California: Credibility in Sacramento

Gesticulating, thumping the lectern and mangling his syntax, the usually supersmooth Ronald Reagan faced a packed audience of newsmen in Sacramento, Calif., last week to quash a columnist’s accusation that his administration had harbored a “homosexual ring.” He was only partially successful.

Reagan’s target was Drew Pearson; his strategy, counterattack. “He’s lying,” said the Governor of California. “Pearson shouldn’t be using a typewriter. He’s better with a pencil on outbuilding walls.” How to explain Pearson’s attack?

“Oh, I don’t know. It’s Halloween. May be that’s why he chose to come out from under his rock this way.”

Pearson had charged that two members of Reagan’s staff were involved, that Reagan had kept them on for about six months after first hearing about their proclivities and that he finally dismissed them, not for moral reasons but be cause right-wing supporters had object ed to the pair’s relatively moderate political views. In his best purple prose, Pearson claimed that an all-male “sex orgy” in a Lake Tahoe cabin had been attended by the two staff members, a part-time athletic adviser to Reagan, two sons of a state senator and a Republican campaign consultant.

Leak at Sea. Given Reagan’s rep utation as a political Mr. Clean and Pearson’s as a mud merchant who likes to zero in on conservatives, Reagan’s vigorous denial should have left him in the clear. The trouble was that Lynn Nofziger, Reagan’s communications director and one of his closest subordinates, had himself leaked a similar story to a number of reporters during last month’s Governors’ Conference aboard the S.S. Independence.

The version Nofziger had passed along privately to newsmen was in conflict with some details of the Pearson column but supported the essential element that two staff members suspected of homosexuality had been forced to resign. When challenged at the press conference about Nofziger’s statements, Reagan said: “Nothing like that ever happened.” Nofziger was standing near by, and Reagan asked: “Want to confirm it, Lynn?” “Confirmed,” he replied.

Reagan’s explosive reaction magnified what might have been a relatively minor incident. By contrast with scandal involving White House Aide Walter Jenkins in 1964, there was no arrest in the present instance—nor for that matter were there any of the national-security implications raised by the Jenkins affair, since a Governor’s office is unlikely to have any national secrets worth worrying about. The upshot was to cast doubt both on Reagan’s credibility and his tactical skill in dealing with the difficult situations that inevitably confront a major league politician.