Stain on A Shining Record

Toward the end of his second term, President Eisenhower remarked that he would like to see Robert Anderson, his Treasury Secretary, succeed him as < President. "Boy, I'd like to fight for him in 1960!" Eisenhower said. Anderson, who had also served as Eisenhower's Secretary of the Navy and Deputy Secretary of Defense, never ran for office. He became a businessman, an unofficial diplomatic envoy for President Johnson and chief negotiator of the Panama Canal treaty for President Nixon. Last week Anderson, 76, was again in the limelight, but for a different reason. He pleaded guilty to felony charges of tax evasion and illegal banking operations.

Anderson admitted that in 1983 and 1984 he evaded paying taxes on more than $200,000 in income, including $80,000 that he received as a lobbyist for the Rev. Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church International. The former Treasury Secretary also conceded that from 1983 to 1985 he was a representative of a British West Indies-based bank that was never registered with authorities. During that time the bank invested in fraudulent projects that cost depositors at least $4 million. Some depositors were innocent victims, prosecutors said, while others were illegally trying to conceal their income. In a separate allegation, prosecutors charged that Anderson evaded taxes by putting a woman with whom he had a "personal relationship" on the payroll of a company he controlled, even though she did no work.

U.S. Attorney Rudolph Giuliani, who prosecuted the case, said there was "no excuse" for the crimes. Anderson could face a $500,000 fine and ten years in prison. Giuliani will urge that the former Cabinet officer spend time in jail.