Show Are America’s Voters Ready for the Truth? By Tom Tee pen Cox News Service ATLANTA Are we the - Great American Electorate smart enough to handle wisely what we are learn' ing about our public figures? Worries along those lines occur in the wake of a round of reports in which journalists have been poking into matters that in the past would have been considered far too personal for the public prints and airwaves Would-b- e president Gary Hart was caught by one newspaper and was driven from the political lists when a second prepared to report still another amorous liaison When a Connecticut congressman died of AIDS the official version of nis death — that he got the disease Tom Teepen is editorial page editor for The Atlanta Constitution from blood transfusions during heart surgery — was challenged by a news story saying it was more likely he bad contracted the disease from homosexual contacts A good case can be made for the reporting in both cases In Hart’s with his campaign already dogged by the question of compulsive womanizing and not just occasional hanky-pank- y his continued messing around spoke volumes about his nature and judgment The report about Rep Stewart McKinney the Connecticut congressman is more troubling Was it really necessary? Yet if it is so that he died as a result of sexual acts the Information is twice useful It avoids adding to the about the quality of the nation’s blood supply And McKinney was respected in the House for his decency compassion fairness and hand-wringi- integrity He was a worthy human being the likes of whom we should wish for more in public life not fewer His death then would remind us that AIDS is not a scourge of the wicked though a few demagogues out to anathematize homosexuals would have us think so The Salt Lake Tribune ts ’s Pulitzer prize-winnin- g biogra- phy “Bearing the Cross” King defended his sexual athleticism as “a form of tension reduction” While King was subjected to merciless harassment for his sexual adventures by FBI Director J Edgar Hoover the newspapers never touched the subject Nor did they inquire into the many sexual liaisons of Presidents Kennedy and Johnson! Dwight D Eisenhower’s wartime affair with Kay Summersby Morgan did not come to light until the publication of her memoirs 30 years after the fact Most journalists of the day never knew about the most durable of all presidential affairs — that of President Franklin D Roosevelt and Lucy Mercer Rutherford Yet the Roosevelt affair produced a peculiar standoff at the time of the 1940 presidential election when word came to the Roosevelt campaign that the Republican nominee Wendell L In any event the old lines of restraint in reporting are bending and in spots breaking There are few ab- solute no-nremaining Decisions to publish or not are being made case by TufRUKlANflkWMS Ross K Baker is a professor of political science at Rntgers University and the author of “Friend and Foe in the US Senate” (MacMillan 1980) Willkie was romantically involved with a woman who was not his wife Roosevelt’s campaign managers feared that the president’s own secret might be exposed if they raised the subject of his opponent’s infidelity Why did none of that information ever reach the public? The answer is found in the code of discretion that prevailed among journalists until very recently and that still causes some of them to be queasy about reporting the intimate details of the lives of public figures The code was a simple and one: If the private straight-forwar- d behavior of a public official was not criminal and did not adversely affect the conduct of that official’s duties it was no business of the press to report it The dutiful watchdog however has la(py been transformed into a snarling attack dog — or at least a dyspeptic bloodhound — that can be found rooting around in everything from Henry Kissinger’s trash can to Gary Hart’s driveway The transformation of the press from the attentive guardians of public rectitude into an unrestrained pack of yapping terriers came about because of changes both in politics and in journalism The turning point probably came in the 1970s as a consequence of the Watergate scandal and the manner in which it was exposed and the quick succession of sensational rcvcUuons of Sen Frank Church's committee during its investigation of the CIA moreover presiden By this tir 1b WELL WHAT TMW&OR 36 SlALUl’OfS'iOAC case a time when the press in a kind of gentlemen’s agreement would refuse to report that a president was wheelchair-boun- d as was the case with Franklin D Roosevelt and thus give implied currency to the entirely misleading impression encouraged by Roosevelt himself that he had been substantially “rehabilitated” from polio Partly by law — as with new financial disclosure requirements — but even more importantly by changing custom our public figures are becoming more transparent We are looking into them in ways that were taboo in the past And although the public is reporting itself to pollsters as disapproving of such press actions it does not shy from making political decisions on the basis of the additional information (See above: Hart Gary) If all this is likely to continue — and my guess is that the genie cannot be coaxed fully back into the bottle — then the same information that interests the public also requires of the public a new level of poise sophistication and perspective in its response It will be a cramped set of criteria for the presidency if we wind up making our choice according to what candidates have not done If the only acceptable candidate is one who has never touched dope never had sex outside of marriage never got his or her financial feet tangled never drunk to excess and so on we will be down to a short list of saints and expert liars An amiable boob could qualify where a brilliant candidate who had dallied would not We have seen two barriers to high office once thought to be insurmountable fall in the last generation The Catholic John Kennedy and the di- - ‘ vorced Ronald Reagan were elected to the White House American voters are capable of overcoming arbitrary prejudices It looks as though we are going to be challenged to overcome still more We will never again see TWN&'-WTOt- NMD?