The Tennessean from Nashville, Tennessee • Page 7

CARL T. ROWAN: Shams That assion The U.S. ress Imp Cong "5i WASHINGTON I haven't seen any bickering on TV like this since Jackie Gleason and Audrey -Meadows portrayed "The Honeymooners." Really! I've been seeing passion on my tube that makes "Dynasty Alexis (Joan Collins) seem frigid. I see old-fashioned meanness that makes "Dallas'" J.R. Ewing seem like a Cub Scout JPM TALKING about sitting home watching the latest American soap opera, "The Tip O'Neill-Newt Show," brought to some 17 million of us in flaming Icolor by a cable outfit called C-SPAN, direct from the 'well of the House of Representatives, w.

I love it! See Gingrich and two other self-styled Republican "guerrilla warriors," Reps. Robert S. Walker of Pennsylvania and Vin Weber of Minnesota, stand before the C-SPAN cameras, giving a brutal tongue-lashing to Demo-rcratic colleagues who aren't even in the House chamber. In fact, only the "guerrilla warriors" are in the chamber. They are shadow-boxing for the benefit of unwitting people on the dark end of the cameras.

SEE HOUSE Speaker Thomas P. "Tip" O'Neill's face turn purple with rage as he accuses the "guerrilla warriors" of impugning the patriotism of 1 0 Democratic leaders who wrote a "Dear Commandante" letter to the leader of Nicaragua, criticizing President Reagan's Cen-tral American policies. See O'Neill accuse the Republicans of perpetrating "a sham" upon the American people by giving bellicose "McCarthyite" speeches before an empty House. See O'Neil change a five-year-old rule that the C-SPAN cam- 'eras had to be tightly focused on the person speaking MARYMcGRORY: Peace-Loving Hollanders Have (speaker's) well before an emptied House and chal-lenged (these Democrats') Americanism. That is the lowest thing I've seen in my 32 years in Congress." Watch GOP Whip Lott demand that O'Neill's old friend, Rep.

Joe Moakley who is presiding, rebuke the speaker for violating a House rule against one member making a personally derogatory attack upon another. See Moakley get a parliamentary ruling and then rebuke the speaker. Yes, I love it. BUT NOT because it is electric televisioa I love it because these soap opera outbursts just might force the Congress to face up to all the ways in which it foists shams upon the American people. Rep.

Walker probably feels that he's entitled to a dirty trick or two. He was one of the victims of a scheme in which a House staffer hired by the Democrats systematically changed the transcripts of hearings before the Government Operations Subcommittee on Energy, Environment and Natural Resources. When Walker said, "I am willing to take part in reasonable hearings," a Democrat staffer changed it to read, "I am not willing to take part That employee was fired. The Congress long ago institutionalized a sham under which members "extend" and "revise" remarks before they are printed in the Congressional Record. All of us go on television, testify at hearings, argue with spouses, and say later "I wish I'd thought to say this," or "I sure regret having said that" Members of Congress constantly deceive us with altered records in which their brilliant afterthoughts always show up and their stupidities have been erased.

NOW THOSE C-SPAN cameras that O'Neill says the Republicans are using in a phony way. The whole business of televising House proceedings began as a sham when the House decreed that cameras must focus tightly upon the person speaking so as to wipe out the risk of having viewers see a member wobbling back from a three-martini luncheon, or taking a nap in the middle of debate about whether to fund the MX missile. Let's hope the Gingrich-O'Neill show will motivate Americans to demand an end to all the congressional shams and frauds. 3 Soft Spot for the A-Team and now order the cameras to pan an empty chamber to show that the GOP "guerrillas" aren't really talking to "their colleagues. See Republican Minority Leader Trent Lott of Missis-Sippi accuse O'Neill of being "blatantly political and partisan" and "downright underhanded." 1 1 NOW.

SEE Gingrich take the floor on a "point of per sonal privilege" to answer O'Neill. And see the speaker iftan from his dais and eo to a floor rostrum where he shakes an angry finger at Gingrich and says: "My per sonal opinion is that you deliberately stood in that life with robinson stir; w. WASHINGTON What is this with the Dutch and "The The land of wooden shoes, tulips and great paintings, which spurns our missiles, has gone berserk over the case of our most violent television show. Twenty thousand people stormed the plane when it set down the cast in The Netherlands. Everywhere they went Col.

