The Wages of Truth

THE BUREAUCRACY The Wages of Truth The lot of the truthteller has never been easy, as the ancient Greeks proved by silencing Socrates with a cup of hemlock. Today's methods for muffling disquieting voices of candor are subtler, but no less effective. Take the example of Administration officials and civil servants who fail to fall into step with White House efforts to put a rosy glow on statistics.

A year ago, Maurice Mann, then Assistant Budget Director, remarked in a speech that the Administration's economic policy could be an "abysmal failure." Unknown to him, a reporter was in the audience, and Mann's remarks were published. He was later chided by White House Assistant Peter Flanigan, not for holding the view but because he let a newsman overhear him. This spring Sidney Jones, a professor from the University of Michigan on loan to the Council of Economic Advisers, refused to predict an economic surge based on a one-month rise in industrial production. He was then called in by White House Special Assistant Charles Colson, who demanded, "Why don't you get on the team?" Since then Jones has returned to his university post. Even Paul McCracken, the President's chief economist, was taken to task by men in the White House when he conceded in June that the recovery was not rapidly reducing unemployment. (Because he usually managed to gloss over even grim statistics, McCracken became known to newsmen as "Dr. McQualify," and his No. 2 man, Herbert Stein, was dubbed "Mr. All Fine.")

The peskiest poker of Administration balloons has been Harold Goldstein, the Bureau of Labor Statistics' assistant commissioner in charge of analyzing the most politically potent figure of all, the jobless rate. Last January he rightly called the .2% drop in unemployment "marginally significant." Labor Secretary James Hodgson, however, publicly declared that the drop had "great significance.'' In March, when Hodgson termed a slight decrease in unemployment "heartening," Goldstein called it "a mixed picture." Apprised of Hodgson's view, Goldstein replied: "I am not here to support or not support the Secretary's statement. I am here to help you interpret the figures." Soon after, Hodgson, with White House concurrence, canceled Goldstein's monthly press briefings, at which he made most of his unvarnished assessments.

Last week Goldstein's department was chopped in two, and he was put in charge of the politically less sensitive half, which deals with long-term manpower trends. The Labor Department was shopping around for a new man to handle current employment statistics. Meanwhile, Peter Henle, the BLS's chief economist, who often disagreed with White House assumptions, took a leave of absence to do private research until, as BLS Commissioner Geoffrey Moore said, "an appropriate new assignment" is arranged.

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