Robber in the House

The Capitol Police Department, charged with protecting the House and Senate buildings, boasts some of the world's best-educated cops--and some of the least efficient. More than half of the 248-man force consists of meagerly trained, patronage-appointed college students whose ambitions seldom em brace advancement in the gendarmerie (the annual turnover is 82%). At any rate, there was not a cop in sight last week when a Capitol janitor stabbed and robbed Republican James C. Cleveland of New Hampshire late at night in his office. Inevitably, the incident revived memories of the day in 1954 when four Puerto Rican nationalists gunned down five House members, and brought calls from Congressmen for a professional force. Protested Representative Paul Findley (R., Ill.): "No self-respecting village in America would put up with this so-called security system."

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