The Word from Washington

...We commend the Administration for its civilized approach, and the "White House official" for his exemplary candor...

...They're not going to get by with this...

...He claims to have been instrumental in persuading the Army to drop charges against the Special Forces troops charged with murder in Vietnam last year, and he assured his Oklahoma audience that he would bring his influence to bear in the My Lai case...

...For most of the past five years, he explained with a perfectly straight face, the United States has had no diplomatic relations with Cambodia, and therefore was provided with no opportunity to conduct intelligence operations in Phnom Penh...

...Do you think anyone would join up with this My Lai thing going on...

...This is the busy time of year for Representative L. Mendel Rivers, the white-thatched patriarch from Charleston, South Carolina, who presides over the House Armed Services Committee...

...In every significant respect, Justice Blackmun seems infinitely preferable to the President's previous and unsuccessful choices, Judges Clement F. Haynsworth and G. Harrold Carswell...

...They've gone after the military and the police and now they're going after our parks and playgrounds...

...Other resolutions were in a more conventional cast—warning against the ' 'Marxist-Socialist-Communist manipulation of youth...

...It shapes up as an interesting primary contest...

...The Priest court martial, conducted at the almost abandoned Anacostia Naval Station, was an interesting exercise in military justice...

...The Navy had a hunch that a prosecution of Seaman Priest, a gangly, soft-spoken Texan whose conduct during duty hours was beyond reproach, might make it look foolish...

...Yet we are told that Mr...

...The Bar Association, by conferring its blessings on Mr...

...A subsidiary theme was the pending proposal to establish an all-volunteer Army...

...As floor manager of the defense authorization bills, he is almost always present in the House chamber to defend what he calls a "bare bones" military budget from the feeble assaults of a few dissident Congressmen...

...In his vitriolic outburst against the Senate after the Carswell nomination was rejected, the President demonstrated his willingness to use the solemn obligation of appointing Justices for the basest political purposes...

...But our favorite comment at this, our favorite convention, came not from any member of the DAR but from the keynote speaker, General William C. Westmoreland, the Army Chief of Staff and former commander of American forces in Vietnam...

...Among the domestic enemies he singles out for special attention are Senator J. W. Fulbright, the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, whose dissent against American policies "could prove as dangerous as the fulminations of those who advocate immediate and complete unilateral disarmament of the United States...

...Justice Harry A. Blackmun is precisely the sort of candidate the President should have selected the first time around—a conservative who seems intelligent and reasonably fair, who is liked and respected by his colleagues, whose record is untainted by ugly scandal or egregious bias...

...Didn't this, the reporters asked, reflect a breakdown in American intelligence...

...citing the "dangers inherent" in ratification of the United Nations Genocide Convention...

...On his third trip on the Supreme Court vacancy merry-go-round, President Nixon finally seized the brass ring...

...explaining that the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks "threaten national disaster...

...Attentive readers will have noticed that The Word from Washington is not infallible...

...He boasts that his voting record has been rated at zero by the liberal Americans for Democratic Action and eighty-nine per cent by the ultra-conservative Americans for Constitutional Action...

...We bring them home from the Army and let some idiots try them like this," he said...

...ilk A sailor more to Mendel Rivers' liking is Navy Captain Robert J. Hanks, the commander of Destroyer Squadron Thirteen...

...This year, as luck would have it, the Continental Congress of the DAR happened to coincide with Earth Day, which provided the Daughters with a new target for their bottomless supply of indignation...

...Candidate Carswell, whose most memorable public utterance was a pledge of eternal fealty to the doctrine of white supremacy twenty-two years ago, says he is running as a "moderate conservative" determined to purge the Senate of "ultra-liberals"—including, presumably, those who voted against his nomination to the Supreme Court...

...It was published as a "prize essay" and won for him a life membership in the Naval Institute, a gold medal, and $1,500 in cash...

...It was, to our knowledge, the first official assertion of the principle that American espionage is conducted only with the consent of the host government, and it must have come as a great relief to various nations that might otherwise have suspected the CIA to be operating within their boundaries...

...rejecting the "Socialist philosophy of taxing the productive middle class," and so on and on and on...

...Erwin Frees Seimes of Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, the president general of the DAR...

...The Navy prosecutor urged the officers on the court martial panel to "make an example" of the sailor...

