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Show the national ENTERPRISE -- 10 M Koreagate and House Hypocrisy By Ralph deToledano Copley News Service If the government of South Korea had a smidgin of public relations sense, it would do the following: 1. Prepare a brief, to be issued by its embassy in Washington, detailing in a analysis, how the House Ethics Committee and its counsel, the sainted Leon Jaworski, have done everything in their power to cover up for those congressmen who allegedly accepted the favors of Tongsun Park. 2. Take official note that, in focusing on the alleged sins of Park and the Koreans, Jaworski has relied heavily . on undocumented and hearsay evidence. 3. Announce to the State Department that it would be pleased to order Park to hold a press conference in Seoul at which he would let it all hang out. 4. If this did not send the Congress screaming into its shelters. Park would hold such a press conference at which he would give a full accounting of the moneys he had spent, listing every congressman who had received contributions from him and the exact sum in each case and describing all other favors and gratuities. 5. Park would also explain why it was necessary for him to operate in this manner. A prima facie, though not a conclusive, case has been made that Park spread his favors among many Democrats, including the top leadership in the House, and a few Republicans. The failure of the House Ethics Committee and counsel Jaworski to deal with this in three days of hearings gives credence to that case. What the committee and Jaworski would have us believe is that Park was bribing everyone in sight but in a very curious fashion. Money was changing hands but no one was stuffing it into his pocket. The point should be made that, however reprehensible and illegal Parks alleged actions may have been, they did not compare in magnitude with those of the congressmen who if Park is guilty violated their oaths of office and broke faith with the people who had elected them. Park, if he is guilty is charged, was at least acting in what he misguidedly thought was the interest of his country. The congressmen, if they did in fact take money and other favors from Park, were acting in the interest of their own pockets. The moral difference seems to have escaped the House Ethics Committee as well it might, since its own skin is at stake and Jaworski. And the truth of the matter is that the last thing the Justice Department and the House of Representatives want is to have Park return to the United States and to stand trial. If, on the witness stand and with full media coverage, Park told all that he is supposed to know, it would rock Congress and bring down some of its shining lights in the next election. What the Justice Department and the House want is to see Park standing mute in the dock, which could never happen. So, when he refused to face his accusers, the House heaved one great sigh of relief. With Park out of the country, those honorable legislators who caught their tics in the wringer can raise their voices in moral outrage and show their patriotic fervor by blocking appropriations for military aid to Korea without which that country will become easy prey to the Communists in North Korea, now that President Carter is withdrawing U.S. forces. If the Republic of Korea took the five steps listed above, the congressional Uriah Hecps would become strangely silent about Koreagate. Unfortunately, the Korean government and its embassy in Washington are too intimidated to do what is both shrewd, right and effective. Rather than this, the Koreans prefer to get their eyes blackened and their noses bloodied by the House Ethics Committee and its counsel in proceedings of monumental point-by-poi- Billions for bullion holders? by Helen L. Call Copley News Service The price of gold and the shares of gold mining companies have had a meteoric rise recently. The index of 20 South African gold mining shares is up 46 per cent from its last dip in June. Gold bullion has moved up by about $6 an ounce from the first of October and is about $24 an ounce above its level at the start of the year. All this means that those gold bugs who have grimly held onto their faith in gold and put their funds into gold stocks have reason to be happy. there still time for the ness, he said, and should gold ordinary, investor to catch the tail of the golden comet? stocks level off in the next few days, I would buy. Is Such a correction, if it materializes, in no way in- Yes, indeed, says C. Austin Barker, a longtime guru of the gold world and a vice president of Hornblower Weeks Hemphill Trask. And the time to think about it is not in the future, but now, over the next few days, said Barker in an interview. He pointed out a certain softness in prices of South African mines which developSince share ed recently. prices have seen a meteoric rise, he said, it is to be expected that a correction could take place. It may follow that weak bull validates the long-termarket in gold shares, said Barker. These stocks are a long way from their highs. Such comfortable optimism in no way reflects the views of John McFalls, a Seattle-base- d gold investment In an interview, adviser. McFalls took a cautious approach to the South African Stocks. Everybody is elated and But I happy, he admitted. Mcsmell trouble ahead. Falls said someone is trying to corner the market. m - hypocrisy. nt |