Hannibal Smith and his merry-mayhem band were mobbed. The streets and canals were clogged with rapturous Hollanders who wanted to see Mr. handsome Face and "Howling Mad" Murdock. IT SEEMS THAT, of the 14 million Dutch, half are hooked on "The A-Team," including, it is said, the Dutch royal family and, we must assume, members of Europe's largest peace movement The National Coalition on Television Violence has told us that the show features "34 offensive acts per hour," but to little avail. Forty-two million Americans watch regularly.

Maybe a lot of them, like me, don't really mean to, but somehow always do. U.S. addiction is no wonder. It has been long established that we are a hardy race that accepts gunfire on the home screen like an after-dinner mint The Dutch are different or so we thought They are so against the use of force they are the only nation of the NATO allies that balks at accepting the 48 cruise missiles Ronald Reagan wants to send them Their defense minister told our defense minister, Caspar Weinberger that the weapons are dangerous and should be stored in some other country before they are actually needed. THE GOVERNMENT at The Hague knows it is in Dutch with Washington for its anti-social nuclear behavior.

The President is always pressing missiles on countries who aren't crazy about them, beginning with his owa He gives them dear little names the MX, the largest and deadliest he has christened the "Peacekeeper," and his partisans told resistant members of the House during a debate about making more of them that those who oppose such a wholesome enterprise are guilty of "unilateral disarmament" Reagan's Democratic agent in the House, Rep. Les Aspia was crying that failure to go on would be to "reward the Russians for walking away from the negotiating table" even though at this time a year ago he was arguing that going forward with the missiles would bring the Russians to their knees in Geneva. Rep. Les AuCoin of Oregon notes that if we can't get rid of it when the Russians are negotiating and we can't get rid of it when they are not there may never be a time when we will be free of the MX. THE DUTCH PRIME minister has a simpler dilemma with the cruise missile.

If he takes them, he loses his job. If he doesn't he could set off waves of wimpiness in other NATO countries. The A-Team is against unilateral disarmament Their vaa driven by the threatening BA (for "Bad Atti- JACK ANDERSON: V. BURKHAUSER: Always on the Right Side 1 Baracus, he of the gold chains and the looks that kill is a rolling arsenal, with all the latest in weaponry, some of it commandeered from the Army crew that pursues them vainly on their missions of murderous mercy. The A-Team is on the lam from Army prisoa having been unjustly detained for some unspecified infraction in Vietnam I like them because they are always on the right side.

If they're violent they are resourceful in a way we all wish our friends would be. In a recent episode, a loathsome landowner was trying to drive three handicapped Vietnam vets out of a hotel they were building in a town with a water shortage. THE A-TEAM MOVED ia They expertly re-rigged the water lines so the rotters were left high and dry; and in one exceptionally satisfying moment BA shot out the entire glassware collection of the Big Enchilada of the thugs. It's what seldom happens in real life. I wouldn't presume to speak for the Dutch, but I suspect part of their pleasure in "The A-Team" comes from having had more than their share of watching the wicked prosper.

They had five years of Nazi occupatioa when nobody won one against the bad guys. They know more than most about force and violence. They deplore it on an international scale, but in certain selected doses, they find it as reviving as gia which they Temales Can't Afford a Victory "In Insurance, Pension Battle II Ml II W.U.0.1. HUM Nashville Hi Hi "IT01 are now active labor force members dur-. i ing much of their lifetime.

Government has active-Uysought to reduce the sexual bias they face, but much i remains to be done before women's earnings reach parity with men. Fringe benefits account for nearly 20 of the com-. paid to workers. Two recent Supreme Court decisions have importantly affected this form of com-; 'i-pensation by prohibiting employer-based pension plans --from considering gender in setting premium or benefit "levels. CONGRESS IS now considering whether to require pension and insurance plans to be gender neutral a move will provoke consequences very different "'from those now dominating the public debate and will be an extremely costly victory for womea The Supreme Court decisions have been made in the context of defined contribution plans like TtAA, the ma-'ZJor, retirement plan of academics, which directly link Extensive Cheating on FBI Exam These additional benefits to male workers are much too large to be taken from the profits of insurance companies.

Rather, they are likely to be paid for by reduced benefits to female workers. The typical female married worker in a defined pension plan could lose nearly 8 of her annual benefits under the unisex survivor option. The total loss in benefits could be well over $100 million dollars and would swamp the gains made by women in defined contribution plans. REQUIRING THE use of gender-neutral tables to calculate life insurance premiums would be an even more costly victory for womea Because males on the average have shorter life expectancies than females, men traditionally have paid higher life insurance premiums. Unisex tables would end this practice.