...Nixon is likely to have further opportunities before too long to continue his self-imposed task of "balancing" the Court...

...We hereby nominate him as Honorary Daughter of the Year...

...Rivers went on to assert that no military force has ever acquitted itself with more distinction than the U.S...

...Army sources insist that there will be no surrender to pressure from the powerful Chairman...

...For reasons that became plain in the Haynsworth and Carswell affairs, each of these endorsements was highly suspect...

...Florida Republicans who look to this space for political guidance—we are sure they number in the thousands —are free, just this once, to vote their conscience...

...But the big issue was pollution, and the Daughters did their best to rescue the ecologists from leftist charges that their movement constitutes a massive cop-out...

...Nixon gave every sign that he holds the Court, its functions, and its historic role in profound contempt...

...Only three aspects of the Blackmun nomination gave us pause: that he was selected by President Nixon, in consultation with Attorney General John Mitchell, and with the unqualified approval of the American Bar Association...

...Representative William C. Cramer, also of Florida, was astonished...

...A tape recording of the Chairman's speech was thoughtfully made by an officer from a nearby Air Force base, but after a few press inquiries were lodged with the Pentagon, the tape appeared to have mysteriously vanished...

...But in Charleston, which some engineers fear may sink under the weight of the military establishments its Congressman has bestowed on his home town, they have a saying that "Rivers delivers...

...He is the proud author of the anti-busing section of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and of the anti-riot statute that served as the basis of the Chicago conspiracy trial...

...Bemedaled, bejewelled, bedecked with sashes and corsages, bemused, befuddled, and benighted, the doughty dowagers of the DAR descend on Washington each spring and provide even the most cheerless denizens of this grim Capital with a few moments of much needed comic relief...

...The sentence will be appealed...

...If you are not a regular reader of the United States Naval Institute Proceedings, a private journal published at Annapolis "for the advancement of professional, literary, and scientific knowledge in the Navy," you may have missed Captain Hanks' recent article, "Against All Enemies...

...And in his tacit acquiescence in the shoddy campaign to purge Justice William O. Douglas from the Court he is displaying a hell-for-leather disregard of constitutional proprieties...

...he asked...

...This environment movement is one of the subversive element's last steps," said Mrs...

...In their endless series of resolutions, they deplored the "antagonism directed toward American industry as the cause of pollution" and enjoined the Federal Government ¦to "refrain from adopting unnecessary and harmful control programs...

...extolling the virtues of "friendly Rhodesia...

...Obscurity indeed...

...In fact, he insisted, Washington was caught completely by surprise by the political events that led to American military intervention...

...Justice John M. Harlan's eyesight is failing, and he has talked about retiring...

...As for the Attorney General, one would suppose that his incredibly poor performance in evaluating the backgrounds of Judges Haynsworth and Carswell would have thoroughly discredited him in the President's eyes as well as the public's...

...The italics are his...

...We erred grievously last month when we suggested, in the first sentence, that Judge G. Harrold Cars-well of Florida was about to slip back into "richly deserved obscurity...

...Rivers, who is strenuously opposed to both the court martial proceedings and the volunteer Army, skillfully wove the two themes together by suggesting that the former will make it impossible to achieve the latter...

...He was, for example, an enthusiastic and energetic advocate of last month's Cambodian invasion...

...he called the maneuvers that produced the Carswell candidacy "unconscionable...

...Not at all, the official replied...

...Army in Vietnam, and that it was preposterous to accuse American soldiers of committing atrocities...

...If the United States is to be protected against the efforts of those who would place her in peril—whether through apathy, ignorance, or malice—we in the military cannot stand idly, silently by and watch it done...

...Samuel M. Neill of Leland, Mississippi, a member of the ever-vigilant Resolutions Committee, detected an even more heinous plot: "Subversive elements plan to make American children live in an environment that is good for them," she said...

...The Association has announced plans to revise its procedures for evaluating Supreme Court nominees...

...In 1968 he introduced a bill to deny extension of a permit to the Poor People's Campaign...

...As a rule this department adheres to the Churchillian doctrine, "Often in error but seldom in doubt...

...The Chairman has always taken a lively interest in matters of military justice...

...You just wait and see...

...Potomacus...

...He was the prime mover, for example, in persuading a reluctant Navy to press charges against Seaman Roger L. Priest for publishing OM, an anti-war newsletter for servicemen...

...the revision cannot come too soon...

