Percy and Michel: big men on Capitol Hill

By ROBERT MACKAY

SEN. CHARLES PERCY has yearned for years to wield some real power in Washington, but his presidential trial balloons in 1968 and 1976 were shot down by conservatives in his own Republican party who viewed him as a liberal, and the Democrats' continuous control of the Senate ensured he would remain just another minority voice on Capitol Hill.

For the ambitious Percy, who became president and chief executive officer of the Bell and Howell Co. at 29 years of age, it must have been aggravating indeed to see his national political career seemingly going nowhere.

But all that changed on November 4, whenn the Republicans won the White House and also control of the Senate. Because he was the ranking minority member on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in the last Democrat-controlled Congress, Percy was in line for the chairmanship of the committee with the GOP in control.

But Percy knew the Republican party had been moving rightward since he first joined the Senate in 1964, and the conservatives — those who had doomed his presidential aspirations — would be virtually in charge of the party with Ronald Reagan's election as president. As Sen. Howard Baker of Tennessee had done the day after the flections, Percy got on the telephone and received assurances from Reagan's camp that he would not be done out of the job that was rightfully his.

Percy got the job. But to keep it, he will have to become adept at the fine points of bureaucratic knife fighting. Even before getting the job, there was an apparent attempt to embarrass him. And that triggered an FBI investigation to discover who tried to set him up for a fall.

Speculation about the identity of the culprits who evidently leaked information centered on one of the following: Republican conservatives unhappy with Percy and other GOP moderates; Republican moderates who sought to blame the incident on conservatives and hopefully put them in disfavor with Reagan; or Democrats on the Senate committee unhappy about losing their jobs to the Republicans.

The incident took place after Percy's November trip to Moscow, when secret State Department cables were leaked to The New York Times describing Percy's talks with Soviet leaders. The leaked cables revealed he had advocated the creation of a Palestinian state and suggested that Palestine Liberation Organization chief Yasser Arafat might become leader of the new state. Percy later said the leaks "totally garbled and distorted the meaning" of his talks.

The leaks prompted Reagan's senior foreign policy adviser, Richard V. Allen, to disavow Percy's purported remarks. It also triggered dissent and anger by American Jewish leaders, who asked Reagan to "dissociate himself" from Percy's views. Percy put out a statement explaining his remarks to the Soviets and making it clear he made the remarks only as a U.S. senator, not as a spokesman for Reagan. In an interview later, Percy said, "One of the malicious things about the leakage is that it not only is a criminal offense . . . but it also was leaked selectively and maliciously to undercut my trip." Despite his bitterness, Percy refused to speculate who might have leaked the cables.

An unidentified "top Reagan official" told The Washington Star the leak came from John Carbaugh, an aide to conservative Sen. Jesse Helms (R., N.C.), who was also a member of Reagan's State Department transition team. Carbaugh angrily denied the charge and offered to take a lie detector test. Helms and Percy asked then Secretary of State Edmund Muskie to request a Justice Department investigation of the leak, which he did. The FBI began investigating who leaked the cables in mid-December.

The incident did not cost Percy the chairmanship of the Foreign Relations Committee, but it was an indication that with his new, somewhat powerful position in the Senate he can also expect some guerrilla warfare from time to time — possibly from members of his own party.

On the other side of the Capitol, Congressman Bob Michel of Peoria is elated with his victory over Rep. Guy Vander Jagt of Michigan for Republican leader in the House and is anxious to flex his new muscle. Shortly after the 103-87 vote was announced Michel promised a vigorous fight to enact Reagan's legislative program. Michel said he expects a spirit of cooperation from the Democrats. "If not, there are going to be commando raids on the other side" of the aisle to win key votes, Michel vowed. "There will be an all-out war or confrontation, if it comes to that."

One of the Democrats opposing Michel probably will be Congressman Dan Rostenkowski of Chicago, who is now Congress' chief tax writer. Rostenkowski gave up a chance to become the whip — No. 3 in the House Democratic leadership — and instead became chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee. House Speaker Thomas O'Neill wanted Rostenkowski to take the committee job because he feared the next man in line for it — Congressman Sam Gibbons of Florida — would not be a "team player." Rostenkowski, once Mayor Richard J. Daley's representative in Washington, is one of O'Neill's favorite team players. □

February 1981/Illinois Issues/33