European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - September 7, 1978, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Page 12 the stars and stripes thursday september 7, 1978 William Safire 2 White House pros unnamed talk and bums me their heaps so i can see what so6s on inside them a couple of Middle level old pros in the White House Loyal to or Carter but Long ago disenchanted let their hair Down in separate not for attribution inter views. Vice president Mondale has been As signed to mind the store while the presi Dent presides at the Camp David Summit this week does this mean he s getting More powerful hardly. Mondale used to be More passionate about his advice but nobody expects him to weigh in anymore. His advice still gets asked he sees All the secret stuff but he leaves meetings Early seems to be Content to be a staff Man. Not coveting Carter s  Rosalynn Carter you hear from her a lot. She usually thinks the staff is being too defensive. I Don t see her As grabbing Power but More As trying to impress her husband her retaliation to Solzhenitsyn s speech at har Vard for  what s the status of Hamilton Jordan who always denies being chief of staff Jimmy Carter s idea of a successful presidency is not to have a Vietnam or a watergate and he associates having a chief of staff with Nixon. So Ham was smart to deny being chief of staff when he was. He s not  the other aide agreed Ham wants to be Bob Strauss when he grows up. Even now Ham is the Man the president trusts most for political advice. But if the chief of staff is the Man that most of the people in the White House get direction from then that s Jerry  in t Rafshoon just the image maker a lot More than that. He was smart to stay out till it was obvious he was needed and the others were  we know he took Over part of Jody pow Ell s responsibility. Jody is strictly a spokesman. He can t manage anybody else or figure out what to do More than a Day in Advance. Rafshoon has been Given the bulk of Powell s duties plus a chunk of Stu Eizenstat s operation the part that dealt with Congress plus Ham Jordan s operational Arm. That leaves Jody to talk and Stu to think and Ham to advise which is what they re Best at and Rafshoon to organize most of the staff to sell the programs and get the presi Dent in shape for 1980." does that mean Rafshoon s old partner pollster Pat Caddell is on the Rise again no. The feeling is Caddell is getting ready for Teddy. The Guy on the Way up is Greg schneiders he s the vice Raf  what about the speech writing staff a couple of them left last month. Under the new system they report to Rafshoon not Jody. Got a Good new one in Caryl con Ner i think she wrote Bert Lance s speech that winged the newspaper  speaking of Olbert the scuttlebutt is that a grand jury May take action next month. Nobody talks about that. Look what happened to Midge Costanza. And Mike Blumenthal has been among the walking dead since Jody and Ham decided he had Hurt  How is the budget director working out the Young aide of Lance s who stepped up when his Boss was forced to resign Jim Mclntyre is a Nice Guy but a tur key. He used to be Lance s Deputy but now Jim won t fill the Deputy s . He s afraid that either of the Guys on the level below Wellford or Cutter would make him look silly if one of them became Deputy. Crucial  too hard to figure Why the president who prides himself on management Toler ates this. A lot of us get the feeling that if you perform Well nobody will appreciate it and if you perform poorly nobody will  what sort of an executive is Carter he has an algebraic mind not a dialectical mind. The furthest thing from his mind is that there can be contradictions Between Good goals. So when it came time to make a decision Between Vance s soft line and Brzezinski s hard line at Annapolis a few months ago he took a Little of one added to it some of the other and wound up with nothing. The president. Does t draw Excel Lence. That s Why such a hard working intelligent Man can be so Lousy at running a  re election Hopes the incumbency has Power who would have thought in 1974, that Ford could beat Reagan in the primaries and this Decem Ber after the elections Carter will announce his visit to peking c new York times Jesse l. Jackson Roy s testimony and conspiracy now that James Earl Ray has Testi fied publicly and under oath before the House special committee on assassinations. Where do we stand 1 we now know some things about Ray and 2 there is developing the outer shape of a conspiracy. We now know that Ray is a pathological liar. He lied to his lawyers to journalists to me when i visited with him and under oath to the special House committee. I think he even lies to himself. He said he was t in Atlanta on april 1, 1968. A laundry slip and witnesses prove that he was. He said he did t Rob a London Bank. The committee produced the Rob Ber s note with his fingerprints on it. Ray said witnesses at a Gas station in Memphis would place him away from the murder comeomv3u6uys., lets put aside2000 years of hostilities an negotiate. Scene but when produced they denied it. Even though the committee did t quite put Ray s Finger on the trigger they did carve away his alibis refute his lies and circumstantially build a virtually airtight Case establishing Ray As the actual Assas sin. Does Ray deserve a trial Only incidentally. The truth not Ray is the critical is sue. The assassinations committee under the outstanding and competent leadership of its chairman Louis Stokes has inter viewed More than 2,000 people gathered hundreds of hours of testimony and con ducted a credible hearing. In Early september Congress should give the assassinations committee the $790,000 it needs to Complete its investigation. If that committee is allowed to com plete its work there May be no need for a special prosecutor or a trial. The real Issue is to establish the truth of who killed or. King and any Legal Means necessary to establish that ought to be used. The committee through the questioning of a congressman and former aide of or. King Walter Fauntroy will consider 21 different conspiracy theories when it again returns in november to Public hearings in the King assassination. What is publicly known and the direction the committee now seems to be headed Points to the outer shape of a conspiracy involving a South East right Wing political connection Possi Bly entered in Alabama. Ray s first attorney whom he called to represent him from London was Arthur Hanes of Birmingham Ala. Hanes is the same lawyer who represented successfully the three Kun flux klan members accused of killing Detroit housewife and civil rights worker Viola Liuzzo. He is also the same attorney who worked closely with Bull Connor during the 1963 birding Ham demonstrations when dogs and fir hoses were unleashed on innocent men. Woman and children. The mysterious Raoul whom Ray spent considerable time with but can t identify very clearly May actually be Jerry Ray James Earl s closest brother. Jerry Ray an outspoken racist is a body guard and errand boy for . Stoner head of the National states rights party an extreme right Wing and racist political group. Some have said that Ray becomes tense and devious when pressed for information about Raoul. James Earl Ray seems to be protecting someone either someone he loves possibly his brother or someone he fears. The theory that Raoul May actually be his brother Jerry is Given further credence by the fact that much of what James Earl Ray has said about his Contact with his brother Jerry prior to the assassination parallels much of wharf lie has told his contacts about Raoul. For example Ray now says that Raoul instructed him to Purchase first one gun and then the next Day what turned out to be the murder weapon. But Salesman Don Ald Woods of the Aero Marine Supply com Pany in Birmingham said Ray told him when he returned with the first gun that he d spoken with his brother who told him he d got the wrong  it is important that the Issue of or. King s murder be kept visible and alive for Only when the truth is known can we fully be about the business of Healing our selves As a nation. In my next column i will Deal with Why i still believe the government especially the Fri was implicated in or. King s death c Universal press Syndicate