European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - December 29, 1985, Darmstadt, Hesse Page 10 columns the stars and stripes sunday december 29, 1985 Anthony Lewis Shultz stood up Tor his principles and he won something strange and won Darful happened in Washington last week. In that City of rootless ambition of brutal deals for place and Power character triumphed. A Man stood against the degrading ii firm political life and he won. I Corgi Shultz did that when he Drew the line at having his Honor tested on a polygraph the so called lie Detector. The minute in this government i am told that i m no trusted is inc Day that i leave he told reporters. And those won. Of principle were enough to Force a change in administration policy. The very notion thai a Cabinet officer should be hooked up to a polygraph shows How far the standards of our political life have fallen. If someone had put that idea to Dwight to Isnhower he would have been Lucky to get out of the room alive. But in Ronald Reagan s Washington the degrading idea became policy. It was accepted without protest by what Trollope called the place men. The ambition driven officials of his political novels. Caspar Weinberger the Secretary of de lense. Said taking a polygraph test would t bother me a what would bother him1 on nov. I president Reagan signed a National Security directive on countering espionage. It included the use of poly graphs on a wide scale. All Federal officials with Access to sensitive information including Cabinet officers were made subject to inc tests. As explained by White House spokesmen on dec. Ii. The directive required All new employees in sensitive positions to be Given polygraph tests. The tests were also to be administered on a random basis id some 100,000 people Al ready on the Job. Polygraphs have been dismissed by Sev eral scientists for Many years As unreliable detectors of untruths. They measure changes in such body functions As respiration but those changes May reflect per Sonal anxieties apart from lying and the symptoms May be suppressed by persons who Ore lying. On the very Issue of espionage poly graphs have been known to fail. Larry James Reston . Flie Here error tits pops we Tai Chin the former Cia Capo cd who has been charged with spying for China for 30 years passed polygraph tests Many times. But inc known flaws in the machine have not stopped its promoters. William j. Casey the director of the Cia. Is a Calous polygraph Advt Traic. Despite the Chin Case the Cia recently that pol graphing in the intelligence Community has proven to be the Best deterrent to the misuse of sensitive in addition to its built in unreliability the polygraph is subject to by its operators. Employ cars can and do use it to violate the privacy of employees humiliate them and discharge them when icy arc really Lor other reasons. All those factors figured in Secretary of stale Shull s extraordinary decision to speak oui against a presidential order. Bui the episode was much More than a protest against the use of lie detectors. It was a reaffirmation of the role of personal character in Public life. Shult. Has done it before. When Rich Ard Nixon wanted the lax returns of his enemies audited shull7, As Secretary of the Treasury said no. For Hal he earned the Nixon Ian term heard on the White House tapes Sulu is a conservative of an old fashioned kind one who does not think the end justifies the Means. In that lie is like his old Friend and colleague at the University of Chicago Edward h. Levi at Torney general in the Ford administration. One might disagree with Levi s policies but there was never any possibility that he would Bend a principle for reasons of politics or personal ambition. The More common View in Washington is that everything must yield to ambition. Consider vice president George Bush who was the victim of one of the most vicious men in the history of the american press the late William Loeb of the Manchester . Union Leader. Yet the other Day. Bush crawled to a dinner to Honor lock s memory. Shuli won this lest of principle. The Day after he spoke out. President Reagan backed Down on polygraphs. His spoke Man. Larry Speakes said Hal there never was an intention to use them More broadly than As one tool in the investigation of someone suspected of providing information to the the rare official who resigns on Prin Ciple or threatens to does nol usually affect policy. When Cyrus Vance quit Ai Jimmy Carter s Secretary of stale Over the plan to Rescue the hosing is in Iran the plan went ahead to its disastrous end. But whatever happens to policy the human being involved has won something for personal Char Acler and responsibility in office. C hew York Bush running too soon and forgetting his principles All Allf ll/1t �7ec .i.__._. F t iof All the horses at the starting Gate for the 1988 presidential race. Vice president Bush probably bus the Best track record. But he May be jumping the gun. None of the others can match his experience in inc White House in inc con Gress in business in diplomacy As Ambas Sador to China and the United nations. Or in the subterranean world where he worked As head of the Central Intelli gence Agency. He has roots at Yale and in new Hampshire which have few electoral Voles but now makes his Home in Texas and that has More than a few. By birth education and tradition he is part of that remarkable company of progressive re publicans from Teddy to Osech to Ike Eisenhower. If you had to Mark him in the Republican ranks you would probably put him alongside senators like lev Critt Salton stall of Massachusetts Clifford Case of new Jersey John Sherman Cooper of Kentucky and Mac Mathias of Mary land the most thoughtful and engaging dreamers of the presidency who never made in. Now comes George Bush. He has been Loyal to president Reagan almost invisible As vice president. But recently he has come oui of hiding and is beginning to run openly for the Republican Nomi nation and wondering where he s going and who s going with him. He showed up the other night As the principal speaker at a dinner in Honor of the Manchester Union Leader s former editor inc late William lock an outrageous Bigold Man who had denounced him in the last presidential election As a hypocrite for condemning Ronald Rea Gan s voodoo economics As an incompetent and As a spoon fed Little Rich kid who was unfit to be Bush praised him anyway. Thai s the Way it is in the rough and Tumble of politics he said and concluded that Loeb was triumphantly right about the fact that Ronald Reagan is one of the greatest presidents in our it was worse than a disgrace. In was an embarrassment. This tells us something about the corruption of ambition. George Bush is a Good Man in a big hurry. By stoking up inc race so soon he s probably not help ing the president who has three hard years logo or himself. He s not helping himself with the moderates who believe in him or persuading the conservative extremists who whatever he says will never believe him or nominal him unless Reagan does live out his second term. Obviously he has a problem. To be nominated in a Republican convention dominated by the conservative Wing of his parly he needs inc support of the presi Dent the conservative delegates and the television preachers. To win the election it nominated he needs the support of the ecu"1"" of blah garlics a rc8 on5 and this is the dilemma the vice president has t resolved. Bush is no Bush leaguer. He has been in the big leagues a \ new my but Clear a he has t decided on his strategy. Maybe there arc ways for him 10 make peace with the right wig of the Republican party but Mccarthy " like a nor inf a it turf to Ives won thank i " far brins f ,n?Odi i doubt him for being to everything but himself he got in trouble with this in inc presidential election when he put on the " f�0t toners -0 character As he was he was dead honest in the 1980 Cim pain when he condemned Revara voodoo economics inc present record budget and Trade deficits seem to prove his Point but now he seems to be Fol lowing Reagan s voodoo politics. He in defending everything he opposed in the past arguing for the Reagan policy of borrow and borrow spend and spend and hoping that he will inherit the Reagan Manile and be nominated in the process. The guess Here is that this won t work for Bush. Reagan like Eisenhower did t have an election with the american poc ple but a love affair. Bush cannot carry on Reagan s failed economic and foreign policies but later on nol now be has to come Forward and be seen u i own Man. Bush in a Way has the same prob Lem Hubert Humphrey had As Lyndon Johnson s vice president. Comparisons Are treacherous but Humphrey probably tort. The presidency because he went along with Johnson s disastrous policy in Viet Nam when he did t believe in in and he _ was rejected by the voters in the end be cause they thought he had no vision 0 the future but was merely following the policies of the past. Bush is now in thai same Pickle How w be faithful to the president without hav ing any serious policy of his own. Cine a Yuri time
