On Fresh Ground

By RICHARD BEHAR/FAYETTEVILLE

The goodies that started the investigation of Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy < were relatively small things as political scandals go: sky-box seats at a Dallas Cowboys game, tickets to a Chicago Bulls play-off, a ride on a corporate jet and lodging at a lakeside cabin. One of the largest items was a $1,200 scholarship for his girlfriend. At first, the situation seemed as if it might be cleared up quickly. For accepting those gratuities from Tyson Foods and other companies, some of which Espy had reimbursed, the White House demanded his resignation. Independent counsel Donald Smaltz, appointed by a three-judge panel last September, promised a low-profile and speedy inquiry to see whether evidence could be found that Espy did anything illegal in accepting the items and whether he provided favors in return.

That seemingly narrow task, however, has expanded into a full-scale investigation that has gone beyond Espy to include Tyson Foods and its relationship with Bill Clinton as Arkansas Governor. Many close ties are already known: Tyson executives helped finance Clinton's campaigns, and James Blair, one of the firm's lawyers, guided Hillary Rodham Clinton's successful commodities trades. Smaltz, 57, a former prosecutor from Los Angeles who was expected to finish the current probe within six months, says he has collected such a large battery of allegations that he may not finish the task before 1996. He is working seven days a week and has hired nearly 30 employees, including six lawyers and eight FBI agents. Last week he opened an office that he describes as "a toehold" in Fayetteville, Arkansas, just a few miles from the headquarters of Tyson, the world's largest poultry producer (1993 sales: $4.7 billion).

Smaltz has served more than 50 grand-jury subpoenas on individuals and groups ranging from the National Broiler Council, a chicken-industry trade group dominated by the Tyson company, to the Arkansas Workers Compensation Commission, the state agency that handles disability claims by Tyson employees. Among the many areas of Smaltz's inquiry are whether Tyson induced Espy to delay tough inspection rules for poultry, and why Espy intervened on Tyson's behalf in a chicken-labeling dispute in Puerto Rico. TIME has learned that Smaltz is also investigating a charge made by a former Tyson pilot that he helped convey cash payments from the company to Clinton while Clinton was Governor of Arkansas.

The reaction to the expanding probe of Tyson Foods has been swift and furious. In a prepared statement, company spokesman Archie Schaffer accused Smaltz of going "outside the scope of the independent counsel's charge" and of "taking off on a politically motivated witch-hunt." Tyson has hired Thomas Green, a top Washington white-collar defense attorney, to represent the company. Smaltz, however, says he was given the jurisdiction to look into any criminal charges arising from his original inquiry. "It's a very broad mandate," he said in an interview.

In the Puerto Rico scandal, as reported in TIME last July, a commonwealth official had refused to permit several million pounds of chicken parts from mainland U.S. to leave the docks in January 1993 because the importers' names were missing from the food labels, a violation of local law. Espy was in office only one week at that point, but Tyson Foods, through intermediaries, helped persuade the Secretary to sign a letter that moved the chicken off the piers and into the grocery stores.

A far more provocative allegation comes from Joseph Henrickson, 43, a pilot who served until last year as the second-highest member of the company's aviation division. The former captain alleges that on six occasions, mostly in the 1980s, he carried sealed white envelopes from Tyson's headquarters in northwest Arkansas to Little Rock while making regular business flights. In each instance, he claims, he held the envelopes up to the light in order to examine the contents. Each envelope, he says, measured about a quarter-inch thick and appeared to be filled with $100 bills. In each case, Henrickson believed the envelopes were intended for delivery to Clinton, though there is no evidence he ever received them nor any allegation as to the purpose for which the money was intended. In confirming that he is looking into the accusation, Smaltz told TIME, "It's very high on my radar screen."

Both Clinton and Tyson Foods vehemently deny the charges. "I'm extremely surprised that these vague and baseless allegations are being irresponsibly bandied about in this way," says David Kendall, the Clintons' personal lawyer. "They're totally false and don't merit further comment." Tyson's lawyer, Green, said in a letter to TIME: "These allegations are totally false."

The former Tyson captain provided the details of his charge during three intense days of interviews with Smaltz and a team of FBI agents shortly before the Thanksgiving holiday in Fayetteville, where Henrickson lives with his wife and two children. "I nearly fell off my chair when I heard Joe make the allegation. I took over the questioning," recalls Smaltz. Henrickson also spoke with TIME on several occasions before and after his contacts with the federal investigators. Smaltz told the Washington Post earlier this month that he is not investigating Clinton. Last week he explained that in the case of Henrickson's allegations, he is investigating only the alleged "gratuity giver," Tyson Foods, but not the alleged "gratuity receiver."

