Correspondents' Correspondence

...Second, the White House lawyers are unhappy about a provision in the bill that would set up a special Justice Department division to investigate official corruption...

...Thus the Democrats will have an opportunity to talk about Ford "trying to block Watergate reforms" right before the Senate vote, and Ronald Reagan will be able to revive the matter right after the vote...

...The powerful Catholic Church also fought against the constitutional amendments...

...It just appears bent on avoiding another June 25.—Tom Heneghan...

...The development has stunned Congressional sponsors for several reasons...

...All anyone can be certain about is the sequence of events...

...Several on the staff recognized, however, that the situation could not be coming to a head at a worse time politically...

...No matter what the government attempts to do, its hands are more bound than ever...

...White House Surprise Washington—In one of the strangest developments of a strange political year, it has come to light that President Ford's White House lawyers are suddenly expressing serious reservations about legislation designed to correct Watergate-type abuses within the government...

...Put it all together and you have on Capitol Hill, well, astonishment...

...They clearly hope he will not have to face that decision...

...The 11 signers said they spoke not only for themselves, but also for the signers of the "Letter of the 59," written to oppose the constitutional changes intended to limit civil rights and strengthen ties with the Soviet Union...

...While White House officials who are involved in the confrontation on Capitol Hill make no secret of their wanting the legislation changed, they won't say flatly that the President will veto the legislation if it is approved by Congress in its present form...

...First, they say the financial disclosure provisions go too far to be practical...

...At the moment no one is sure, including Party Chief Edward Gierek, whose actions in the coming weeks will provide the answer...

...Perhaps remembering how he came to power, in the latest confrontation Gierek avoided bloodshed and protected his position by quickly retreating...

...Yet from the Party's point of view it can only lead to the erosion of its power...

...But a check at the White House legal office revealed that, indeed, White House lawyers shared Levi's concern...

...Workers across the country immediately protested, some of them striking and tearing up railroad tracks...

...There is no question about the need to raise prices...

...This did little to soften the blow...

...The heavily subsidized prices, moreover, have encouraged the Poles' tendency to spend much of their excess income on food, producing frequent shortages, especially of meat...

...To compensate for the dramatic rise in the cost of living—the average increase for meat was 69 per cent—it was further announced that wages, pensions, and the returns farmers receive for their produce would go up...

...Two other groups, scarcely constituents of either the Party or Gierek, are also enjoying renewed influence in Polish society...

...Dissident intellectuals, who, after years of silence, reemerged last December during the confrontation over proposed constitutional amendments, have written an open letter supporting the protesting workers...

...Yet, as one aide said with a bit of understatement: "This whole thing is touchy to start with and could get worse...

...Almost every government appointee would be required to make extensive statements about his personal finances...

...On June 24, the government announced that long-delayed foodprice increases would come into effect four days later...

...The first attempt, made shortly before Christmas 1970, triggered strikes that toppled Party leader Wladyslaw Gomulka from power and resulted in the death of about 50 workers following clashes with the militia...

...More recently, it has opposed the government's plan to take over poorly managed private farms, charging the program was punishment for believers rather than a means to increase productivity...

...That may be one reason it has been difficult to find out the Chief Executive's personal feelings on the subject (aides say they just don't know), or exactly how far his lawyers are willing to carry their opposition...

...The first talk around town was that Attorney General Edward Levi, who can be an independent sort at times, had gunned up the opposition on his own...

...It is also supported by all three former Watergate special prosecutors—Archibald Cox, Leon Jaworski and Henry Ruth...

...By the evening of June 25 the whole package had to be recalled for further study...

...They were low in 1970, and since then the country has gone through a period marked by inflation, a 40 per cent rise in wages and two bad harvests...

...For in warding off a tragic confrontation, it allowed some of its authority to be whittled away...

...Perhaps the oddest aspect of the Administration's position is that prior to the end of last month it was not widely known inside the White House...

...The speculation was that he considered the legislation a personal putdown and was fighting it for that reason...

...Bob schieffer The Polish Protest Munich—The day that shook Poland last month—although not too violently—marked the revival of an old scenario or the opening scene of a new one...

...The events of June 25, they said, proved that dangerous outbursts of social dissatisfaction are the only way for citizens to display their discontent...

...Such a division is unnecessary, they argue, because the department already has sufficient tools to root out corruption...

...Thus, for the second time in six years, the Polish government failed to raise the country's subsidized prices above their 1966 level...

...Aware of his delicate position, Gierek announced in a televised address on July 3 that a modified version of his aborted price-increase program would be put into effect after consultations with the workers...

...Until now, moreover, the White House had not voiced any doubts about the bill, even though it has been under consideration for about a year and a half...

...the workers—the Communists' theoretical and Edward Gierek's actual constituency—again saw that they can affect policy...

...It has developed a large trade deficit in the West, too, with debts estimated at about $6 billion...

...In a year when there is a substantial anti-Washington mood in the country, and at a time when Reagan continues to make an issue of what he calls "the Washington buddy system," headlines saying the President opposes Watergate reforms would not seem to be the kind of newspaper attention Ford needs...

...But an effort was made to avoid reducing the overall standard of living by carefully introduced compensations this year to avoid reducing workers' purchasing power...

...Basically, White House lawyers dislike three features of the proposed legislation...

...The Senate is now set to vote on the bill later this month, just after the Democratic Convention and just before the Republican Convention...

...To begin with, the bill not only has broad bipartisan backing but is endorsed as well by the American Bar Association...

...And unless the reservations are worked out soon, the Ford Administration will be in the awkward election year posture of opposing the only proposed reforms to come out of the Watergate mess...

...there is no other word to describe the reaction to the Administration's stance...

...Stable prices also have supported inefficient workers, who, seeing their daily bread and meat becoming relatively cheaper every year, have little incentive to work harder...

...Why are the reservations only now beginning to surface...

...Party leaders admitted they hoped the new price hikes would alter consumption patterns and goad slacking laborers...

...Finally, they object to a provision that would allow Federal judges, under certain circumstances, to appoint special prosecutors to investigate government crimes...

...Although Levi had mounted an active lobbying effort on Capitol Hill to sidetrack the legislation, and although Ford's legal aides had been drawing up memos outlining their criticisms of the bill, some of the President's key non-legal advisers—the men who must consider the political implications of everything the President does—said they were unfamiliar with the legislation and the White House lawyers' reactions to it...

...The President has made similar disclosures himself, but his lawyers maintain the legislation requires so much detail that it constitutes an invasion of privacy...

...Praising the government's responsiveness to public demands, the intellectuals argued that an "authentic dialogue" should be opened?complete with free press and the right of assembly...

...A spokesman answered, simply because no one thought until recently that the legislation had much chance of passage...

...Aside from obvious internal problems, this would invite criticism from Poland's Communist neighbors, who still adhere to the orthodox version of the dictatorship of the proletariat...

...Nevertheless, the people again rejected the increases decisively, posing long-term problems for the Party...

...Such public participation in policy matters may suggest the positive development of a sort of Polish consensus Socialism...

...These amendments, too, had to be watered down ("Polish Discontents," NL, March 15...

...At the moment, though, it doesn't seem to know precisely how it will cope with the situation...