The Des Moines Register from Des Moines, Iowa • Page 16

lr8sarr- ffifM l.iN INDEPENDENT NEWSPAPER, LI LI Li 2J UA SaL, Dec 1.1984 Umn r. Cmih, Editor ArMMGr.Maa0ia Editor 1 Fltntf Ettiter VKdilorvW Por 1 DraktMaknr.Auonaif Edtior Otti Qvt rfcihir. Prpw Editor EdiionoJ Puyn RirtartW. Gilbert. I VvPrradnt J.

Mktol Dmry, General Uanafrr Ckarltt E4ar4t it, Markraa Otrvrtor armor JctaM.IUkaklkftrnlaiMarjirwIar 2 8t Bf Controller So A. TffW. Employer HWoImwu Oirrrtor Published by Da Motoct Register aod Tnbaac Compnjr David lrt4eairr.rhoiraiaoiiif Board Micioel Gartacr, Prradsat and EitlonaJ ffcairntaa Will tax-reform trial balloons stay afloat when released in Congress? THE REGISTER'S EDITORIALS HOOVER By JACK CF.RMOND and JL'LES diplomatic successes To achieve these agreements, the four parties involved had to swallow such always-recurring obstacles to diplomacy as national pride, stubbornness, an unwillingness to acknowledge an unsuccessful condition and the lure of a clear victory. Now, many happy repercussions are likely. Britain has agreed for the first time to begin talks on Gibraltar's sovereignty.

Spain hopes the new accommodation will help its effort to join the European Economic Community. Chile and Argentina, the troubles along their border eased, can begin to work together for the economic development both nations desperately need. In the end, this is a story about diplomacy. It is only two years ago that two parties to these agreements were locked in a costly, bloody war over the Falk-landsMalvinas islands. Surely Britain and Argentina, peacefully resolving these other difficult disputes with other adversaries, are mindful now of the contrast There has been nothing subtle about the White House strategy on Us reform but it clearly has been dynamite politics.

The device of putting it forward as a product of Treasury Secretary Donald Regan rather than President Reagan is as transparent a trial balloon as anyone is likely to float, and the White House portrayal of the president as no more than an interested bystander is unconvincing. Nonetheless, whatever its official status, the approach puts the ball squarely into the Democrats' court The administration plan is so devilishly clever because it is such an essentially Democratic plan. Most taxpayers would end up paying either no taxes, reduced taxes or about the same taxes. And, to keep the plan "revenue the relief given to those in the lower brackets would be offset by provisions that would raise corporate taxes and soak the rich. In political terms, the genius of the plan is apparent in the relatively warm reception it has received from Democrats, including such prominent figures as Senator Bill Bradley, co-sponsor of the seminal Bradley-Gephardt flat-tax proposal, and Gov.

Bruce Babbitt of Arizona, incoming chairman of the Democratic Cover-Jack Germoad aad Jalei Witcover are Washington-based political matter, that it should be swallowed whole. There are legitimate arguments to be raised about the net effect of reducing business investment incentives, for example And there are legitimate arguments to be made for retaining the capital-gains treatment now permitted, or even liberalizing it As a practical matter, the changes the White House has advanced under Don Regan's name are so extensive that there is little or no chance of their being adopted right away. In Washington, revolutionary changes are effected on evolutionary timetables. Moreover, the ramifications of the White House proposal are so far-reaching that every lobbyist in town is certain to be weighing in with objections and "helpful" suggestions for goring someone else's ox. Perhaps most important is that the tax plan does not deal with what most leaden of both parties the conspicuous exception being the president consider the most pressing problem: the deficit Outside the White House there is little confidence that progress can be made on the deficit with a "revenue neutral" tax plan.

On the contrary, the expectation is clearly that there will be some kind of tax increase before the year is over, the dimensions depending to a large degree on whether the president is willing to give a little on military spending. But even if the White House trial balloon never goes any further, it has radically changed the political equation for the immediate future. 7 Bitter exceptions to OEAN VIE TOR uted so heavily to the dimensions of Walter Mondale's defeat More to the point, the administration initiative puts to an immediate test the professed post-election willingness of surviving Democrats to confront issues in a non-doctrinaire way. The Democrats have been talking all year about the virtues of a flat tax and about the necessity for changes that would require corporations and the fat cats to bear a greater share of the load. So what the White House has done is put the Democrats in a position in which they must produce their own alternative as a party a status not really achieved by Bradley-Gephardt or use the administration plan as a starting point None of this means that the Treasury plan is likely to be accepted either fully or promptly or, for that American belong in the bands of prosecutors or of judges wielding the threat of jail for contempt.

