Very Warm for May

No one savored the power of office more than Andrew J. May of Kentucky. As wartime chairman of the House Military Affairs Committee, he reveled in having generals at his beck & call. If a "warm friend" or a good constituent wanted a favor (perhaps a war contract, perhaps a son sent to O.C.S.), Andy would pick up a phone, summon the official to his office, and arrange it on the spot.

But last summer, when the Senate War Investigating Committee began to rummage through the shadowy Garsson munitions empire, it turned up evidence that May had gotten something more tangible than pleasure out of his wartime career. There was talk of packets of $1,000 and $3,000 sent him from the Garsson's Washington office. There was the peculiar circumstance that May had endorsed a check as president of the Cumberland Lumber Co., which the Garssons paid for lumber which was never delivered or even cut.

Andy blustered that it was a political smear, suffered a sudden heart attack and hurried off to his Prestonsburg, Ky., home. He was defeated for reelection.

Last week a District of Columbia federal grand jury returned indictments charging May, his "warm friends" Murray and Henry Garsson, and the Garsson's Washington business agent Joseph F. Freeman, with conspiring to defraud the Government. May was accused of accepting $16,000 in checks and cash from the Garssons and arranging for the payment

of $53,634 more. He hurried to Washington, pleaded not guilty, and declared himself confident of vindication. But 71-year-old Andy May was a changed man. Required to post a $2,000 bond, the man who used to keep generals jumping asked the clerk humbly: "My heart is hurting me--can I sign something and go to my hotel?"

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