European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - June 21, 1987, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Page 10 columns the stars and stripes sunday june 21,1987 Anthony Lewis principle of accountability at stake in Ira Gate one principle pervades our constitutional sys tem. It is the principle of accountability. Everyone who exercises Power in american government must account for whal he does explain justify take responsibility. Accountability prevents tyranny. So the framers believed. The principle is centrally at stake in the Iran Centra Fiur. For the conspiratorial adventures in Nicaragua and Iran and Washington were All designed to avoid accountability. And the same intention a evident now in the attempts to frustrate the investigations by con fre Nional committees and the Independent counsel. I Don t think there is another person in America that wants to Ted this Story As much As i  that is what Oliver North said last december when he was fim called to testify on Capitol Hill and refused unconstitutional grounds to answer any questions. Ever since North and his lawyer have been working i Fligle mind Eddy to avoid having to Tell the Story. That it quite properly his right under the fifth amendment. But the system has been denied an essential accounting Sot the exercise of what we now know was enormous official Power. The latest North ploy is to refuse to answer questions in private by the staff of the congressional committees a All other witnesses have done. The calculation it that this will deprive members of clues to guide their questioning in the Public hearing. The commit tees could cite rim for contempt at the court order requiring him to testify with immunity but that would delay the Public appearance Tor which it is eager. A fab broader attack on the principle of accountability has just come from the department of Justice it was the department s denunciation of the Independent counsel for the Iran Contra affair former judge Lawrence e. Walsh and on the whole idea of special prosecutors to investigate official  department said president Reagan should veto feg dilation to renew and extend he counsel system. An assistant attorney general John r. Botton at tacked Walsh for paying too High a rent for office space in Washington. It was a ludicrous Point since the of fice had in fact been chosen by the general services administration. Evidently Boylon s purpose was to smear. Bolton went on to Tell Congress that the Justice department considered the whole system of Independent counsels unconstitutional. His argument was that the Law Calls for the counsels to be appointed by a court either than the executive Branch and that invades the Power of the president. The argument is frivolous. The framers of the Constitution put in a clause explicitly giving Congress the William f. Buckley or. Power to have the courts appoint inferior officers of government officials other than ambassadors and others subject to Senate confirmation and Congress has done so Many times. As for tie idea that All Federal prosecutions must be under the control of the president and the Justice department Many criminal prosecutions were brought by private individuals when the Constitution was written and for years after. The function was not conceived of As exclusively executive or even governmental. The practical Point is that killing the Independent counsel Law would Lei presidents and attorneys general control investigations of themselves and their col leagues. Archibald Cox was dismissed As watergate special prosecutor when he subpoenaed president Nix on s tapes. A prosecutor Beholden to those he is investigating would always have to worry about such retribution. The Independent counsel Law has mainly worked so far As a credible Way to Clear wrongly accused officials. Many have wondered therefore Why the Justice department is so eager to do away with the Law. My guess is a simple one officials Are afraid now of what Walsh and other Independent counsels Are doing. The facts of the Iran Contra affair those we know risk of conspiracy to subvert the Normal processes of government the use of private hirelings to carry out secret foreign policies the deception of Congress the shredding and caking of documents. There is Good Rea son for those involved to worry about Walsh s investigation. But whatever the criminal Law May say about those activities there is no doubt that they massively offended the principle of accountability., when rep. Lee Hamilton chairman of the House investigating committee summarized the hearings on june 9, he mentioned As a main danger the absence of accountability including personal  it u up to Congress and the Independent counsel to repair the constitutional fabric to  York Tytul Cuomo s problem is that he has very Little to say the fever about who next in the White House is More virulent than at any time in recent memory perhaps be cause there Are no True front runners. The democratic party in particular has problems some of them of is own Mak ing others it can blame on the continued popularity of or. Reagan s reforms. Take the question of Mario Cuomo. Everywhere you go you Are asked As though in College you had majored in Mano Cuomo 101, what one thinks of him his prospects his decision not to run and Bis indecision As to whether he should run. Readers owe As usual a considerable debt to James Revlon of the new Yort times the ongoing seer who manages to gel everyone to talk to him and listen to him even deaf mutes. Speaking of which Mario Cuomo s session with or. Reston discussed in his column last week might As Well have been conducted with someone who would not listen and could not talk. The question or. Resto wanted to probe is the question everybody wants to probe namely is Cuomo going to run Reston invited a very direct reply to this by asking if Cuomo were prepared to give a Sherton Aesque statement a Juring a presidential race. Well Cuomo was not. Well did Cuomo have anything specific in mind that would Benefit the Republic Well yes. He had in mind National bipartisan eco nomic  would you believe it the kind of people who have commissions in mind Are the kind of people who really have nothing very much to say and i suspect that that is at the Root of or. Cuomo s problem. Me does not five very much to say to those who have read tobacco Road and Don t believe that America s problems arc the same kind of problems faced by the dust bowl depression. What would the National bipartisan economic commission do Well it ought to have in it representatives of Congress business labor and the executive Branch to help guide the coun try in the years ahead in or Reston s paraphrase. Help guide it toward whal Jesse Jack son Al least is Concrete. He would in effect destroy the military and use the Money to buy More Low Cost housing to buy anything and Call it Aid to the needy. Bui Mario Cuomo is astute enough to know that there Aren t enough proletariat in America to provide much of a constituency for revolutionary poli tics. And Cuomo like other leading democrats does t quite know whal Lodo with Ronald Reagan now that Reagan has taken their Road on dealing with the soviet Union. It is predictable that Well before the primaries the Kremlin and the White House will have engineered a Deal removing the intermediate Range mis Siles from Europe. This will prove the worst decision in the Reagan administration and although it May in the Yean ahead Seal the Fate of the Alliance in the months ahead it certainly seals the Fate of the democratic party. Short of abandoning Nicaragua to the communists the democrats realty have nothing on the capitulation list Agenda left to accomplish save a Little More of the same. Candidate Jack Kemp has come out strongly against the european Denu Clea Bizalion. But a policy democratic in intellectual and political provenance changes its Public appearance entirely when launched by a conservative Republican Ranald Reagan cannot exorcise the devils that Turk in the contemplated arrangement but he can certainly leave the democrats without very much to complain about in foreign policy. I in t a cheerful picture for Mario Cuomo. Unemployment is Down from the Carter period the annual Gross National product is up. If it is a Little sleepy Cuomo has no ideas on How to make it less so and his National bipartisan eco nomic commission in t going to come up with anything Likely to rivet the Atten Tion of primary voters in new Hamp Shire toward a democratic alternative. The principal reason for a Democrat to Hope to be elected is that the Public tends to lire of the same party in the White House after a White and whatever the Odds against Success Glamour certainly attaches to being the party s Choice. Cincinnatus forsook private life to come to the Aid of the Republic. Cuomo would presumably forsake the relative privacy of the governorship of new York if he really thought be Republic endangered. But the Only thing actually endangered is his hyper inflated oratory. He had better stay Home and husband his principal is Sci � Universal Praia Syndicate