The Word from Washington

...Even reporters who generally espouse conservative views reacted with private derision to the Reagan tactic of blaming the Cubans and Russians for the Salvadoran civil war and the deepening American role...

...J.S...

...Efforts by the White House to cut off coverage of escalating U.S...

...A memo in our hands indicates quite the contrary: In seeking to combat the Carter Administration plan to designate certain large tracts of land as wilderness, Watt wrote to "selected MSLF members" on June 20,1978, to inform them, in part: "We have held several meetings to coordinate the lawyers representing the affected industries in order to assure the Board of Litigation and Board of Directors that such a case would benefit the entire private sector...

...This may only be the beginning...

...Hinckley made no confession...

...Readiness rip-off...

...There would be a long wait, until past midnight...

...THE WORD FROM WASHINGTON Black spring Jeffrey Stein The Senate Dining Room is a fairly sedate place, as a rule, filled with the low buzz of tourists taking a break from the foot-pounding Capitol tour...

...He was quietly led away...

...Stone, out of semi-retirement...

...Switch hitter . . . Interior Secretary James Watt swore during his confirmation hearing that the Mountain States Legal Foundation (MSLF), which he headed before coming to Washington, had a policy of strict separation between its corporate sponsors and the litigation board...

...Too much energy...

...The employe adds that the firm also has plans to build an underground condominium for its New York staff, somewhere in Westchester County...

...You get to complain to your Congressman later...

...For those who remember how the Washington press corps cheered 6n the war in Vietnam in its early stages (when Izzy Stone was virtually the only anti-war journalist in town), it has been encouraging to note the skeptical, even negative response of reporters here to Ronald Reagan's great adventure in El Salvador...

...On a shelf behind him, I noticed, was a small pile of tiny gold bits...

...Retired General John Singlaub, who resigned from his command in protest over Carter Administration policies, is said to be the key ASC operative for Central America...

...May briefing Semper paratus...

...I've got eight or nine papers already...

...In other words, the corporations and the "public interest" foundation didn't collaborate on what cases to pursue...

...The word is that Edwards will be gone by August with the covering announcement that he plans to run again for Governor...

...she was white, and so am I. She leaned forward and whispered, out of the hearing of the other, black clerks in the office...

...It was certainly frustrating...

...He came in, and the man held out his hands to be cuffed...

...Izzy Stone, now seventy-three, can be seen bustling about Washington with more apparent energy and enthusiasm than the youngest of reporters...

...The new era has even brought that veteran crusader, I.F...

...I dropped in on one entrepreneur who was taking in silverware and small pieces of jewelry, wedding bands and the like...

...I was sent to a special office to take care of it...

...The black man shook his head and headed off for the courthouse...

...The Department of Energy under former one-term South Carolina Governor and oral surgeon Jim Edwards is reliably reported to be in complete disarray, with both Edwards and the White House now realizing the appointment was a disaster...

...Around the country, gold and silver traders are doing brisk business...

...They looked remarkably like tooth fillings...

...And she did...

...What the hell is he going to do when one of us is killed on film...

...Money people always know what's going on before anybody else, ".he says...

...Downtown, at the Motor Vehicles Bureau, a white clerk told a black man he would have to go to court and get things straightened out with the authorities before he would be issued a license...

...Later, his court-appointed lawyers noted they had been kept from their client for five hours...

...The woman there told me the normal procedure was to go out and buy a money order, which she would then send to New York...

...Behind the lines...

...Investigators are probing a pattern whereby shady intermediaries represent themselves as "disadvantaged" minority firms to snare the contracts while in reality acting as fronts for well-heeled firms...

...Suddenly he stood up, grabbed his chair, and smashed it over the table, sending dishes flying and tourists jumping...

...A police officer was called...

...His voice slowly rose as he repeated the epithet, and heads turned...

...Meanwhile, reports have surfaced that the born-again Watt fell on his face in attempts to force women in the Interior Department to wear dresses...

