Coke Probe

Special prosecutor for Jordan

After all the oversized headlines and gossip-column innuendoes, it looked as if Hamilton Jordan, 35, President Carter's top aide, had managed to ride out the storm. But last week, seven weeks after the FBI submitted its preliminary findings U.S. Attorney General Benjamin R. Civiletti recommended that a special prosecutor be appointed to look further into allegations that Jordan had snorted cocaine. Soon afterward, the Department of Justice announced that New York City Attorney Arthur H. Christy, 56, a Republican, had been appointed to the position by a special federal court.

Civiletti said that he had found no rea son to prosecute Jordan on the basis of evidence turned up so far, but nonetheless felt that he had no choice but to call for a special prosecutor. The reasonlies in the provisions of the Ethics in Government Act of 1978, a Watergate-inspired measure designed to keep an Administration from sheltering its own people. When serious accusations are made against an official, the Attorney General must investigate and call for a special prosecutor, unless he finds the charges "so unsubstan- tiated that no further investigation or prosecution is warranted." Oddly enough, the terms of that very same act prevented Civiletti from learning enough about the charges to come to such a judgment. He could not grant witnesses immunity, for instance, nor haul them before a grand jury to testify under oath. Hence, Civiletti reluctantly kept the case open. "But for the act," said a Department of Justice official, "this would never have gone be yond an Assistant U.S. Attorney."

The Attorney General pointedly asked the special prosecutor to turn over to him evidence that anyone had deliberately lied about Jordan during the investigation. Those who did could be prosecuted for obstruction of justice.

Christy, a respected trial lawyer who has not been active politically in recent years, was once a U.S. Attorney, and won a conviction in 1959 against Mobster Vito Genovese on a narcotics conspiracy charge. In 1954 he helped convict Frank Costello, then the so-called prime minister of the underworld, of income tax evasion. Christy promised to conduct his investigation "as expeditiously as possible." As before, the President was standing by his aide, who has denied the allega- tions. During the probe, Jordan will stay on as Carter's Chief of Staff.

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