Suppose Richard Nixon and John Mitchell had thought up that ingenious idea when Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein wrote "All the President's Men." How about a subpoena demanding the name of Deep Throat? The proceeding against Gronowicz would be a mere curiosity if it stood on its own. But it is part of a general assault by the Reagan administration on a basic principle of the American sys nors Association and one of those determined to give his party a different look in the wake of the Nov. debacle. Before the Regan plan was produced, Speaker Thomas P. "Tip" O'Neill Jr.

had taken the position that the Democrats who control the House would be unwilling to act on tax legislation until they had a proposal bearing the imprimatur of the president himself. But O'Neill never had any reason then to expect a plan that would be Democratic in its thrust Democratic balkiness now may look to the voters like the same old politics just the kind of image that contrib- the three'cardinals and any and all correspondence to and from them. Gronowicz's travel records for the last five years, including credit-card slips, air tickets and passports. All records of dealings with Gronowicz's publisher. Just to look at that list of demands should be enough to alert anyone to the danger they represent Reporters are extremely worried about the chilling effect of subpoenas for their notes and sources.

They have persuaded judges around the country to be wary in enforcing such subpoenas, and persuaded the Justice Department to impose special restrictions on issuing them. Last week Federal District Judge Louis C. Bechtle ordered Gronowicz to produce the documents or be held in contempt. The judge said he understood the concerns of free expression, but he said they did not apply because the government was investigating not the book itself but Gronowicz's promotion efforts. It is a distinction without a difference.

If the government gets into the business of hauling authors into court to prove the truth or falsity of work they try to promote, every writer may feel the chill of intimidation. Whether Gronowicz's book is good or bad, true or false I do not know. What I do know is that the power to investigate such questions does not he noted, had freedom tem: that citizens should be able to make up their own minds by reading and listening and speaking without guidance by government officials. Another case in point has to be mentioned because of its singular cruelty. Last week the Robert F.

Kennedy Memorial Foundation gave its first annual human-rights prize to the El Salvador Committee of Mothers. Five women were to be in Washington for the ceremony but four were refused visas. The State Department said it denied the visas because the four advocated "acts of violence" and had actually participated in "terrorist activities." It offered no evidence for those charges, which would surely have resulted in arrest or worse long ago if there had been anything to them. The real reason for the women's exclusion is plain. They object to policies that they think bring more horror to El Salvador, and the State Department does not want Americans to hear that viewpoint Such exclusions have become routine in the Reagan years.

But this time the administration's lawless policy was directed at a powerless group of women, themselves victims of rape and torture, with 18 of their relatives dead or disappeared. What a triumph for American freedom! This is a story about three islands where Chilean shepherds their sheep, and about the closed border in Western Europe. We take you first to the Beagle The Beagle Channel? Where's that? That's the question. For most of a century, Chile has "said it's in Chile, Argentina has "said it's in Argentina, and they've brandished swords about it for all "those years. If only shepherds' islands and a modest stretch of water show up on the map, rich mineral and fishing rights and the division of the continental shelf to the south and of part of Antarctica have loomed behind the geography.

It's no wonder, then, that when foreign ministers from Chile and "Argentina signed an agreement that settles the matter diplomatically, and then embraced, Vatican officials felt "a great joy" in the tradition of the joy the pope have felt back in the 1490s when he helped divide South America peacefully between Spain and Portugal. Speaking of Spain, it was al-'most three centuries ago that it to give up to Britain the fabled fortress-port that guards the passage between the Atlantic and "the Mediterranean Gibraltar. Today, residents of Gibraltar, -and those of the little Spanish city it, chafe at a border shut since 1969, when Generalissimo Francisco Franco hoped that he could starve the Britishers out. Now Spain and Britain have agreed to reopen the border. Promoting the City Manager Richard Wilkey was correct in principle when he defended a department head's prerogative to make promotions -based on his best judgment rather than merely use Civil Service Commission rankings.

But the 'principle doesn't always apply. The Des Moines City Council 'asked Wilkey to explain why the ire chief passed over seven other candidates ranked higher by the 'Civil Service Commission to promote Lanny Williams to district fire chief especially since Lan-ny Williams is the son of Fire Xhief Lee Williams. Wilkey explained that it is not unusual for city department heads to ignore the Civil Service 'rankings when making promotions. The commission has only a brief exposure, whereas the department head has intimate knowledge of a worker's strengths and weaknesses. It's true that Civil Service rankings are not an end but a means; Sonja Carlsen Sonja Carlsen Egenes was a teacher, a wife and mother, a scholar and a university government instructor, a candidate for Congress at the age of 32 'and a member of the state Legislature for 12 years.

In many ways she was the Iowa prototype of the modern woman in politics. Egenes began serving in the 'Legislature when it was still run like a men's club, but she quickly earned her due with intelligence, hard work, good grace and humor. Not limiting her horizons A way to help Address. State. fa 7 til I a Iowa YES, I And, to I Name By ANTHONY LEWIS I The Department of LXV" Justice, with all its weighty responsibilities, has found time to police the bona fides of a book.

It is a grotesque tale but one with serious implications. The book is "God's Broker," a biogra phy of Pope John Paul II published this year. The author, Antoni Gronow-icz, quotes extensively from what he says were more than 200 hours of conversation with the pope in his Vatican apartment over a two-year period. The Vatican denied that there had been any such interviews, and last July the publisher recalled the book. Enter the Justice Department It launched an investigation looking toward the possible prosecution of Gronowicz for mail fraud when he promoted his book.

