Nation: Kraft Drops Out

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Carter loses a lieutenant

In the middle of a close re-election campaign, Jimmy Carter can scarcely afford any trouble with his staff. But last week Tim Kraft, 39, Carter's national campaign manager, was forced to step down while a special prosecutor investigates charges that Kraft has used cocaine. Kraft got no argument from fellow Carter staffers. Though they had strongly defended Hamilton Jordan against similar drug charges last year, they were unwilling to make the same stand for Kraft, whose flamboyant life-style has brought him notoriety in Washington. In fact, when Jordan was under investigation, his friends intimated that the Justice Department was going after the wrong man.

During his testimony before a federal grand jury, Evan Dobelle, who was replaced by Kraft as campaign chief, was asked if he had ever seen his successor use drugs. At first Dobelle refused to answer. But under pressure, he reluctantly told the grand jury that he had observed Kraft snorting cocaine in New Orleans in 1978. In accordance with the 1978 Ethics in Government Act, which requires that investigations of serious wrongdoing by top Government officials be handled by special prosecutors, Gerald J. Gallinghouse, former U.S. attorney for New Orleans, was appointed to examine the Kraft case.

Kraft is not expected to return to the campaign committee, but he will continue to collect his $56,000-a-year salary; he will need it. Jordan's ultimately successful defense cost at least $100,000. Four regional directors will split up Kraft's responsibilities, but they lack his close personal ties to almost everyone in the campaign, from the President to the field staff. Said a staffer: "We will miss Tim's day-to-day leadership. He was our problem solver."