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Show Pe Sfriion A The Wednesday Morning June 13, 1973 page Public is Generous Grants of Immunity Subvert Intention of Statute Forum Forum Rules Public Forum letters must be submitted to The Tribune and bear writers full name, signature and address. Names must be printed or political letters but may be withheld for good reasons on others. Writers are limited to one letter every II days. Preference w ill be given to short, typewritten (double spaced) letters permitting use of the w liters 4rue name. All letters . are subject to condensation. excl-asive- it passed the Organized Crime Act of 1970 Congress sought to strength- When Con-ir- ol en the hand of law enforcement by providing new and sometimes controversial weapons. One such weapon was witness immunity. Immunity from prosecution, much in the news now' in connection with principals in the Watergate case, is nothing new. But the type of immunity now being sought and dispensed dates only to the 1971 law. The Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees that no person shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself. In organized crime investigations witness after witness takes the Fifth refusing to testify. Their refusal makes it extremely difficult to obtain evidence against those who control organized enme. To overcome this constitutional objection and compel testimony, Congress had enacted a number of witness immunity laws. All of these were replaced by the 1970 law ensuring witnesses compelled to testify before Congressional, judicial or administrative bodies that neither their testimony nor any evidence obtained by exploiting that testimony would be used against them. Once partial immunity has been granted, refusal to testify warrants contempt charges. person granted partial immunity can still be prosecuted on the basis of evidence collect id independently of his testimony. A Application of the immunity statute to Watergate principals raises questions that eager congressmen should have considered more thoroughly three years ago. When the bill was under consideration we noted that it is difficult to draw a line as to where evidence originates. A person testifying under partial immunity can never be certain that his testimony didnt provide leads from which was develindependent evidence On With the Hearings Editor, Tribune: Commenis. both pro and con, are seen, heard and read relative to the wisdom of public hearings on the Watergate affair by the Senate Select Committee. I hereby register one in oped. Watergate a new doubt arises. The immunity provisi6n was aimed at underljngs in organized crime to force them to testify against higher ups on the theory it was better to let some small fish go free if their testimony led to the whales of organized crime. But in the Watergate case it is mostly the prime suspects, the whales, who will benefit from generous immunity grants. With There is justification for granting immunito the major Watergate figures if: 1. It is ty expected they can supply valid evidence against those still higher up and only the President is higher. 2. It is decided that con- "All my pari statement as Press Secretary are inoperative. . . Ami that's the truth. . . Phhlllti! viction of guilty parties is secondary to having the Watergate story spread before the public via the Senate hearings. In either case the 1970 immunity statute has been exposed as less than the foolproof e tool its taw and order sponsors It wasnt too long ago that college presidents were being tossed out of their offices by rioting students and thousands of freewheeling antiwar demonstrators were threatening to close the government down. Now, all is quiet again on those fronts. remember the outburst of bombs in public buildings? Things got so off going bad at least they seemed to be so bad at that extra security measures the time were employed, particularly at government buildings. And I fear for the direction that my country is taking. I have seen in the last 25 years a strong dnft toward the completely structured society of Orwells 1984. There is a definite trend toward absolute power: the fountainhead of that power ensconed in the White House. It has been shown again and again in the Watergate hearings that the most significant corrupters of political personalities and groups is money. Huge, uncontrollable sums of money. Money which has eroded and washed away the ethical and moral values of the people involved. This is an important fact brought out; a starting point for reform. To borrow a phrase and add to it. Formal Inquiry At Watergate? v United Feature Syndicate WASHINGTON The deeper becomes the pit, which Watergate special prosecutor Archibald Cox is digging for himself, the more urgent and it obviously necessary becomes for a fresh start al- curity measures. Officials attribute the plans to fewer bombing threats and budget cuts. Fewer armed guards will be posted, a number of sealed off entrances will be reopened and not as many packages will be inspected where the local political climate together. What is required is still just what was required in the first place. This is the appointment by the President solely upon the recommendation of the most distinguished figures of the of a high American bar Mr. White national commission of inquiry similar to that which investigated the assas sination of John F. Kennedy. According to the National Bomb Data Center in New Jersey and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, politically motivated bombings have dropped from 90 percent of the total to about 2 percent. It is difficult at the height of crisis to think of anything but how to get out of the then current danger. Too often, a frightened citizenry turns to harsh laws and other restrictions that tend to linger long after the threat has been forgotten. permits. hood, didnt do much to enhance the trees chance of utilizing what moisture they would receive naturally. If freeways and similar major roads and streets are going to be landscaped there must be a commitment on the part of government, at some level, that such work wont be a one shot proposition. There can be attitude. Codes of ethics are fine, but there are times when the frame around them is worth more than they are. Once upon a tune, there was a drug haul that wasn't the biggest in history. He has been secretary of so many different things, it must be tough for Elliott Richardson to remember which limousine to get into after a cab- inet meeting. Bill Vaughans Absolute power corrupts