Henrickson says the envelopes were typically given to him by Tyson employees at the company headquarters in Springdale. In one case, he says, a Tyson executive handed him an envelope of cash in the company's aircraft hangar in Fayetteville and said, "This is for Governor Clinton." Henrickson says he usually delivered the envelopes to receptionists working at Midcoast Aviation, formerly called the Little Rock Air Center, where Tyson lands its planes. In another instance, Henrickson says, he handed an envelope to a man who appeared to be a plainclothes state trooper who was waiting on the tarmac.

So far, no eyewitness has corroborated Henrickson's story to TIME. Receptionists at Midcoast Aviation cannot recall any cash drop-offs. In interviews, all 11 current and former Tyson pilots who flew with Henrickson during his 15-year tenure at the company denied having any knowledge of such events. Most describe Henrickson as a bully and a "disruptive force" while he worked in the flight division. "Personally, I wouldn't put it past Joe to lie if it benefited him," says Tony Lundquist, a former Tyson pilot who now runs Wal-Mart's aviation division. A onetime protege of Henrickson's, Tyson pilot Randy Parette, refers to his former mentor as "a 600-lb. gorilla who pretty much did what he wanted in the face of rules and common sense."

When Henrickson took part in his first alleged cash delivery for Clinton in the early 1980s, the captain at the wheel of the Citation II aircraft was Haskell Blake, Henrickson says. "((Blake)) showed me the envelope outside the airplane," maintains Henrickson. "We held it up to the light." But Blake, now an Indianapolis-based pilot, recalls nothing of the sort; "I like Joe, but I don't know where he came up with that," says he.

Moreover, Henrickson's tale has had some discrepancies. In his first interview with TIME, Henrickson recalled that the envelopes "always had Clinton's name on them and no return address." After meeting with Smaltz, he now says the envelopes were "always blank." Similarly, Henrickson initially could recall only two or three deliveries. After meeting with Smaltz, he now remembers six deliveries from 1982 until as late as 1991. Henrickson's wife Mary Ann insists that her husband discussed the deliveries with her as they occurred. "The envelopes bothered me at the time," she recalls. "I would ask Joe, 'You're taking cash? Don't you get a receipt? Someone could steal it.' " Henrickson, a former Marine, says it was not in his nature to ask questions. "I just did what I was told," he says. "It was none of my business. I was one of the boys." The Henricksons maintain that they are both Clinton supporters.

Smaltz's investigators came upon Henrickson when they discovered a lawsuit the pilot had filed against his former employer and called him in for questioning about it. Henrickson's relationship with his immediate boss had grown strained in recent years. Then in 1993 a fellow pilot was fired for what Henrickson and other pilots felt was a minor infraction. Henrickson tried to intervene. Two months later, he too was fired. He then brought the lawsuit, charging retaliatory dismissal. His personnel records were clean, reflecting regular raises and promotions, but the suit was dismissed in October. "Under current Arkansas law, Joe's case is impossible," points out Henrickson's attorney, Marcia Brinton.

Last summer, despite the company's strong legal position, Brinton says she was invited for coffee by some current Tyson employees, whom she refuses to identify, who made "an implication" that if Henrickson didn't drop his lawsuit, they would step forward and testify that he transported drugs aboard Tyson airplanes. Nobody has followed through with the threat, which Henrickson reported to the FBI, even though Henrickson has appealed his case. Other Tyson pilots dismiss the drug-running charge against Henrickson as preposterous. Henrickson believes the threat was intended to scare him away from talking about the alleged deliveries to Clinton. He claims he's being blacklisted in the industry, a fate he says his former colleagues might suffer if they backed him up. "It's easy to control people who don't know where their next house payment is coming from," he says.

Smaltz has served Henrickson with a subpoena to appear before a grand jury and given him a two-page letter of immunity, which protects the pilot from criminal charges and subjects him to perjury charges if he is lying. The former Tyson captain has also volunteered to take a lie-detector test. In his first conversation with TIME, Smaltz did not admit to knowing Henrickson. But when asked about the letter of immunity and presented with information that TIME had gathered, the independent counsel spoke with unusual candor. He found Henrickson's story "very interesting," he said, partly because in their first meeting, Henrickson did not mention the envelopes until the day was nearly finished. "Based upon the way his story unfolded, it has a ring of truth to it," said Smaltz. "If a guy's got an agenda, usually he can't wait to tell you about it."

Meanwhile, Espy remains a major focus of the probe. Smaltz says he is investigating more than 30 allegations against the Agriculture Secretary. Espy's lawyer, Reid Weingarten, declared that Smaltz's growing staff and multiple subpoenas "suggest an investigation out of control or one with a funny agenda." His client, who leaves office Dec. 31, certainly faces a far longer wait for a resolution than nearly anyone imagined a few months ago.