Private Lives

In his career as an FBI agent, a war crimes prosecutor and, currently, a U.S. Senator, Thomas Dodd has ridden out countless investigations on the tallyho end of the chase. Last week the Connecticut Democrat was cast in the quar ry's role, his political future staked on the outcome, as the Senate Select Committee on Standards and Conduct delved deeply and publicly into his affairs.

"Serious Wrongdoing." Dodd's chief accuser was not an ethics-committee member or political enemy but a former aide of twelve years' standing, James P. Boyd Jr., 37, who said he found it "painful" to turn on his mentor. How ever, Boyd testified, he and three other disaffected members of Dodd's staff--the Senator's secretary, Marjorie Carpenter; his office manager-bookkeeper, Michael O'Hare; and an office worker, Terry Golden -- came to believe that Dodd was guilty of "serious wrongdoing" and felt "a definite obligation to inform the public and the authorities."

Boyd led the others in an audacious rummage through Dodd's files that be gan last June. They spirited out some 4,000 items, photocopied them, returned the originals. The copies went to Columnists Drew Pearson and Jack Anderson and formed the basis of articles charging Dodd with a variety of offenses, notably trading political favors for payola. Denying all, Dodd demanded that the ethics committee investigate. It reluctantly consented (TIME, May 6).

The year-old group, chaired by Mississippi Democrat John Stennis, started with two days of closed sessions, followed by three days of public hearings. This initial phase of the investigation was restricted to Dodd's relationship with Julius Klein, a Chicago-based public-relations man and lobbyist who has a number of West German industrial and quasi-political accounts. Boyd said that in December 1964, his long-held concern about the Senator's dealings with Klein was sharpened by Dodd's reports of his campaign financing, which he said, concealed the "misappropriation of hundreds of thousands of dollars."*

Boyd testified that he attempted in vain to prevent Dodd's going to Germany, at Klein's request, to placate cli ents of the publicist who were unhappy over criticism of Klein in a Senate committee investigation. It was April 1964, and Dodd was floor manager for two sections of the Civil Rights bill. "He understood it was a bad time to go," Boyd testified, "but he said, 'I have to go.' He said, 'Julius has been pressing me and pressing me to go.' "

$10,000 Guess. Mrs. Carpenter, 28, a pretty blonde, testified that two mem bers of Dodd's staff, David Martin and Gerard Zeiller, later surmised that Klein had paid Dodd at least $10,000 for his troubles. Mrs. Carpenter acknowledged that the conversation she had overheard was merely speculation, and Stennis dismissed the testimony as valueless. But Dodd was enraged that Committee Counsel Benjamin Fern had knowingly permitted the statement to come out, announced dramatically that he would request the Justice Department to institute perjury proceedings against Mrs. Carpenter. Subsequently, Martin and Zeiller swore that Mrs. Carpenter's testimony was "false."

Fern read 61 documents into the record, including voluminous correspondence between Klein and Dodd. In December, 1963, Klein complained of canceled West German contracts that had cost him $100,000. Dodd wrote in February: "I believe that I might be more successful with the people in Germany if I talk to them alone."

At the outset, the committee had granted Dodd the right to call his own witnesses and cross-examine hostile witnesses. His chief lawyer, John Sonnet, sought to justify the trip to Germany as a legitimate mission on behalf of the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee. David Martin, who had accompanied the Senator to Germany, testified that Dodd had in fact interviewed a defected Soviet agent. Martin acknowledged, however, that barely seven hours of the six-day trip were spent on the defector's case and that Dodd discussed Klein with Konrad Adenauer.

"Social Relationship." Sonnet also questioned the motives of the quartet that conspired against Dodd. It was brought out that Boyd and Mrs. Carpenter are both divorced, have had a "social relationship," were both fired on Dec. 7, 1964, and made their decision to expose Dodd later. O'Hare, 30, acknowledged that Miss Golden, 23, an attractive redhead, is his "girl friend," and that he did not commit himself fully to helping Boyd until after she had been dismissed last October. Time ran out at week's end, before Dodd, at his own request, could take the witness chair.

What the week's sessions had already shown, to the surprise of Washington skeptics, was that the Stennis committee was not attempting to whitewash the case, but had committed itself to a full and fair inquiry.

*The charge was also made by Pearson and Anderson, and is now being investigated by the Internal Revenue Service. Dodd, meanwhile, has brought a $2,000,000 libel suit against the columnists.

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