Tokens Of Gratitude

THERE AREN'T MANY CONGRESSIONAL BODIES MORE powerful than the House Appropriations Committee, a fat channel through which billions of dollars in federal contracts flow. A federal grand jury charged Representative Joseph McDade, a 15-term Congressman from Pennsylvania and the committee's ranking Republican, with greasing that channel for some special friends in return for $100,000 in bribes.

The indictment states that, during a five-year period in the 1980s, McDade accepted money, air travel, use of vacation houses, even a golf umbrella from five manufacturers in exchange for help in obtaining defense contracts. Among the companies seeking favors were Sperry (now Unisys), Grumman and United Chem-Con, a now defunct contractor based in Lancaster, Penn. McDade -- who ran unopposed for his party's renomination two weeks ago and won the Democratic nomination as well on a write-in vote -- denied the charges, saying the investigation had turned his life into "a living nightmare."