National Affairs: Clean House

George Meany's orders to the 40,000-member United Textile Workers of America were tough and terse. To avoid suspension, barked the A.F.L.-C.I.O. president, the textile workers would have to clean house, bounce Secretary-Treasurer Lloyd Klenert, who, the McClellan committee revealed, had used union funds for a down payment on a house, charged the U.T.W.A. with such expenditures as his wife's brassières and $2,564.65 for 24 My Fair Lady theater parties. The union must also fire President Anthony Valente, whose home also was financed with union money. Last week, with Klenert's resignation already in, the textile workers moved another step toward Meany's blessing. Emerging from a U.T.W.A. executive board conference in Washington. President Valente softly but angrily announced that he had resigned.

The resignation satisfied only two-thirds of the A.F.L.-C.I.O. clean up or get out orders. The house was still not clean: Klenert, in resigning, had woven an agreement for $104,000 in severance pay as a quid pro quo for leaving quickly. But at week's end that too was settled. The union's executive board voted to give Klenert the skid without a quid.