"I Just Don't Understand . . ."

When shortages of Government-stored grain were first turned up five months ago, Agriculture Secretary Charles F. Brannan pooh-poohed the Senate's investigation as "politics," a "fishing expedition," and "crackers thrown into the fan." Yet as the probe progressed, more & more cases of grain thefts by farmers and warehousemen were uncovered. And with each new case, Brannan had to boost his estimate of the money lost in his grain storage program.

Last week, up again before the Senate Agriculture Committee to defend his department's role in the whole mess, Brannan decided that the best defense was a strong offense. He said he was mad at the way "muscle men" of the committee "came into the offices of employees of my department, gave them a mental browbeating, dumped the contents of drawers on top of their desks, read their personal mail, and were otherwise obnoxious."

The Secretary was also mad at Missouri's Republican Senator James P. Kem, who had charged that the Agriculture Department juggled storage rules to please old friends of the Administration. Senator Kem, said Brannan, was against "nearly everything the farmers needed"; what was more, he was willing to document the charges. Cried Kem: "I'm putting you on notice right now that, libel laws being what they are, you'd better document them very thoroughly." After Kem refreshed Brannan on his voting record, Brannan backed down.

When Brannan got down to facts & figures on shortages, it was the committee's turn to get mad. The Secretary, who had once said that the slight amount of grain that had vanished "could almost slip through cracks in the floor," revealed that in the past six years, no fewer than 972 shortages had been uncovered. Most of them (841) concerned Government grain stored on farms and involved a loss of $1,000,000, half of which has been recovered. The rest occurred in commercial warehouses, and involved much more. On such disappearances, said Brannan, the Government now has claims outstanding of $7,800,000. About half the warehouse cases are up for prosecution or already in the courts; the rest are still being investigated.

Despite the fact that the Senate Agriculture Committee has brought many of these shortages to light, self-righteous Secretary Brannan has not changed his mind about the investigations. Said he at week's end: "I just don't understand the reason for proceedings like this."

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