Messrs. Clean

A year ago the Senate Rules Committee's six-man Democratic majority slapped a few coats of whitewash over the Bobby Baker investigation with a final report that was supposed to end the case once and for all. But Delaware Republican John J. Williams, the tenacious Senate watchdog, pointed out a few splotches, and the Democrats were forced to try again. Last week they issued a second "final report" that is as white as can be.

To be sure, there were harsh words for Bobby Baker, the former Senate page who amassed a $2,000,000 fortune as the $19,600-a-year secretary to the Senate's Democratic majority and the loyal friend of then Majority Leader Lyndon B. Johnson. The report accused Bobby of using "the influence of his public office to feather his own nest," said that on one occasion he had received $5,000 from the Ocean Freight-Forwarder Group for helping to get a bill through Congress. That "flagrant" abuse of his office, concluded the report, "justifies careful consideration looking to an indictment for violation of the conflict of interest statutes."

When it came to a number of other embarrassing aspects, though, the majority got out its brushes. Veteran Democratic Fund Raiser Matthew H. McCloskey, for example, had been accused of deliberately overpaying Maryland Insurance Man Don B. Reynolds $35,000 for writing a performance bond on the $20 million District of Columbia Stadium that McCloskey's firm was building. McCloskey claimed that it was only a bookkeeping goof, but Reynolds testified that $25,000 of the money was illegally channeled into the Democrats' 1960 presidential campaign fund through Baker. Generously, the committee found McCloskey's testimony "candid and convincing," dismissed Reynolds' as "devious and inconsistent."

As for the charge that former Presidential Aide Walter W. Jenkins had pressured Reynolds into buying useless advertising time on Lyndon Johnson's Austin, Texas, television station in return for selling Johnson $200,000 in life insurance, the report said: "This procedure follows business conduct considered legitimate by many reputable American businessmen."

In a sharp dissent, the three-man Republican minority complained: "This whole investigation has been marked by a refusal to investigate, by attempts to cover up and foot dragging generally." The Democrats shrugged off the charges, consider the investigation closed.

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