- EMftKf MOSCOW T ALUS' AHE0UYiN£ lH6&tkSNOirtlN£Sli? pOK’TWeHAVt MKOUR MUK? COfAMUMlCfl&i? mit Cant PtfcmxroK WUATtVffT DO UWWS NOT IN EUf&ft WVE D60A&PWWSO1 JMfcM Mis- VftKHK - IT WAS B&YMpKN'MGIN HONOLULU WtWEfc r' ASUEPINCURBAWLKS YiHKf ABOUT t rbaembnow ''mcZEKOSOME IN A-- :! " f t? ( f '1 j i v O i'ir rUfi you caw TfcKe vr with vou rH ’if 'wl ''X v'y S-f- i Tf I A’ 4 IHH investments TOCJ£ lift "OH NO! THAT GAREfcGE BAfcSE FROM ST- NEW YORK!" - !f ’r '13 ILLEGALLY? YtU CAN BILLION'S GET FINED MILLIONS' FOR THAT I "MAKE 'ey Si 3 L) i£7 f mata 'AW6ortGarW SaiuMif H7EAS?' mor Rather than resulting in a nice his wife and made no profession of celibacy for that period He was not trying to fob himself off as a plaster saint There was no need for him to publicly modei his chasiity belt especially if he were going to continue a pattern of behavior that suggested wickedness But the Hart scandal raises a larger question of just how much time serious journalists ought to spend at the keyhole on stories designed to cause the public to drool and slaver over politicians’ peccadilloes The presidency is a special case to be sure but the Constitution does not require chastity of those who would aspire to the Office If “womanizing” is fair game for the press what about a longtime liaison between a candidate and just one woman? And if all we know of a negative nature about a presidential candidate is that he occasionally sleeps with a woman other than his wife does it become a disqualifying flaw? Before journalists slip the leash of sustic propriety and tear off sniff out the private lives of pub people they might consider a sim but fair standard of conduct: If it’s i impeachable it's not reachable - AN'fWN6 fashioned by media advisers Journalists were discovering the tools of aggressive Investigative reporting about the same time that politicians were perfecting new techniques of presenting themselves to the public in the most flattering even heroic light If politicians were going to parade around like white knights the watchdog was going to need teeth sharp enough to pierce the suit of ar- statement Hart with his challenge to news organizations to assign reporters to “put a tail on me” was dangling a hunk of red meat in front of a Doberman and couldn’t blame the dog for going after the toothsome morsel Hart had been forthright with the press about the two separations from A13 trey ii? tial politics had evolved into an exercise in marketing images on television — a development that challenged journalists to discover the real person lurking behind the mask equilibrium in which journalistic enterprise and skepticism balanced off many represidential image-makin- g porters allowed themselves to be gulled by the electronic facades of presidents or presidential candidates and to write adoringly of them But at the first sign that the image they had so lovingly nurtured might be concealing a less noble reality the reporters would be seized by distemper and go on a rampage What is distressing is how little of this new aggressiveness is directed toward policies that are advocated by the candidates and how much of it is just sneering and leering Politicians foolishly invite such probing Jimmy Carter with his smirking sanctimony virtually dared the press to pick a hole in his coat and then gave it the tool to accomplish that with his “lust in the heart” 16 1387 Drawn and Quartered Journalists Politicians Should Review Duties By Ross K Baker Special to the Los Angeles Times fhe Rev Martin Luther King Jr was a womanizer who rationalized his behavior by noting that the leadmovement ership of the civil-righput him under enormous emotional pressure According to David J Gar-row- Saturday May - Political Courage ' Rep Wayne Owens shows political courage and good fiscal sense opposing the proposed 640 billion 7 cargo plane There is no need for the 7 which is a proposal more in line with the other Reagan public-work- s projects such as the B-- l bomber $21 billion and the MX missile $40 billion Gov Bangerter’s soliciting more military production per the 7 for Utah employment is unwise Utah needs a diversified economy not unduly dependent upon military spending Lobbying for the McDonnell Douglas plant supports the national thesis that a large portion of defense spending is for employment purposes and not for real defense needs However the law requires that the Defense Department contracts 'be competitive and if this has not happened there is no guarantee McDonnell Douglas would get the contract Rep James Hansen calls the C 5 cargo aircraft a disaster The C--5 and C-1- C-1- -- C-1- jet transports are still front- line aircraft and no older than the commercial 747 727 737 DC-1- 0 and the Lockheed Starlifter all of which go back to the late 1960s The C-- 5 is the largest aircraft in the world Certainly it has been modified as has every aircraft in the military inventory If the Air Force needs more cargo aircraft keeping the Lockheed production lines open for a is much less expensive JAMES R ECCLES Kaysville C-5- B No ID No Help Recently I took a woman to the Pioneer Valley Hospital My husband had found her hitchhiking and