WASHINGTON REPORT: The Ship of State:

...This led one observer to suggest that the whole affair is faintly reminiscent of a game restless children on rainy afternoons often resort to with playing cards-"52 pick-up...

...SISYPHUS...

...Again, in part, because of the role Church will play...

...Kissinger three times for contempt on grounds he had refused to produce certain materials relating to the purported SALT violations by the Soviet Union and also to covert CIA operations...

...Senator Jackson, who shares Mr...

...WASHINGTON REPORT THE SHIP OF STATE The President reshuffled his advisors in mid-November -not quite the same thing as assembling a new "team" as cliche-prone commentators would have it...

...Administration supporters undoubtedly will charge that Church's presidential ambition is an element in his attack on Bush...

...Another reason is the surly mood toward Ford on behalf of many Democrats in the Senate that is evidenced in several ways...

...The Rumsfeld nomination received prompt unanimous approval by the Senate Armed Services Committee, but Church's view of the Bush nomination seems to have no little support in the Senate, if for no other reason than he is chairman of the Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities...

...SISYPHUSn...

...Church is notably fair-minded-even-handed at times to the point approaching inactivity, in the eyes of several of his colleagues who respect him...

...It may suit the barn-burners to dredge up all the wrongdoings of the last 30 years...

...It doesn't point toward more capable handling of the energy, economic and Middle East problems...

...The changes in assignments were leaked in bits-and-pieces by those antagonistic to them...

...Then, Senator Church, not easily given to public displays of anger, denounced the President's selection of Mr...

...Schlesinger had written a letter to the White House requesting a meeting of the National Security Council to discuss his belief that the Soviet Union had committed four violations of the 1972 Strategic Arms Limitations Agreement (SALT...

...The White House now maintains that the Schlesinger letter has been "destroyed or lost...

...for example, within a two-week period in October, Democratically controlled committees rejected three nominations submitted by the President...

...Both these factions reflect a bit of the attitude: "Sentence first, verdict afterward...

...Then, a few days later, the House Committee on Intelligence Gathering Activities was given to understand that approximately a year ago Mr...

...Schlesinger did not go gentle into that good night...

...Certainly, the manner in which the changes were made known to the public augurs poorly...

...It is an investigation into the most sensitive organs of government-ones that, whatever their transgressions, should be accorded a degree of protection not accorded widget-makers or the Commerce Department or the Federal Trade Commission...

...By now, the Committee may have issued a report, which President Ford wants withheld, detailing the involvement of the United States government in foreign-assassination intrigue during the terms of two Republican and two Democratic Presidents: Eisenhower and Nixon and Kennedy and Johnson...

...This is, then, not an investigation into monopoly activities of widget manufacturers...

...Defense Secretary Schlesinger was sent packing and Donald Rumsfeld, a former House member from Illinois and, currently, a presidential adviser, was selected as his replacement...

...Brent Scowcroft, was designated to replace Henry K as national security affairs advisor to the President at the White House...

...In sum, the investigation is a volatile one-both as to the object of the investigation, the CIA et al., and to the political well-being of the investigatory Senators...

...Schlesinger's distaste for the Soviet Union, learned from someone about the dismissal within hours after the Defense Secretary had been told by the President he was no longer wanted...

...The Bush nomination will get even messier...

...Seymour Hersh, the major investigatory reporter of the New York Times, who first made public some of the CIA's misdeeds last December, was asked to put aside his writing a book and do a piece about the effectiveness of the 11-member Church committee, scheduled to expire in three months...

...Certain members "of the professional staff are similarly divided, which doesn't help bridge the schism...

...His successor is designated as another former House member, George Bush of Texas, currently residing in Peking as our unofficial diplomatic representative to China...

...On the other hand, there are members such as Senators Goldwater and Tower, whose outlook suggests they don't want the Committee on which they sit to go any place at all...

...It's a bit more complicated than that...

...The House Committee, chaired by Representative Pike of New York, then met and by overwhelming votes cited Dr...

...First, there's a difficult situation posed by the composition,of the Committee membership...

...In early October, Mondale gave a speech setting forth his own program for reform of the CIA...

...It is questionable whether the maneuver will generate better teamwork on behalf of Gerald Ford, in his capacity as President and (he presumes) as his party's presidential candidate...

...First of all, Mr...

...William Colby, who has been the target of the slings and arrows of two congressional investigations into the agency he heads, the CIA, was given his walking papers...

...On one hand, there are members, such as Democrats Philip Hart and Mondale, who want Church to move faster...

...Yet, the record is clear...

...Church keeps his own counsel, but an observer may defensibly suggest that Church set out to move the Committee forward by consensus, rather than running some Wild West show a la Wayne Morse or some other Tiger in the Senate...

...He understandably felt this necessary by the nature of the Committee's assignment-an inquiry into the functioning of our intelligence-gathering agencies, what abuses have taken place and how the statutes governing them may be altered so as to prevent a recurrence of misdoings and illegalities...

...Hersh's subsequently published article left an impression that the Church committee hadn't laid a glove on the CIA, as the heavyweight champ's manager always insists to reporters...

...To date, it has been neither vendetta nor whitewash...

...Bush to be CIA director on grounds it would place a former national chairman of a (Republican) political party "at the head of a highly sensitive intelligence agency...

...Moderation may be its own reward, but it is not sitting well among some members of the Church committee...

...Outspoken staff members of his committee left a self-serving impression, reflected in turn in the Hersh article, that die Pike committee has the will but not the staff, while the Church committee has the staff but not the will...

...Hearings will probably be held in a few weeks, as to how to amend the statutes so as to prevent domestic activities and other illegal goings-on of the CIA, NSA, FBI and the rest...

...The President was not amused...

...It's better to exhibit a few of the major ones, illustrate how, if permitted to persist, they would make our government indistinguishable from totalitarian ones and then set out to redraw the lines in an effort to make certain "it can't happen here" (again...

...Kissinger, who has seemingly one more life than a cat, retained his post as Secretary of State, but an assistant of his, Lieut...

...Others who share Church's distress at actions of intelligence-gathering agencies of the federal government-the National Security Agency among others, as well as the CIA-have been critical about his conduct as chairman of the investigatory committee...

...Elliot Richardson is to be brought home from Great Britain, where he is our Ambassador, to become Secretary of Commerce, in place of Rogers Morton-the fourth Cabinet position to which Richardson has been named since the Republican party won the White House eight years ago...