Nation: Civiletti: A G.O.P. Hostage

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While the Democrats burn, the Republicans fiddle

At a hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee last week, Republican Malcolm Wallop was droning on with a seemingly endless series of questions, trying to force acting Deputy Attorney General Benjamin Civiletti into saying something that would embarrass the Carter Administration. Suddenly, Committee Chairman James Eastland took a large cigar out of his mouth, leaned forward in his chair, and interrupted. "What have you got to do with this?" he asked the witness. "Nothing," replied Civiletti.

Undeterred, Wallop, 45, a first-term Senator and a rancher, plunged on with another string of questions. Once more Eastland, 73, took a firm hold on his cigar and asked: "What did you have to do with that?" Again came the witness's reply: "Nothing."

So it has gone for three tedious weeks in Room 2228 of the New Senate Office Building. The committee is ostensibly holding hearings on whether the Senate should confirm Jimmy Carter's promotion of Civiletti, 42, to be the Justice Department's second-ranking official. No one on the committee has raised serious doubts about his fitness for the job. But the G.O.P. members have been holding the nomination hostage while they take political pot shots at the Administration. "We're all political animals," admits Nevada Republican Paul Laxalt.

Each working day Civiletti arrives at the hearing room carrying two jammed briefcases. Sometimes he waits as long as two hours for the Senators to show up and the quizzing to begin. The gray-haired, buttoned-down attorney has answered questions for as long as four hours at a sitting.

The critics' principal target has been the Administration's inept firing of Philadelphia's Republican U.S. Attorney, David W. Marston, who had been digging into political corruption in Pennsylvania. But Civiletti, a former Baltimore attorney who has headed the Justice Department's criminal division for a year, has quite persuasively, and usually patiently, explained again and again that he had nothing to do with Marston's dismissal. In fact, when the Marston controversy became a national political issue, Civiletti was in South Korea interviewing Rice Broker Tongsun Park about the Korean influence-buying scandal.

Yet Wallop has persisted with hundreds of questions. How, he asks, could Civiletti not have been aware of the details of Marston's investigations, particularly the fact that the targets included two Pennsylvania Congressmen, Joshua Eilberg and Daniel Flood? Civiletti said he had never even heard of Flood until recently. Wallop was incredulous. "Senator. I have no idea who three-fourths of the Congressmen are," said Civiletti wryly.

After one particularly long Wallop monologue, this absurd exchange took place:

Civiletti: Do you have a question? Wallop: Yes, I have a question. Civiletti: What is the question? Wallop: Would the official reporter read back the question?

The committee's stenographer read aloud Wallop's entire monologue. It contained no question.