Busch League

The President's Club is a Democratic fund-raising group whose members contribute at least $1,000 each to the party and on occasion get to shake Johnson's hand.

The All-Star baseball game is an annual event, played last week in St. Louis, with the home-town Cardinals as team.

The Republicans are an opposition party that sometimes puts two and two together to raise a Bronx cheer at the Democrats' expense.

The G.O.P.'s latest cheer started with a chuckle. Last spring, St. Louis Brewer (Budweiser) August Busch Ir. happened to join the President's Club, bringing in family and friends to the tune of $10,000 in Democratic contributions. Several weeks later the Justice Department happened to drop a four-year-old antitrust suit against his Anheuser-Busch Corp. Then Busch, who also owns the Cardinals, happened to invite First-Ball Pitcher Hubert Humphrey to fly to the All-Star game in his company plane. In view of the airline strike, the Vice President hopped aboard -- along with a little league of fans that happened to include Justice's antitrust chief, Donald F. Turner.

Well, Minority Leader Gerald Ford allowed at a press conference, "some very disturbing rumors were floating around Washington about the dismissal of certain antitrust actions and contributions to the President's Club." G.O.P. Congressmen Charles Goodell of New York and Thomas Curtis of Missouri were also intrigued by the turn of events. Strange, said Goodell on the House floor, that the Busch contributions to the President's Club had been made "suddenly and simultaneously, as manna from above." Added Curtis: "A very serious matter."

Nobody was accusing Busch, Humphrey or Baseball Fan Turner of any wrongdoing. Still, reporters inquired tenderly of White House Press Secretary Bill Moyers whether businessmen might not get the impression that the President's Club was a vehicle for buying favor from the Administration. No more so, deadpanned Moyers, than the Rockefeller family's contributions to the G.O.P. were aimed at buying favor. Actually, explained the Justice Depart ment, the antitrust suit against Anheuser-Busch was a weak one and had been dropped "on the merits alone."

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