Yes to Civiletti

Bell confronts his critics

The FBI was not the only major problem confronted by Griffin Bell last week: for seven weeks the Senate Judiciary Committee delayed acting on the confirmation of Benjamin Civiletti, 42, as Deputy Attorney General. Finally Bell came before the committee. "You may be aiming at me or the President," he drawled in a booming voice. But in any case, he said, the stalling has "hurt the Department of Justice, which is a valuable institution."

Bell was particularly peeved with Republican Chief Inquisitor Malcolm Wallop, 45. During 17 days of hearings, the freshman Senator and Wyoming rancher has asked Civiletti and five other witnesses hundreds of questions in a search for evidence of willful wrongdoing in the Administration's firing last January of Republican David Marston as U.S. Attorney for eastern Pennsylvania. Jimmy Carter ordered Marston's dismissal after a request by Pennsylvania Congressman Joshua Eilberg, who later turned out to be under investigation in a case involving financial irregularities in the construction of a Philadelphia hospital.

All along, Bell has insisted that if anyone was to be questioned about the Marston case, it was he. Bell agreed to appear before the committee on the understanding that members would vote on the nomination soon afterward.

During three hours of testimony, Bell described the Marston affair as "the most about nothing I've ever heard." He roundly discounted Marston's skills as an investigator of political corruption in Pennsylvania and claimed that Marston had "practically destroyed the morale of [his] office." Indeed, said Bell, Marston has never tried a case. The real "moving force" in the probes was Alan Lieberman, a Marston subordinate and career Government lawyer who is still in charge of them. Bell described Marston as good at "calling press conferences" and remembered that when the U.S. Attorney's office was about to launch an investigation of police brutality in Philadelphia, he explicitly ordered Marston not to call a press conference about it. (Retorted Marston: "If he really believes what he is saying, I think he was derelict in not firing me sooner.")

The key question, Bell reminded the committee, was whether he or Carter knew that Eilberg was under investigation when they fired Marston. Said Bell: "I did not know it, and I'm satisfied the President did not know it. In fact, there was not an investigation on Nov. 5 when Eilberg called the President." The Attorney General maintained that the earliest date on which either he or Civiletti could have known of the Eilberg investigation was Dec. 19, when the Justice Department received testimony from an informant implicating Eilberg in the hospital scandal.

A subdued Wallop conceded that he questioned only Civiletti's administrative abilities, not his competence as a lawyer. So far as those abilities were concerned, said the Attorney General, "I have been impressed."

So, it seemed, were most of the committee members. At week's end they voted 10 to 2 to recommend that the Senate confirm Civiletti when it takes up his nomination this week.

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