Two Nosedives

Oregon's Democratic Senator Richard Neuberger arrived in Washington after the 1954 elections with a reputation as an agile liberal who would always land on his feet. He has since landed on his face so often that his prestige, even among his fellow liberals, has suffered severely. Last week he achieved two nosedives.

In a newsletter to his constituents, Neuberger wrote: "There even exists the danger that panicky politicians . . . more interested in their own ambitions than in the President's health, might try to have him propped up unwisely with drugs and other such aids so that he could fulfill speaking and TV commitments to the permanent detriment of his well-being-just to get by election day." Hearing of Neuberger's remarks, other Democrats blanched with dismay; Republicans rose in wrath, with Minority Leader William Knowland rumbling that he was "deeply shocked" by the accusation. Dick Neuberger's explanation: he was only trying to be friendly toward the President--so friendly that he had even sent Ike a copy of his newsletter.

Neuberger's other face-fall came in the hearing room of a House-Senate committee investigating Oregon's Al Sarena Mines, Inc. and land grants that it received in 1954 in the Rogue River National Forest. Neuberger had long wanted such an investigation, charging that the Al Sarena claims were worthless as mining property, and that the grants were made only because Al Sarena's owners wanted to strip the claims of valuable timber. This, Neuberger insisted, was part of a deep Republican giveaway plot. Cried he: "If this Al Sarena case were allowed to stand as a precedent, it would mean the end of our national forests."

The committee's hearings dragged on and on, getting headlines in the Northwest; the press play elsewhere left an impression of Administration wrongdoing. Not until last week was Interior Department Under Secretary Clarence Davis, who had handled the Al Sarena claims for the Administration, called to testify.

Davis quickly began setting the record straight. The Interior Department, he explained, is required by law to make grants on claims with reasonably good ore-producing prospects. On first considering the Al Sarena case, said Davis, he ordered that new assays be taken. They showed sufficient ore content to warrant the grants. Timber rights naturally were included in the grants.

Columnist Drew Pearson last week tried to revive the Al Sarena investigation. He wrote that President Eisenhower had personally intervened with Interior Secretary Douglas McKay on behalf of the mine's owners. In the Senate Interior Committee files, Pearson claimed, was a letter with a marginal notation in the President's handwriting, asking McKay "to see what he could do about granting" Al Sarena's request. That day the committee scurried through its files in search of the letter. It was not located for the reason that it did not exist. White House Press Secretary James Hagerty scornfully denounced Columnist Drew Pearson's story as a "scurrilous lie." Replied Pearson: "The first time Hagerty denied one of my stories was in October 1953, when I reported Eisenhower had a heart condition . . ." Pearson's 1953 story was wrong, too. President Eisenhower's candid doctors say flatly to the U.S. public that the President had no record whatever of heart disease until the night of his attack in Denver on Sept. 24, 1955.

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