The Baltimore Sun from Baltimore, Maryland • 11

ifAbti A 11 THIS SUN, BALTliUOKii, lUbguAtf MunmiG, AUGUST 10, JosephKraft James Kilpatrick Gen. Richard M. Pyrrlnis Just Won A Few Reform Instinct Has Emerged In Congress rise, and of course these high Washington. the war-making powers of the The usual skirmishing about the pace of legislative action broke out last week when the Congress began its month-long summer recess. But as it hap President has drawn bipartisan support from the conservative right (represented by-John Stennis, the Mississippi Democrat) to the idealistic pened, both the charges from the White House and the coun- liberals in the person of Jacob tercharges from the Demo- Javits.

the New York Reoubli- cratic leadership were off the erals and outraged most conservatives. Of the rail strike, it could be said at least that the dispute was not transferred to the Congress for political decision. This was both the least and the most that could be said. The strike produced economic losses that came perilously near the disaster point. Railroad spokesmen accepted the surrender terms like good Greeks, their faces frozen in marble frieze, but, alas, they were bleeding inside.

The rail settlement is inflationary. So is the steel settlement. As economic victories, these are squarely in the Pyrrhic tradition. What becomes of domestic steel now? The higher wages instantly have produced higher prices, but domestic steels are overpriced on the world market now. Mr.

Nixon's pained reaction to the 8 per cent price hikes may cause a rollback here and there, but the President sits on the throne of King Canute. Of course steel prices will er prices will be passed along to consumers at the end of the line. Ultimately, proportionally less steel will be sold. So it" goes. By flashing a little statistical razzle-dazzle, Secretary Connally turned a reported $23.2 billion deficit into a hypothetical $2.5 billion surplus.

The hypothesis had to do with "full employment revenues." Virginia's Senator Byrd was not impressed. By old-fashioned yardsticks, eliminating trust fund accounts, the deficit actually was $30.2 billion, the greatest in 26 years. These are not happy times for General Richard M. Pyrrhus. His new China policy, according to the polls, gained him but one point on the popularity index.

His economic moves gain him nothing. But this old pro is a fighter. As Peter Lisagor has remarked, Mr. Nixon has reserves of flexibility he hasn't even touched. If he can rack up some real victories this fall, it may prove he hasn't reached Asculum yet.

thus contributed to unemployment. The concentration on reform also explains two positive actions this year. The Congress has passed the constitutional amendment on the 18-year-old vote. The Senate has passed a very stiff campaign-financing bill, and some such measure is sure to become law even if it has to be hooked on as a rider to the administration's family-assistance plan for reforming the welfare system. In view of this focus on reform, the pace of legislation is not unduly laggard.

To be sure, the Congress has not acted on big proposals for family assistance or revenue sharing or health care. But some legislation In all these areas is sure to emerge later this year. Moreover, the House has passed 10 out of 14 major appropriations bills which is far In advance of the usual pace. The serious question, accordingly, is not the quantity of legislation. The serious question is how open politics affects the quality of congressional action.

So far, the record is mixed. The Congress has certainly not done anything irremediably harmful on a big scale. But neither is there any support in congressional action for the populist view that if people only knew, if procedure "WHAT WE ARE I70INS WILL NEVER MAKE SARAH, BUT WE ARE GETTING "THINGS PONE, 11 can. A score of fights about access to information headed up in a refusal by the Foreign Relations Committee to take any action on aid legislation until given information about five-year projections on aid undertaken by the Pentagon. On the House side, the autocratic grip of committee chairmen has been broken apart by internal democratization.

Reforms adopted this year have increased the number of subcommittee chairmen to 113 more than a quarter of the House. Record teller voting, a rarity in the past, has occurred 39 times so far this season. One result was the defeat in the House of the program for a supersonic transport. A second result was passage of the $250 million guarantee to Lockheed, by a mere three votes a near miracle considering that the administration, the banks, labor and a lot of industry wanted the bill while the Democratic leaders were concerned to protect their party from a charge that they had defeated the bill and marK. For the dominant feature of the present Congress is not legislation.

It is responsiveness to popular demand for more open politics, more explicit confrontation on big issues. For better or worse, and the issue is by no means settled, the 92d Congress is a reform Congress. On the Senate side, the reform Instinct finds expression in a deliberate effort to end the long-standing client relationship with the executive branch on foreign affairs. Big chunks of floor debate and committee work were absorbed by direct challenges on international issues that used to be settled in backstairs understandings. In this spirit, Senator Mike Mansfield, the majority leader, finally called up his resolution for reduction of American troop strength in Europe.

Another Mansfield resolution, setting a certain date for withdrawal of all troops in Vietnam, has tied up renewal of the draft. A far-reaching bill to limit RichardWilson Washington. King Pyrrhus of Epirus, late in life, took on the Romans at Asculum. He won the battle, or so it is said, but he lost all his men. "One more such victory," said the King, coining the immortal phrase, "and I am lost." Pyrrhus was an old pro among the Greek warriors of his day.

