Enthusiasm Gone Sour

Taking over last April as chairman of the Republican National Committee, Ohio's Ray Bliss hoped above all to bring peace to the war-torn G.O.P. Since then, he has had trouble keeping peace even within his own office. And last week he found himself compelled to fire his own top administrative assistant --for having ransacked the desk and files of the National Committee's finance director. The principals in the bizarre affair:

> William Cody Kelly, 43, lawyer, former vice mayor of Cincinnati and longtime political ally of Bliss's, whom the new national chairman brought along to Washington as his personal aide.

> Frank Kovac, 46, a third Ohioan, who has been executive director of the Republican finance committee since 1961. Kovac took a 15-month leave of absence in 1963 and 1964 to help raise money for the presidential candidacy of Barry Goldwater.

Last May, Kovac tendered his resignation from the finance committee job, effective July 1. Kelly came to suspect that Kovac was planning to go to work for Goldwater's new Republican splinter group, the Free Society Association--and that he meant to take with him some of the National Committee's valuable lists of financial contributors. As the date of Kovac's leave-taking approached, Kelly and three assistants made a nighttime raid on Kovac's office, spent 1 1/2 hours rummaging around in full view of three finance-committee staffers, jimmied open desk drawers, carted off for further inspection a pair of locked file-safes.

Spilling the Story. When Kovac's assistants told him what had happened, he not unnaturally hit the ceiling. He complained to Bliss, who said he would look into the matter. Next morning, Kovac came to work, found that a crude refinishing job had been done on his desk: some of the jimmy marks had been removed, but others remained. Whereupon Kovac called a Columbus newspaperman and spilled the whole story. Kovac also denied that he was joining the Free Society Association.

The news break forced Bliss's hand. Said he, in a sober announcement: "I have asked for and received, effective immediately, the resignation of my administrative assistant, Mr. William Cody Kelly. I regret that in his enthusiasm he has taken action which is contrary to standards which I have established for my staff." Bliss also insisted that he "had no knowledge" of the office raid until Kovac told him about it.

So Symptomatic. Not so, claimed Kelly, by now back in Cincinnati. He had himself told Bliss of the raid, and Bliss had "professed satisfaction with my work." But "when the adverse publicity started to flow, the chairman weakened in his support of me, and it was apparent that I was to be sacrificed." Added Kelly: "I must confess that my short stay in politics in Washington has proved that a position with the Republican National Committee is more dangerous than that encountered in my time as a liaison pilot in World War II."

It would all have been pretty funny--had it not been so pathetic, and so symptomatic of Republican troubles.

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