end, Chester McGuire, an Assistant Secretary, came right back with the answer: 1,127 black males, 2,241 black females, 4,086 "non-minority" females, and so on...
...His writings are eloquent, forceful—and uncompromising...
...LthertyPresslibertyClassics We pay postage on prepaid orders...
...Have you heard the latest about Peter Bourne...
...What's going to happen in the Massachusetts Senate race...
...Little progress was made until Greek times...
...The impression left by such a story is inevitably that there has been some "significant breakthrough" in the case...
...The request was turned down...
...The early Church Fathers were unanimously opposed to usury, so interest rates were low...
...Taxitus' achievements were all the more impressive in that he had to work with Roman numerals...
...Pericles the Younger, son of the better-known statesman and orator, discovered that taxes were too high...
...To its credit, the Washington Post saw through the story, all but ignoring it...
...Aristotle, still clinging to his notion of the golden mean, thought taxes were about right...
...I learned in the beginning of the second paragraph (prominently on page one) that he was—indeed, is—a "former auto parts dealer...
...It wasn't long before we began talking about politics...
...A few months ago I had lunch with Mr...
...That the White House—or is it the Drug Enforcement Administration ?—has in hand a list of 37 Washington reporters who use cocaine...
...There I spotted an acquaintance, a political consultant named Mark Shields...
...People will be allowed to be whatever race they claim to be...
...It is to Taxitus that we owe the famous geometric representation of the tendency of taxes to treble—the Taxitus Trapezoid...
...Edited and with an introduction by Eric Mack...
...Or he might be able to gain immunity, or protection from attack by others outside the law...
...Is John Warner going to blow it in Virginia...
...None of this, however, (apart from the art theft) appeared in the Times story...
...This informer, Marro said, "told his case agent what Byers had told him...
...Now it is an interesting fact, and one that has scarcely, if at all, been reported in the press, that the federal government now employs people who go around peering into offices, counting up black and white faces...
...was on board, going around with stopwatches, checking departure times, luggage racks, and other minutiae...
...This story was "based on reporting" by no fewer than three of the Times' reporters, Nicholas Horrock, Anthony Marro, and Wendell Rawls, Jr...
...Hardcover $9.00, Softcover $3.50...
...It is clear that Carter has been consider-ably damaged by these revelations...
...My point is that if one department of government (the Civil Service Commission) accepts racial self-identification, then presumably so must another (the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission...
...There would have been double-digit inflation, except that Arabic numerals were still not in wide use and digits, as such, were unknown...
...Louis Post-Dispatch...
...To all those corporations, fire departments, university faculties, et cetera, who have been plagued by an "order" from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission that they implement an "affirmative action" program, I hereby announce a simple solution, which I believe is legally watertight...
...Hardcover $9.00 per volume, $18.00 the set...
...Therefore, I read the New York Times article with great curiosity as to this Byers from St...
...To order these books, or for a copy of our catalog, write: LibertyPress/LibertyClassics 7440 North Shadeland, Dept...
...Accordingly, IX-percent inflation was considered acceptable in those days...
...It seems there has been an unofficial "nonaggression pact" between media and government on this subject...
...Arabic numerals remained unknown, so it was impossible to construct econometric models...
...But if over the years the FBI had "dealings" with Byers, and knew that he was a "fence," it is perfectly possible that they never "pursued" his allegations because they knew how misleading they would prove to be...
...and, well, it is interesting...
...Now you know why the press so abruptly lost interest in the intriguing question of who, precisely, uses marijuana and cocaine among the White House staff...
...I called the Civil Service Commission and asked someone there how the various departments obtained this information...
...The big problem with Jimmy and Rosalynn, I keep thinking, is that they are so anxious to prove they are sophisticates...
...I put up token resistance at first, recalling the trivia of Chester Arthur, but the up-to-date gossipy details of politics act like a drug in the bloodstream...
...He and his partners would go to the Agora at lunchtime to argue with Aristotle...
...The requisite quota would be filled...
...all forgotten and unimportant today, and doubtless never possessing the importance with which they were invested at the time...
...The story concerned a man in St...
...After all, a man who "reveals" something significant about the death of a beloved President may be able to "trade" this information with an ambitious D.A...
...For them, apparently, the thing to do is to go out and try to "embarrass" the FBI whenever possible...
...Reading it through, however, and reading two other follow-up stories by the same team in the next week, it became clearer and clearer that the Timesmen had essentially been "conned"—almost literally in this instance...
...For unaccountable reasons, there has been a decline in the Now ailable : The Principles of Ethics By Herbert Spencer A thorough and systematic exposition of individualist ethics...
...Augustine pointed out, the City of God would operate on sound economic principles, characterized by moderate taxation and price stability (i.e., less than V-percent inflation per annum...
...Similarly, while all the evidence is not yet in, in camera screening by the courts of arguably sensitive material seemed to work fairly well when claims of executive privilege were advanced in the Watergate trials...
...CAPITOL IDEAS by Tom Bethell Dope in the White House Returning from New York to Washington can be a dispiriting experience, especially in the monsoon season...
...The problems of affirmative action programs disappear once this is perceived...
...He formed a small consulting firm, Attic Analysis...
...There is no genetic test whereby blacks can unequivocally be distinguished from whites (as there is, of course, with men and women...
...The Times team was impressed, however, by the fact that Byers mentioned this "contract" on King long before he was indicted in the theft of the sculpture...
Vol. 11 • October 1978 • No. 10