absolutely. , Let the Watergate hearings continue; let them continue publicly; let us determine what measures are required to correct faults in the electoral process; let us enact the corrective measure into law; let us return the people to their premier status under the Constitution. JEREMIAH J. LEHANE Gusher Orbiting Paragraphs Gunmen in New York steal a fortune in diamonds from an air cargo terminal. The irony of it is that they may have overlooked a freezer full of steaks. Fine Needlepoint Editor, Tribune: Well, You June Every time the airlines try to drive travelers Richardson was given the task of finding someto the railroads, Amtrak does its best ta reback body equipped for an immaculate pursuit of a fuse them. form of justice aseptically free from and. indeed, That stuff is merely junk as long as its in your quite out of this world. So Richardson chose his old Harvard law professor, Archibald Cox, whose attic, but if you move it to your garage and put up academic distinction has not prevented him from a sign it becomes valuable merchandise. making two errors that are scarcely credible. Item: He has issued absurd challenges to the Ervin Senate committee's undoubted right to conduct its own inquiry in its own time and in its own way. The notion that the Supreme .Court would ever grant a ukase limiting a committee of the U.S. Senate, a part of a coequal branch of government owing no bended knee to either the judiciary law or the White House, would flunk a first-yea- r student in any backwater college. Proclaims Fierce Independence nance of the landscaping will have to be budgtvid on pretty much the same basis that filling of chuckholes, removal of snow and replacement of signs is funded. Yet, this maintenance of the status quo should only come after all other possible avenues have been examined. Throughout the several institutions of higher learning of this state and scattered among the various governmental research facilities there must be enough botanical expertise to assemble a list of plants with low water demands, able to survive the ravishes of close proximity to mimi-ma- l highways and roads and demanding of care that could be used to implement the Williams and Mocine suggestion. Such a list ought to be compiled before a single cent is spent on any plant near a freeway or expressway. Proper plant selection combined with a willingness to pay the cost of maintaining them will be the only way to keep any landscaping from going the way of those trees near Nibley Park. Money brings power; Power corrupts! well-place- d Once trees, bushes, grasses or shrubs are planted along these roads they must be maintained. This means watered, pruned and trimmed on a regular basis. Thus the mainte- If government, on whatever level, is not prepared to make such an ongoing fiscal committment then landscaping efforts would be better off to remain as they are now the occasional mowing or spraying of weeds along the rights of way. Nixon ship and of returning, to Massachusetts as the very model of virtue betrayed. The great point here is this: A Warren-typ- e commission working with the Ervin panel which is positively staffed with courtroom as diswould have tinguished from classroom lawyers cleaned up this whole mess for the one true client. That client is the American people. To avoid having his own attorney general. Elliot Richardson, be the agent for investigating illegal acts charged to his own administration. Politics has been called the art of doing the President Nixon leaned over backward. He leaned backward so far that the country has wound up possible. And then keeping as quiet about it as with a prosecutorial system of fatal weakness. possible? Plan the Plantings The $80,000 Williams and Mocine report, intended to plug gaps in Salt Lake Countys 1965 master plan, includes in its several recommendations a suggestion that funds be found to landscape freeways and major thoroughfares. The idea of landscaping these roads and streets is great, but before any serious consideration is given to executing it considera- ble planning is called for. It wasnt too many years ago that State Highway Department officials in an effort to maintain a bit cf greenery along a stretch of 7th East decided to leave several trees in the median near Nibley. Park. Those trees survived only a few years, primarily because there was no means to keep them watered. The fact that asphalt paving was packed close to them, in all likeli to be sild to the public as just and necessary'. The open and public Senate hearings are, then, a first class method of allowing the public to know the extent of corrupt practices taking place behind the scenes in current election activities. said it would be. The bombing threat, too, appears to have Such a reaction, we suppose, is only natuwithered. Chances are you wont have to open your briefcase the next time you enter ral. But, as the various upheavals of the past decade clearly show, the most meaningful soeven the more sensitive government buildis the simple and sometimes agonizlution Services General The Administration, ings. slow which manages about 5,000 government buildingly passage of time and the changing se- conditions it produces. for announced and has attitudes reducing plans ings, Granted that beauty is in the eye of the beholder it can hardly be argued there is any beauty in a clutch of weeds growing in the stretch of land separating traffic lanes of freeway or expressway. The argument comes in finding a suitable alternative. When, and if, such iaws are formulated, there will be strong resistance to them. They will have William S. White anti-crim- Tliis, Too, Will Pass In these days of Watergate and kindred worries it is good to remember that crisis, almost by definition, is a fleeting thing. favor of the hearings. In time, the substance evolving from the hearings should lead to new laws relative to election reforms. It is obvious that such laws are badly needed. The federal judiciary is concerned with laws currently on the books. The Department of Justice with the prosecution of criminal cases. It is folly to expect that the Executive Branch would make a strong effort to formulate laws that legislate against the very processes that brought them to power. Accordingly, if such reform is to come about it must be done by Congress. And the time for information and fact gathering is now. 2 The article by Mike Royko, Cant Always Be a Copyboy, in the issue of The Tribune, is a beautiful piece of needlework. I wonder what the editor of that Philadelphia as newspaper thinking