The Estes Scandal (Cont'd)

"This polecat . . . this vile, corrupt creature . . . this damnable skunk . . ." In these pungent terms, recalling a bygone style of political vituperation, Minnesota's Republican Representative H. Carl Andersen, last week on the House floor, attacked Washington Columnist Drew Pearson, who had written about Andersen's involvement in the Billie Sol Estes scandal (TIME cover, May 25). Andersen, senior Republican on the House subcommittee on agricultural appropriations, is so far the only Republican in Congress to be seriously tarnished by the Estes case: he took $4,000 from Estes for stock in a coal mine owned by the Andersen family, failed to give Estes any stock certificates in return. (Andersen says he never did any favors for Estes, and no evidence to the contrary has come to light.)

In his polecat speech, Andersen complained that his fellow Congressmen had been "shying off" since the Billie Sol case broke. "Come and say hello to H. Carl Andersen," he pleaded. "Come and shake my hand." Afterward, some kindly Congressmen did go up to him and say hello and shake his hand. But Andersen's political future had been heavily clouded by the Estes case, and he recognized the fact by announcing that, after winning twelve House terms as a Republican, he would run for re-election this fall as an "independent" rather than risk defeat in a G.O.P. primary.

Omitted Name. Meanwhile, a House subcommittee headed by North Carolina's L. H. Fountain resumed hearings on Estes' massive grain-storage operations. The Fountain investigation was only a sort of aperitif served up before full-course Senate hearings scheduled to begin June 27 under the chairmanship of Arkansas' leathery John McClellan. But even so, the Fountain subcommittee made a splash of its own. Over the protests of Republican members, the subcommittee's Democratic majority fired the minority counsel, Republican Lawyer Robert E. Manuel. His offense: giving a New York Herald Tribune reporter a copy of the Agriculture Department's suppressed 1961 report on Estes' illegal dealings in cotton-acreage allotments.

As Chairman Fountain told it, Manuel would be a "serious handicap" to the investigation. Manuel retorted that "this investigation is being distorted--and the truth suppressed--either because of shoddy preparation or a willingness to cover up." The report, he said, was not legally classified. It was stamped " 'administratively confidential,' which meant that it contained politically embarrassing material that the Department of Agriculture wanted to keep from the public." Manuel charged that the subcommittee had tried to keep the name of Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson out of the public record. An Agriculture Department official, said Manuel, told him that in a January 1961 attempt to get special treatment from the department, Estes had invoked the names of Johnson and the late House Speaker Sam Rayburn. But when the same official, one Carl J. Miller, publicly testified before the subcommittee, he omitted Johnson's name, mentioning only Rayburn and Texas' Democratic Senator Ralph Yarborough.

Closed Doors. The subcommittee's star witness of the week was James T. Ralph, former Assistant Secretary of Agriculture who was fired after it came out that Billie Sol once took him into Dallas' Neiman-Marcus luxury store and apparently bought him expensive clothing. Before the subcommittee, Ralph conceded that he had tried on two suits in Neiman-Marcus that day and had tried on a pair of $135 alligator shoes; but he insisted that he had just gone through the motions to avoid offending Estes, and that he never actually received the clothing.

Ralph admitted that he got two $100 money orders from Estes, but said he sent $100 to the Democratic campaign committee in California and $100 to the Democratic National Committee. Ralph also testified that his former assistant, William E. Morris (another Neiman-Marcus visitor fired from the Agriculture Department), received $200 from Estes. According to Ralph, Morris used the money to buy two tickets to a $100-a-plate Democratic dinner, sent the tickets to Estes.

In his own defense, Ralph explained that he had been taken in by Estes because Billie Sol seemed to be "one of the most influential men in the country," and very moral besides. Ralph said he wished he had followed the advice of a "wise old sergeant who told me in the Army that if a man didn't smoke, drink or chase women,-- stay away from him."*

The subcommittee met in closed-door session at midweek to consider how to handle an . exceedingly touchy item of evidence: Witness Morris' sizeable list of other Washingtonians who had received money from Estes. At week's end the subcommittee had not yet disclosed the names on the list, and Morris had not yet testified in open session. According to ex-Counsel Manuel, the list "would implicate certain members of Congress and at least one very high-ranking Administration official."

* Estes does not smoke or drink.

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