Watchdog Beware!

There was the faithful watchdog, barking and ready to bite. There was the burglar, doing his best to scurry away from the premises. There was the cop, who raised his pistol, took careful aim--and shot the watchdog.

To Delaware's Republican Senator John J. Williams, who has won a reputation as Capitol Hill's finest investigator of crockery in government, this was the way things seemed about to turn out last week. Williams was the watchdog. Bobby Baker was the burglar. The Senate's Democratic-controlled Rules Committee was the cop.

Nearly two years ago, Watchdog Williams rose on the Senate floor to charge that Bobby Baker, then the secretary for the Senate's Democratic Majority, was guilty of all sorts of shenanigans. The Rules Committee was assigned to investigate. Bobby Baker resigned and, for the most part, has since been seen only when taking the Fifth Amendment.

Rebuffs & Insults. Now, after these many months, the Rules Committee was about to send its report to the Senate. Someone on the committee had leaked to newsmen passages from a draft of the report which accused Williams of chicanery in failing to turn over some of his information about Baker to the committee as soon as he got it.

Forewarned, forearmed. Williams appeared in the Senate chamber and challenged the Rules Committee Democrats to repudiate the source of the leak or to "repeat in my presence and in the presence of the full Senate any charges or criticisms that they care to make." Said he: "As one who has tried, notwithstanding numerous rebuffs and insults, to cooperate with this committee and to keep this investigation on the proper track, I do not intend that these charges by innuendo go unchallenged."

No answer. Next day Williams got up again. Neither Rules Committee Chairman Everett Jordan, a stodgy North Carolina Democrat, nor any other committee Democrats were there. Said Williams: "The members of the majority thus far have not seen fit either to repudiate or to repeat the allegations. Do they have the guts to stand up and support them?"

A Lame Reply. No answer. Williams continued: "Back home where I come from, a man's word and his honor are considered to be all that he has. If his word is no good, we consider that man untrustworthy in all matters. If the committee felt I had done something wrong or that I had deliberately withheld from the committee information which was in my possession, it was their responsibility to speak."

Finally, an answer. Chairman Jordan had arrived in the chamber, sat with hands folded in his lap while Williams spoke, then delivered a lame reply: "It would be highly out of order for me to engage in a discussion of the working draft until the committee has met and acted."

Later, when the Rules Committee met again, Pennsylvania's Republican Senator Hugh Scott moved to strike from the report any derogatory mention of Williams. The Democratic majority, permitting neither discussion nor vote on the motion, promptly adjourned until this week.

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