The U.S. attorney in Philadelphia issued a subpoena demanding that Gronowicz produce, among other things: "Any and all notes" of statements by the pope and three cardinals who are quoted in the book. Any and all papers containing the names or signatures of the pope and Anthony Lewis writes for The New York Times. No free lunch The Japanese foreign minister invited 550 diplomats and business people to a "starvation lunch" to dramatize the famine in Africa, and asked them to contribute to famine relief what they otherwise would have spent for lunch. Donations averaged $5.83.

They must not have been using their expense accounts. boss' son in this case, however, appearance is everything, and the appearance is that the chief went to the bottom of the rankings to grant his son the promotion. Nepotism is by definition nasty business. It hurts morale when workers see favoritism for relatives of the boss, and it hurts the truly qualified employee who is denied a job or promotion to avoid the appearance of favoritism because of kinship to the boss. City officials should take extraordinary steps to avoid even the appearance of nepotism, even if that means holding the boss' relatives to higher standards than other workers.

City Councilman George Flagg made a good suggestion: Promotions of employees related to department heads should be referred to Wilkey for action to avoid future charges of nepotism. The council should endorse the idea and Wilkey should adopt it as policy. Egenes to "women's issues," she was involved in education, taxes and commerce, and a bit of semi-whimsy wanting to re-name the Skunk River. She was perhaps best known on consumer issues. She served on the Education Commission of the States, was a director of Metropolitan Opera auditions in Iowa and served on the Ames International Orchestra Festival Association board.

Sonja Egenes died Tuesday at age 54. Few who lived longer enriched their state as much. The big story from trip to Boston By MARY McCRORY PAT OUPHANT Washington Post television critic Tom Shales has brilliantly described the post-election letdown. Endless as it was, and menninvleita as it turned mit tn FCjT be, the campaign, aumuvc i vpi viva. I underwent withdrawal in a rather acute form.

I went to Boston to close my 90-year-old aunt's apartment; in a burst of CARES There, the one noteworthy event of my stay occurred. When we got home one night Cody, eldest of three animals Cousin Mary has taken in, was not at home. As we went about getting her husband's supper, she would sigh, and with reason. Cody, a mix of Irish setter, collie and whatever, is ancient and infirm. His back legs don't work very well, and I am told he had a hip replacement Once I took him for a walk, and he staggered so badly over every stick and stone in bis path that I thought I might have to carry him home.

The anxiety level in the kitchen rose. Finally, the phone rang. It was a neighbor. He had Cody in custody. The rap? Breaking into the neighbor's garage and making off with a cooked Thanksgiving turkey.

We set off down the road, and sure enough, there was Cody, tied up and looking pleased. And there was the neighbor with the goods, a large, ravaged box of unrecognizable remains. Cody had been caught galloping down the street dragging it by the string. He had eaten the white meat and the stuffing. Cody? If I had been told that a decrepit 75-year-old athlete had stormed down from the stands and onto the field in the last quarter of the Harvard-Yale game, grabbed the ball and scored a touchdown, I could not have been more amazed.

But pride was not in us. My cousin delicately distanced herself from the criminal She got him when he was a year old from someone who had neglected him. I said that I was related to him only by marriage, which is true; Mary is my cousin's wife. "Will this be in the paper?" the neighbor asked me after the damage had been paid. I temporized.

But I knew even then that it would be. That turkey-trot is by far the biggest story I've come across since Nov. 6. CARE because I support the Iowa Campaign Aid Relief of Ethiopian Starvation, am giving humor, she had made me executrix of her estate. So I went from chasing candidates and scribbling about secret wars, taxes and trends to making dates with the Salvation Army and reading Christmas letters of the '30s from my aunt's boss.

I had a curious feeling that the rest of the world had stopped, too. The newspapers I bought every day in an effort to keep in touch with it had reduced the universe of public concern to two baby girls: Baby Fae in California and 5-month-old Jerri Ann Richards, who had mysteriously disappeared from her humble home in Providence, R.L At home, with my heroic helpers, Mary my sister-in-law and Mary my cousin it only seems as if all women in Boston are named Mary we talked about the babies. The baboon heart would it break? Would Baby Fae live? Would Jerri Ann be found? One night hungry for diversion, I went to a church supper. At my table, we talked some about Geraldine Ferraro, but it was as if she had died. I enjoyed a flash of celebrity: I was "the girl whose niece married Tom Beatty." (I should explain that females in Boston are "girls" up to and including the time they enter the nursing home.) Mary McGrory writes oa politics and national affairs.

The two babies died within 24 hours of each other. First the little pioneer Baby Fae. Then Jerri Ann's body was found in an alley behind her home. On television, we saw more stricken babies in Ethiopia. My aunt's friend Monica Sullivan came by to pick up some things and she observed: "Why can't they get the food there? If there was a war, they'd get the planes and guns in fast enough, you can be sure." After the beds had been taken away and I became a homeless person, my Cousin Mary took me in.

Every daywe commuted from NorwelL Send your check or money order to: IOWA CARES, P.O. BOX 11439 Des Moines, Iowa 50301 Thank yoa for yoor cootribitioa..