in such a state of health that she needed medical treatment During her journey across the country she was robbed of all of her personal belongings The nurse at the emergency room irsisted on her having a picture identification before treatment The girl was in pain and had a fever Because of that she wss not entirely rational The nurse summoned the security guard which was totally uncalled for She was getting pretty impatient and irritable I didn't blame her a bit Tjjpy refused to treat her because The Public Forum Tribune Readers’ Opinions they couldn’t “verify” who she was So we went home The next morning I took her to the Insta-Car- e on Redwood Road and they promptly referred her to the LDS Hospital Clinic No problems were encountered there situaIt wasn’t a tion only a case of sun poisoning but I feel the courtesy of the LDS staff far outshines that of Pioneer Valley Thank you for being caring courteous kind and sweet to a person in need I don’t know what to say to Pioneer Valley Hospital staff What else can be said? CLAUDIA WOLFE West Valley City Moral Outrage Recently on the TV news I saw Sen Hatch castigating an official from MSHA for being lax in enforcing safety practices at the Wilberg mine While I agree a fire needs to be lit under the bureaucrats in government including the politicians I was struck by the utter absurdity of what was going on Sen Hatch has spent his career fighting government regulations doing his utmost to derail delay or gut acts the MSHA and OSHA and there he was chewing out a bureaucrat for not being more diligent in his job I have to wonder if the show Hatch is putting on in the Wilberg incident isn’t serving two purposes: 1) to moderate his usually strident rhetoric to attract the moderate faction in the Senate and to prepare his way for a possible Supreme Court nomination and 2) to show the folks at home he's fighting for them in preparation for his Senate campaign next year The time for Hatch’s moral outrage at this lack of diligence should have been before 27 coal miners lost their lives May 1 further suggest that Hatch as a member of the Senate Labor Committee responsible for overseeing labor laws should bear some of the responsibility He is in part respoible for creating this climate job-safe- ty of “benign neglect” that allows big business to ignore safety laws in the workplace JERALD V HOLMES Orem Forum Rules Public Forum letters must be submitted exclusively to The Tribune and bear writer’s full name signature and address Names must be printed on political letters but may be withheld for good reason on others Writers are limited to one letter every 10 days Preference will be given to short typewritten (double spaced) letters permitting use of the writer’s true name All letters are subject to condensation Mail to the Public Forum The Salt Lake Tribune PO Box 867 Salt Lake City Utah 84110 people who pay taxes pay fees Cqll it what you want but it still costs the people more The announcement made it sound as if we pay nothing for garbage collection now We already pay about $4 a month through our property tax If a new fee is imposed the amount we pay is doubled Have costs really doubled or are we new going to subsidize something else through garbage fees? A short time ago I wrote suggesting that privatization of this and perhaps other services be considered This need has not gone away and is probably needed more than ever The city needs new leadership that Will solve our problems in new waytf Instead of resorting to the same old unsuccessful methods of increasing taxes whether you call it that or not: DAVID S MONS6N Groveling Act The merits (if there are any) of the situation aside embarrassment is the strongest emotion I feel with regard to Gov Bangerter’s actions od the McDonnell Douglas 7 program in Utah The governor has felt compelled to write the president of McDonell Douglas Aircraft assuring him that the governor and all the other Utah congressmen and senators still were in the McDonnell Douglas pocket despite Wayne Owens’ intent to vdte against inflating the federal defense budget I don’t know if I’m more chagrioed by the prospect of elected representatives whose votes are so cheaply sold or by the implication that our governor is so naive as to think the president of the subsidiary of a majqr corporation is so innocent as to lie upset that congressmen don't always vote as expected If Mr Gross the president of McDonnell Douglas is moved by Mr Bangerter’s groveling act the board of directors of McDonnell Douglas need to reconsider thfir executive selection criteria If indeed there was in the pact between Mr Bangerter and Mr Gross an assurance that all congressmen and senators would always vote as McDonnell Douglas would like Mr Bangerter was foolish to offer it and Mr Gross was foolish to expect it EHtL GATES T Murray C-1- Can’t Do It Alone I think Salt Lake City has an excellent mayor but what is lacking is the support he needs from the people for the city and its resources This mayor is putting up with ignorant and hypocritical people The problems with Salt Lake City and cities throughout Utah begins and ends with the people In the majority of cities where I have visited or lived there is a sense of community commitment energy and excitement created by the people living there but this is not here in Salt Lake City self-center- ANN JOHNSON We Still Pay It never ceases to amaze me how political officeholders work Our most recent city budget emphasizes this Mayor Palmer DePauhs proposed increases in parking-mete- r fees business licenses and a iee for garbage collection service Then he proudly tells us he won't propose a tax increase Unless I'm mistaken the same I J |