...But on a recent day Rivers took a little time—and an Air Force jet—to go to Altus, Oklahoma, and address the annual dinner of that community's Chamber of Commerce...

...Mitchell sits at the President's right hand, delivering valued counsel on matters ranging far beyond his official domain...

...Central Intelligence Agency...

...Mrs...

...The testimony of prominent defense witnesses—former Senator Ernest Gruening of Alaska, retired General David M. Shoup, the former commandant of the Marine Corps, and retired Admiral Arnold True—was barred as "irrelevant...

...calling for "a substantial curtailment of all immigration...

...We have decided, however, to sit this one out...

...He hints darkly that in the Florida contest, Carswell is the "more liberal" candidate...

...Charges were duly brought, therefore, and among them was the specification that Priest "used contemptuous words against L. Mendel Rivers...

...And even when diplomatic relations were restored shortly before Sihanouk's downfall, the United States refrained from sending in intelligence personnel out of respect for the Prince's sensibilities...

...Himself the son of a Daughter, General Westmoreland told his cheering audience, "Our own revolution has ended the need for revolution forever...

...We doubt that the effort to impeach Justice Douglas can succeed, but the Justice is an elderly man who is kept alive by a heart pacer...

...In selecting his previous candidates, Mr...

...Justice Hugo Black is eighty-four...

...Nixon's previous nominees, betrayed an indifference to its responsibilities that can only be compared to the carefree generosity with which Good Housekeeping awards its Seal of Approval to any advertiser who can pay the freight...

...But the panel went its own curious way: It acquitted Priest of the most serious charges—soliciting to commit sedition and soliciting to desertion—on which he might have faced up to thirty-nine years in prison, convicted him of "promoting disloyalty and disaffection" through his newsletter, and imposed the relatively light sentence of a reprimand, reduction in grade, and bad conduct discharge...

...Among Captain Hanks' recent assignments, you will be reassured to learn, was a tour of duty as Deputy Director for Nuclear Planning Affairs in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs...

...If that's a crime, at least half of the House of Representatives ought to be jailed...

...The Republican National Chairman, Maryland Representative Rogers C. B. Morton, was appalled...

...Our oath of office will not permit it...

...He probably meant it...

...The main theme of the Rivers speech was the pending court martial proceedings against American soldiers accused of participating in the massacre of South Vietnamese civilians at My Lai...

...The day will come," the President said after the Carswell defeat, "when men like Judges Carswell and Haynsworth can and will sit on the high court...

...What would we ever do without the Daughters of the American Revolution...

...Representative Cramer, however, hardly qualifies as an "ultra-liberal...

...he had—or thought he had —President Nixon's blessings as the Republican Senatorial candidate...

...The ink was hardly dry before Judge Carswell—offended, perhaps, by a certain lack of warmth in our appraisal of his qualifications for service on the Supreme Court—made a liar out of us by abandoning his judicial career to seek his state's Republican Senatorial nomination...

...Chairman Rivers, it should - be understood, does not invariably intervene on the side of leniency in matters of military jurisprudence...

...There is some comfort in the fact that we were not the only ones caught off guard...

...Captain Hanks' theme is that the oath to which military officers swear calls on them to support and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic...

...Nonetheless, a colleague who makes something of a hobby of chronicling the Chairman's eventful life has generously provided us with a few details...

...Meanwhile, Priest's supporters, who shouted, "Let's hear it for Mendel Rivers," when the court's decision was announced, are passing out buttons that read, "And the OM goes on...

...John Kenneth Galbraith, "to whom the anti-milita:y group looks for words and dogma," and the aforementioned General Shoup, whose "insidious" criticism of the military "has probably sown a significant crop of doubt amongst . . . 'middle Americans.' " "While the threat from without remains, we now face an equally potent challenge from within," Captain Hanks maintains...

...I had something to do in the Green Beret fiasco," he said, "and I will have something to do in this other thing also...

...But Rivers insisted in a letter to the Pentagon that OM "reflects a gross abuse of the consititutional right of free speech...

...urging the official "listing of subversive and radical groups...

...The Word from Washington That mysterious chap whom reporters are required to identify only as "a White House official," and whom they are forbidden to quote directly, was most emphatic in denying all suggestions that the fortuitous coup against Cambodia's Prince Norodom Sihanouk might have been engineered by the U.S...