Too Many Lingering Questions

By James Kelly

For now, Mr. Allen is away from his desk

It is playing like a television soap opera, with each day seeming to bring a new twist, a fresh revelation. The drama starring National Security Adviser Richard Allen is dragging into its fourth week, and the fact that it lasted so long without fading away was becoming its most important feature. Nothing has been proved. Nothing has been disproved. But a whiff of impropriety hangs in the air. That troublesome scent was enough to force Allen out, at least temporarily: on Sunday Allen announced he was taking an "administrative leave" from his job, effective immediately, for the duration of the Justice Department's investigation of the affair. "I fully expect to resume my duties," Allen said on NBC's Meet the Press but "it's time that this case be aired in a responsible forum and that it not be made on the basis of innuendo and sly allegation." During a phone call from Allen the night before, President Reagan had agreed to the leavetaking.

The trouble began last January, when Allen received an honorarium from a Japanese magazine, Shufu-no-Tomo (Housewives' Friend), for an interview with Nancy Reagan. He helped arrange the interview as a favor to Chizuko Takase, the wife of his longtime Japanese business associate, Tamotsu Takase. But he says the honorarium was unexpected. Allen insists he intended to turn the payment over to the Treasury Department but simply forgot. When $1,000 in cash was discovered in his safe last September, the FBI was called in and an investigation begun.

Last week the FBI was still trying to pin down how much Allen received from the Japanese. For some reason, the figure $10,000 was written on both the envelope containing the cash and on "some kind of receipt" found in Allen's safe. Officials of the Japanese magazine quickly insisted they paid only $ 1,000 to Allen. Two aides to the National Security Adviser also confirmed to the FBI that the envelope held only ten $100 bills. Secretary of the Navy John Lehman said he remembered Allen's telling him that he planned to turn it over to the Government.

Other questions continued to defy rebuttal. Mrs. Takase, for example, says that Allen could not have been surprised by the honorarium since he himself had negotiated it with the magazine. Another point of dispute involves two Seiko Quartz digital watches, worth about $135 each, that Mrs. Takase gave Allen. He describes them as personal gifts received before the Inauguration. Reporter Fuyuko Kamisaka, who purchased the watches for Mrs. Takase, said again last week that one watch was given before the swearing-in, while the second was handed over afterward. The timing is crucial, because Administration officials are barred from keeping such gifts. Finally, the Tokyo newspaper Mainichi reported late last week that a "big present" had been given to Allen to clinch the interview. Allen denied the charge.

FBI Director William Webster himself was embarrassed by the disclosure that he had spoken with Allen during the inquiry. When Webster learned that a Japanese newspaper was about to break the story of the investigation three weeks ago, he was given permission by Attorney General William French Smith to tell Allen about the upcoming article. But Webster also told the National Security Adviser that Japanese investigators had confirmed Allen's version of the payment. This amounted to passing along substantive information about an investigation to the subject of the investigation. What is more, all inquiries from the White House about specific investigations are supposed to be handled by the White House counsel, Fred Fielding.

As if Allen did not have enough problems, it was revealed last week that he had misrepresented some past business dealings. The day before Reagan took office last January, Allen sold his consulting firm, Potomac International Corp., to Peter Hannaford, a former Reagan aide. But in a financial disclosure report filed with the Office of Government Ethics last February, Allen wrote that he sold the firm three years earlier. He claimed last week that it was just a "dumb mistake." Yet by stating that he had sold the firm in 1978, he avoided having to reveal the worth of Potomac International and its sale price. He disclosed last week that he had received $160,000.

Making the Allen affair especially awkward for the White House is the fact that he and Counsel Fielding are close personal friends. They worked together during the Nixon Administration, and Fielding served as a legal adviser to Allen through the 1970s. In 1976, the two men bought shares in a Florida condominium. It was Fielding who said two weeks ago that the FBI had cleared Allen of any wrongdoing, a declaration that the Justice Department promptly denied.

The long-playing affair seemed to be getting to Allen. Usually calm and confident, he had begun to show flashes of temper. Small wonder: his career is now clearly on the line. For the time being, Reagan seems determined to make no further move until the Justice Department completes its inquiry. Says one top White House adviser: "The President is very concerned that he be fair to Allen." If Attorney General Smith recommends the appointment of a special prosecutor, Reagan might then ask Allen to resign, although on Sunday Allen said he would merely remain on leave should a special prosecutor be named.

The decision to appoint a special prosecutor is now as much political as legal. By naming one, the Attorney General could give the White House an excuse for dismissing Allen permanently. Meanwhile Allen's deputy, James Nance, is Acting National Security Advisor, but Administration insiders are already speculating about a permanent successor. The leading candidate: David Abshire, chairman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies at Georgetown University. A hard-line conservative, he is highly thought of by many State Department officials. In this respect, Allen's departure might produce another political dividend: it could ease the unseemly sniping between the National Security Advisor and the State Department.

--By James Kelly. Reported Jonathan Beaty and Evan Thomas/Washington

With reporting by Jonathan Beaty, Evan Thomas/Washington

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