...I had my own problems with the Motor Vehicles Bureau—an old, unpaid traffic ticket from New York...

...Informed sources say it was the Washington-based American Security Council (ASC) which sponsored a quasi-clandestine visit of several South African military and intelligence officials here in mid-March...

...He stood there, the chair still in his hand, head bowed, repeating the phrase...

...How will they know in advance that an attack is coming...

...The General Accounting Office is investigating fraud in connection with contracts for developing the Rapid Deployment Force (RDF...

...But they remembered Dallas and the confusion and Jack Ruby shouldering his way through the reporters to get Lee Oswald...

...Most of them felt—as one expressed it—it was "like being in the Army...

...It seems he was driving in Fairfax County—"a black man driving a top-down Austin Healy 3000 in Virginia, see"—and a white cop pulled him over...

...military, diplomatic, and intelligence officials, such as former CIA chief of counterintelligence James Angleton, is also said to be financing Miami-originated radio propaganda against Cuba and a new machine gun factory in Guatemala...

...involvement clearly boomeranged...

...They complained that their exclusion from the approaching court appearance must be illegal, unconstitutional...

...And even image-conscious television reporters openly discussed the escalation with disdain around the press rooms and lunch tables...

...A few reporters grew testy in the darkness outside the courthouse as the interrogation of Hinckley continued...

...A senior wire service reporter threw down his newspaper in red-faced anger as he read about the Administration's latest moves, and stalked out of the press dining room muttering obscenities...

...A few miles away, in the barren area called Buzzards Point, beyond the Capitol near the Anacostia River, agents in the FBI's field office hammered away at the suspect, probing for a motive or evidence of a conspiracy...

...One day in early spring, the quiet was shattered, though, when a middle-aged black man, dressed in clean slacks and an open-necked shirt, began muttering about "Capitol Hill politicians" as he sat alone at a table...

...I'm syndicating myself," he said...

...That's nothing," responded a television correspondent...

...muttered one prominent journalist after a briefing...

...At the Motor Vehicles Bureau, the man found out the cop had added a citation for drunk driving...

...Sources say the Internal Revenue Service is now reviewing the foundation's public interest performance...

...It's not the usual procedure," she said with the sweet smile of a secret confederate, "but I can get one for you upstairs...

...What the hell is Reagan going to do when the first American adviser is killed in El Salvador...

...The ASC, made up of former senior'U.S...

...In great exasperation, the man turned to me and with quiet anger and frustration poured out his story...

...After he sent out a dress code order, all the women showed up in pants...

...reporters immediately scored the Ad-minstration for orchestrating the Vietnam analogy, then trying to back away from it...

...One wonders why this is so...

...Izzy and company One positive, if predictable, result of the Reagan electoral victory is that liberal, left, environmental, and civil rights organizations are reporting an upsurge of interest and donations...

...In Washington, many of the store-front gold buyers seem to have established themselves in the black ghetto...

...The white cop checked his license and issued him a ticket for a minor traffic violation...

...Suspended rights Stonefaced agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation stood on the doorsteps of the courthouse in Washington on the long night of March 30, keeping the growing crowd of reporters and camera crews outside and away from the Government's scheduled presentation of charges against John W. Hinckley Jr...

...The daily briefings at the State Department have often degenerated into a circus as reporters openly scoff at the Administration's doubletalk...

...Deak, Perrera, the New York-based money trading firm, has begun preparing an underground communications facility in North Dakota to maintain contact with its worldwide offices following a nuclear attack, says a former employe...

...They were...

...Uncovering such abuses has derailed timely development of the RDF's new "High Mobility Multi-Purpose Wheeled Vehicle," more commonly known as the Jeep...

...Then she looked at me...

...I asked where I could get one right away, and at first she said she didn't know...

...With an infectious, mischievous grin, Stone told me the other day that he is back in business as a full-time reporter...