Forgetfulness in Florida

"The success of the Gurney for Senate campaign depends in large measure upon 'early' financing. Please send us your maximum contribution, today!" This appeal in a 1967 flyer put out for Congressman Edward John Gurney helped him to that success, for he won election in 1968 as the first Republican Senator from Florida since Reconstruction days. But early and maximum fund raising also became a way of life for Gurney's political associates. Three have already served time for crimes arising from the practice, and it finally landed Gurney himself, along with another set of cronies, in U.S. District Court in Tampa. Thus the chief senatorial defender of President Nixon during the Senate's televised Watergate hearings became the first U.S. Senator in half a century to be indicted on criminal charges while still in office.

In its 33-page indictment, the grand jury accused Gurney on seven felony counts: one each of conspiracy to defraud the U.S., bribery and accepting unlawful compensation, and four counts alleging perjury before the grand jury itself. He could face up to 42 years in prison. Estimates of the money said to have been raised illegally or to have gone illegally unreported have run as high as $400,000, and Gurney has even admitted that the total might have topped $300,000. The grand jury settled for $233,000 as more provable.

The star prosecution witness was Larry E. Williams, who said he had been hired by Gurney in 1971 to raise a "booster fund." Gurney denied that. They were indeed a somewhat contrasting pair. Gurney, Maine-born, Colby-and Harvard-educated, a successful lawyer, matinee-idol handsome, ramrod stiff (largely the result of a World War II sniper's hit that partly paralyzed him for two years); Williams, a husky, freckled youth, then 26, a dropout from Georgia Southern College, a former Avis car-rental agent. According to Williams' testimony, Gurney told him: "There's a large job that we have to do. I'm glad to have you aboard, and I know you'll do a good job."

How? Gurney says he did not know.

Two who did know were the Senator's Florida aide, George Anderson, and a state Republican leader, Earl M. Crittenden. They instructed him, says Williams, not to tell Gurney any specifics about the fund arrangements.

The specifics were grubby. Florida's boomtown builders wanted mortgage insurance from the Federal Housing Administration and assorted approvals from other divisions of the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Williams simply strong-armed the would-be builders. Example: John Priestes of Miami met Williams and an FHA official, William Pelski, aboard a houseboat and handed Pelski a paper bag containing $30,000 in cash: a $500 kickback for each of 60 houses for which Priestes wanted prompt and generous mortgage insurance. (Priestes later got a subsidy of $1.2 million.) Pelski said a Gurney assistant had asked him to help raise money, adding, "I agreed to help them. I told them I knew what the name of the game was." Pelski said he asked for a "piece of the action" and collected $70,000 for his personal use. He surrendered the unspent $56,000 of it when he decided to turn state's evidence. Another to turn against Gurney was Crittenden, who said he had been present when Gurney accepted, via Williams, a developer's offer of a $55,000 condominium--free.

Dramatic Turn. The prosecution claimed that by June 1972 Gurney knew of at least 31 examples of Williams' fund-raising tactics. Williams also testified, however, that he had appropriated $48,500 of the booster money for himself and evaded income tax on it. His plea-copping netted him a one-year sentence and release after five months.

Since conspiracy is a charge notoriously easy to make and difficult to prove, Assistant U.S. Attorney Harvey E. Schlesinger paraded 69 witnesses to the stand. The trial, begun Feb. 24, had droned on for 3 1/2 months when it took an unexpected and dramatic turn: James Groot, who had been Gurney's most trusted aide, heading his Washington office, decided that he too wanted to cop a plea and thus turn against his boss. He pleaded guilty to a felony charge of conspiracy (possible penalties: five years and a $10,000 fine), explaining that his life had been "a fabrication and a lie since 1972."

Guilty Knowledge. When Gurney limped to the stand--carrying along two cushions because of his old back injury --he relied chiefly on his bad memory. "How much personal knowledge, if any, did you have about the raising of campaign funds and the expenditures?" "Well, almost none. I don't think I ever had a meeting with a finance committee." In effect, he said he had kept away from the sordid side of politics, didn't know the details and had a very poor memory anyway. He added, "Candidates should keep themselves from knowing about what is going on in the fund-raising area." So when the FBI first told him of Williams' fund raising, he felt "stark amazement and tremendous chagrin." He said he had told Williams to stop, and when he learned a year later that funds were still being raised, "I expressed consternation."

Prosecutor Schlesinger's task was to convince the jury that Gurney's memory could not be as bad as he claimed --that he must have had guilty knowledge of criminal acts. Gurney stoutly stonewalled in defense, endlessly reiterating "I don't recall" or "We didn't go into specifics." Gurney, said Schlesinger, harped on his bad memory to "contrive a posture of deniability" in a case of "pure and simple influence peddling."

At week's end the trial in its sixth month drew to a close as Judge Ben Krentzman prepared to charge the jury (six men, six women, all white). Whatever the verdict, one thing seemed clear: the political career, at least, of Edward John Gurney was finished.

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