The movement toward gender-neutral life insurance has already begua This year, TTAA switched to unisex tables in calculating term life insurance premiums. The change varies across ages, but the overall result is a substantial increase in payments by female workers. Diana Paley, an advisory officer at TIAA, reports that on average women now pay 1 1 more for a five-year renewable term insurance. Conversely, there has been a modest reduction in the premiums of male workers on average, a fall of 3 in five-year renewable terra The limited movement to gender-neutrality already mandated by the Supreme Court has shifted the reward structure of pension and life insurance plans in a way far more complex than anticipated The move toward complete sex neutrality in pensions and especially in life insurance will not help the typical woman worker It is long past time for pragmatists to challenge the view that the symbolic nature of unisex tables is so important in the battle for a sex-neutral workplace that its consequences on income and behavior are irrelevant Women can simply not afford many more victories of this type. (Burkhauser is an associate professor in Vanderbilt University's Department of Economics, and a research associate of Vanderbilt's Institute for Public Policy Studies.) Hundreds of 1981-82 applicants became full-fledged special agents, but they have not been investigated, disciplined or disqualified, though it's obvious some of them cheated.

THIS HAS CAUSED some understandable bitterness among applicants who were still in training when the scandal broke and who were disqualified in droves. According to one source, an entire class of trainees at the FBI academy in Quantico, was suspended. "We had to take an institutional approach," explained Baker. He said applicants who were disqualified are being encouraged to re-apply and take an entirely new entrance exam that will be ready next month. 1 In the course of the internal investigatioa all the applicants who had taken the test but had not become special agents were given two choices: withdraw with no stigma and wait for a new exam, or sign an affidavit that they had not had access to the exam and-or take a lie-detector test "DURING INTERVIEWS, those found to: have lacked candor regarding unauthorized access to the exam were suspended, while others were precluded from taking the exam agaia" Baker said.

Some employees chose to resign rather than sign the affidavit or take a polygraph test From now oa Baker said, all candidates must sign a special form swearing that they have had no prior access to the entrance exam; lying on this form will constitute a crime. In additioa all FBI field offices have been issued new, detailed instructions on physical security of the exams. "We sincerely believe we've solved the problem," Baker said. WASHINGTON A hush-hush investigation by high-level FBI officials has determined that several hundred bureau employees were involved in widespread cheating on examinations for coveted special agent appointments. Hundreds of applicants saw at least portions of the test ahead of time.

THE REVELATIONS led to serious soul-searching, among the FBI brass. They decided to tighten lax security covering the entrance exam. The actioa designed to prevent future cheating, did not extend to disciplinary moves or investigations of applicants who passed the tainted exams during the leak period. In 1981 and 1982, several hundred candidates who took the standard special agent exam had seen it or parts of it beforehand. According to a former agent familiar with the scandal, a senior agent leaked a copy of the exam to his soa an FBI clerk who had applied to become a special agent Copies of the exam were then clandestinely circulated to applicants both inside and outside the bureau through a network of friends and contacts.

"WE DETERMINED that the scope of this was widespread," FBI spokesman Bill Baker admitted. He added that FBI Director William Webster was "extremely concerned and quick to recognize the problem" once the internal investigation began to produce results in the fall of 1981 Although Baker said the FBI does not have an honor system, he admitted: "We allowed an environment that didn't support the integrity we'd hoped for from our employees." He said the exam leaked out because of poor security and because there were no written warnings to applicants gainst an advance look at the test contributions to benefits. Because women as a group live longer than men, a woman with the same contribu-tipn history as a man formerly received a smaller pension benefit The Supreme Court made this type of differential illegal. While this helped women in this type of pension plan, it is likely eventually to hurt the majority of women. Most covered workers have pension plans which benefits based on prior earnings andor years of service.

These plans already pay men and women with --the same work history identical monthly benefits. Un--'isex tables will not change this, but they will affect the payment that these workers receive if they choose a pension with a survivor's benefit SINcE 1974, the government has required all pension plans to offer workers this choice of pension option. For a worker who is eligible for a lifetime $1,000 per month benefit is given the choice of receiving some smaller lifetime monthly benefit say $800 per month, which at death converts to a survivor benefit say $400 per month, until the death of the spouse. While the work-' er receives less during life, this loss is on average made up by the additional payments to the spouse. Using traditional gender-based mortality tables, a married male worker would receive a smaller annual benefit than that of a married female worker if he chose the survivor option.

This is the case since his wife is to live longer and hence receive more annual payments than the female worker's husband. Unisex tables would force thse payouts to be the same..