w hen he hired David as a mere columnist. Despite Davids inexperience and lack of training in journalism, I am sure he would w make a good copyboy. After all, isnt his father-in-lathe President of the United States? PHILIP WHEELER Midvale Don Bacon Nixon Acts Change Presidency Nixon plans to meet frequently wath Republican congressional leaders, and has suggested that they draw up the agenda for every third meeting Other congressional Republicans will attend the wild card representatives. sessions as New house News Service WASHINGTON President Nixon is taking histone steps that, in effect, are changing the nature of the presidency. Struggling for his political survival, Nixon is Both Parties Praise Action forced to redistribute to Congress and the being Item. Having many times proclaimed his his office has fought for and he has asked Senate Republican leadpowers bureaucracy Further, fierce independence from Atty. Gen. Richardson accumulated over half a century. er Hugh Scott of Pennsylvania and House Repubm been Cox has, fact, (and vice versa). moving Nixons gesture of bringing Congress and the lican leader Gerald R. Ford of Michigan to particcloser and closer to Richardson, a fellow wearer maipate in cabinet meetings, a gesture that is perinto the While House decision-makin- g cabinet of the tie. Richardson, who had taken a haps without precedent and which has been a move, it must be noted, born of desstout oath to stay out of this whole business, then chinery praised by both parties as a promising new way conviction or than generosity peration rather proceeds to make two extraordinary observations. to infuse congressional ideas into executive policy. The first of these is proper, though it was at this has been one of the subtle but highly significant of ramifications to to Nixon it Watergate. the has also, Significantly hardly trumpet necessary juncture acquired as his chief domestic R. Melvin adviser nation Love Coovernot events do here, Evolving assuming This observation was to the effect that if Cox take it and snuff it out. is a new form of shared ngress) Laird, who served 16 years in the House before becoming Nixons first term defense secreshould run afoul of President Nixon on the issue leadership that has not been tested in Amenca. tary. Laird knows all the secret hideaway and of what White House inner communications were By design or accident, Nixon has laid the founs drinking rooms on Capital Hill and has properly confidential, the President would surely dations for a parliamentary-typ- e in administration, a strong regard for the congressional process. If have to look to some other lawyer than Elliot which the legislature, department heads and presihe should decide later thai'Nixons overtures to Richardson. dent work together, rather than as adversaries, in the legislative branch are all cosmetic, hell quit The ironic consequence of this is that whereas formulating and carrying out government policy. But he is currently conviced there is substance every other defendant in this shabby mess is literExtends Hand to Congress behind the efforts. ally ringed with counsel, the only defendant who For the past two weeks. Nixon has been teleEvidence of a new White House mood is showa man named Nixon has in a really matters graphing his conciliatory approach throughout the up everywhere. The Administration, for ining no a all for ai way except good government. First, he ceremoniously dismantled lawyer practical stance. has called off its declared war v.ith Conbut not too eninent White House assistant called the despised super cabinet plan that he created gress over the issue of the budget. Several weeks Leonard Garment in January to further insulate him from the men ego, the White House threatened to veto 15 spendUnlike the first, the second of these Richard- who run the bureaucracies. He began to hold reguing bills that were pending before Congress Two son incursions into an affair that he was going to lar cabinet meetings four in the past month of them were vetoed m those heady days before stay out of is by no possible standard either nec- and, according to surprised witnesses, invited the Watergate explosion. and certainly not so long as these previously ignored officials to speak their essary or proper he continues to sit in the cabinet and accept the minds, air their complaints and recommend policy Prepares Battle Kits favor of his patron. h To fan Last cabieven the Thursday. public support for the changes. urged net to help him decide on a new economic policy. drive. Ken W. Clawson of the White House communications staff prepared battle of the budget Goes Out of His Way Second, Nixon has extended a hand to Conkits, containing hard hne, material and with gress. For a crippled President, for presidential appointees to work into their puband no form under of Gratuitously compulsion, impeachment talk in the air, trying to make R'chardson goes out of his wav to strike at the peace with Congress is only common sense. But lic speeches. The kits enraged members of Conheart of the Presidents defense, which is that Nixons overtures appear to go beyond that. He is gress. for national security that Since the original vetoes, four more proposing to Congress, in effect, a measure of was right and necessary in itself was perverted conciliation between the two branches that has bills have come through Congress. None by eager beavers into common and witless crimes not existed since George Washington was hooted was vetoed. The administrations objections to such as the Watergate burglary. The defense for those bills were resolved, according to the White attempting to influence the Senate. doesn't impress Richardson. before they were passed. Nixon has met with and solicited opinions from House, Given a national commission Ike Earl Warren more members of Congress. Last week Clawson quietly recalled his Republicans and ran m the Kennedy tragedy, none of this current Democrats, in the past two weeks than in the prospeech kits from some 150 presidential appointees nonsense would have occurred Such a body ceeding year. He has reorganized and expanded throughout government. The kits, said Clawson' would have found the right kind of prosecutor. his congressional liaison staff, will undergo revision for removal of the hare putting increased And Elliot Richardson could have still found a Its a changed bal emphasis on the House, where much of this ball stuff." He added: means to get off what he may see as the sinking drama of survival may be game. played. (I , after-hour- g Nixon-oppose- ' |
