The Probes Continue

Bribery and other illegal payoffs may be older than history, but the foreign nations in which U.S. companies lately have admitted spreading their largesse are viewing the situation with anything but detachment. Some of last week's significant actions:

> In Japan the Diet virtually stopped work to wrangle over the way Premier Takeo Miki's administration was handling the Lockheed scandal (TIME cover, Feb. 23). Miki's response was to send police to raid 28 separate offices and homes in search of evidence of wrongdoing. No. 1 target was the home of Yoshio Kodama, the 65-year-old ultranationalist who was allegedly paid more than $7 million of the $12 million of payola handed out in Japan by Lockheed. Investigators from the national tax agency, Tokyo police and the Public Prosecutor's office struck at 9 a.m. While Kodama lay ashen-faced and ailing--he is recuperating from a stroke--the probers combed every room for potentially incriminating documents.

Other teams of probers hit the offices of Marubeni Corp. headquarters, Lockheed's agent in Japan, and the private homes of individuals who might have been involved in payoffs. Police officials say that it will take at least a week to sift the documents taken. Unofficially, tax authorities say they have uncovered enough evidence to charge Kodama with tax evasion in 1972. That is the year in which Lockheed allegedly paid him $3.9 million, though he reported an income of only $143,000.

The Diet repeated Premier Miki's plea to the U.S. State Department to release the names of high Japanese officials implicated in taking Lockheed money. The politicians also agreed to hold two days of hearings this week on the scandal. Nine witnesses will be called, but possibly not all will appear. Kodama is still too sick to move, his doctor advises, and former Lockheed Vice Chairman A.C. Kotchian is not bound by U.S. law to go to Japan to testify.

> In Iran the government announced that it had unexpectedly received $2.1 million from Northrop Corp. Company officials explained that the sum was in payment of a fine for illegally using an Iranian consulting firm to help sell F-5 fighter planes. It was the first known instance of a U.S. company making atonement for improper payments in Iran.

> In Italy, policemen launched a search for Camillo Crociani, former president of a state-affiliated holding company, who is wanted to answer charges that he served as a middleman in one of Lockheed's deals in Italy.

> In Holland, investigators stepped up their efforts to discover whether Prince Bernhard really did receive $1.1 million from Lockheed, as alleged. They got permission from the Swiss government to interrogate Swiss residents who might be able to shed light on the scandal. Meantime, two left-wing members of the Dutch Parliament boldly demanded that the Prince's private life should be investigated, too. Gossip sheets further titillated Europeans by talking of Bernhard's friendship with French Socialite Helene ("Pussy") Grinda, 32. The London Daily Express reported rumors that Bernhard had used Lockheed money to meet "personal commitments."

> In the U.S., a spate of newcomers joined the long list of companies that admitted to having made "questionable" or "improper"--but not illegal--payments abroad. Among them: Baxter Laboratories and Richardson-Merrell, pharmaceutical firms; Carrier Corp., a leading producer of air conditioners and heating equipment; and Levi Strauss, the famed makers of blue jeans. In each case, the company announced that its own auditors had found the improprieties, which were promptly ended.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.