Washington Stirs

Something was happening last week in Washington. There was more open, glorious debate on more subjects than anyone could remember in recent years. The old mess of democracy had returned --and that looked all to the good.

The CIA was under scrutiny; so was Henry Kissinger. Ford launched himself into foreign policy with a speech on food and oil. The President directed that income tax returns were not to be scrutinized except on his order--in writing. He decreed no more politics in the civil service. There was an amnesty program of sorts. Ford even found time to greet the one millionth visitor to the White House in 1974: Patti Albers, 9, who came with her seven-year-old sister Kelly.

To the pinched eyes of Nixon loyalists around this city, it probably seemed hopeless: there was no apparent order, and very little secrecy. But it all represented, one would hope, the first whiff of the Federal Government again beginning to function as it should. Right or wrong, Ford was making firm decisions. The CIA flap, however embarrassing, indicated that the U.S. was coming to grips with the realities of the world and the national mood. Henry Kissinger was being reduced from God to just a very good Cabinet officer. The fact that Rockefeller's $182 million was being laid out for scrutiny suggested there would be no sacred cows for a spell.

New directions, new pressures, new voices: it all made for a healthy web of creative tension.

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