By the time he got to Asculum, he had won a few and lost a few, and he had a feel for these things. In the statue most frequently depicted, he looks pretty tired. So, too, with Richard Nixon. Over the past few weeks, he has recorded a string of putative victories. But a few more like these, and the old pro is done for.

These have been, on paper, a few weeks of triumph. Up on the Hill, the President won his battle for the Lockheed loan guarantee. He won another battle to revive the fainting Subversive Activities Control Board. He saw his China policy gloriously acclaimed by the Washington Post and the New York Times. He was able to rejoice in settlement of the rail and disputes.

When final figures came down on his deficit for fiscal '71, he trotted out Secretary Connally to proclaim, quite literally, a "victory." In theory, these have been days of wine and roses. But as he leans on his shield, resting an aching knee, Mr. Nixon may be having second thoughts of Asculum. He has won his string of victories, all right, but he has paid a heavy price. He won on Lockheed by three votes in the House, by one vote in the Senate.

In the process, he helped to set a precedent that will come back to haunt both the Congress and the White House. The bill, as it finally emerged, is not an act of general application; it is an act of special and singular application, for the public relief of a private corporation. was only democratized and opened up, everything would come right. On the contrary, there are abundant signs that the reform mood can play into the hands of unprincipled demagogues. The House could go on a stampede any day for such dubious propositions as a tax cut or a ban on busing.

The tearful reading of the Pentagon papers by Mike Gravel of Alaska while they were still under a judicial ban is indicative of the absurdities sena tors can commit in the name of more information. What all this means is that the Congress is going through a tricky period of adjustment. The opening up of the system is probably a necessity enjoined by a public that has grown impatient of inside politics and closed decisions. If the reform process can be achieved with as little damage as has been sustained so far, then the country will have been very well served by the Congress. S1 Peking Takeover Of Taiwan Is Not Nixon's Solution To Chinese Problem ed Nations.

He added that the and Communist governments realism of which Mr. Nixon spoke injects itself at this point. An independent Taiwan is a factor in Japan's defense. It is a factor in our own military dispositions in the Pacific. "Taiwan negotiated back to the mainland would be another symbol of a bankrupt Asian policy.

Our defenses would fall back on Hawaii and Guam. An independent Taiwan that no longer claimed to be the. Republic of China and holding a seat in the United Nations would be more in line with the Nixon version of realism. Mr. Rogers also spoke extensively about realism in announcing that the United States would favor China's entry and oppose Taiwan's expulsion.

He was obviously referring to the realism of the existence of the Chinese Pec-' pie's Republic. It is equal), as real that the Chiang Kai-shek government on Taiwan exists independent of China. Now the debate and maneuvering will soon begin in the United Nations on the China-Taiwan question, and from this maneuvering much will be learned on Mr. Nixon's ultimate intentions. Mr.

Rogers has said the United States will oppose the exclusion of Taiwan as demanded by the Peking government. The question is, to what extent will the United States oppose it? It must be confessed that from all that Mr. Rogers has said it is difficult to know. He said that the' United States would "co-operate" with those who wish to continue to have the Republic of China represented in the Unit outcome, of course, will be decided by 127 nations thus conceding indirectly that the United States might be in no position to control the outcome. Otherwise his language was so mild with respect to support for the Republic of China that he left an impression of American diffidence about the outcome or resignation to it.

China, it is predicted, will not come to the United Nations unless Taiwan is expelled or withdraws. The violent reaction in Peking against Mr. Rogers's proposal of "one China-one Taiwan" reinforces that conclusion. This adamancy suggests Mr. Nixon will have to fight to save Taiwan in the U.N.

or risk another blow to the honor and integrity of American commitments. And it is only a matter of time before some other such corporation, equally the victim of bad luck and bad management, demands the same political poultice. The Lockheed battle slashed across the lines that usually divide liberal and conservative camps. What the President won on the left, he lost on the right. This was true in other fields of combat also.

By seeking to expand the advisory powers of the SACB, Mr. Nixon outraged all the liberals and pleased some conservatives. By his overtures to China, he pleased all the lib Washington. The rather pat idea is current that the announcement by the Secretary of State, William P. Rogers, supporting China's admission to the United Nations portends the end of Taiwan's special status as far as the United States is concerned.

In a slow process of erosion the United States will covertly' encourage direct negotiations between Taiwan and Peking, which will eventually result in Peking's taking control of the island bastion off China's coast, and this difficult matter will then be settled. It does not make sense. Those who are entertaining this idea have overlooked President Nixon's statement at a time when he must have known he was probably going to Peking. It is not surprising that his statement was overlooked. Everything else was being overlooked in Washington while the police were rounding up 12,000 May Day demonstrators.

Mr. Nixon undertook to broaden national attention in two back-to-back press conferences, one in Washington and the other in San Clemente, while the May Day fracas was going on. He was asked in Washington if he favored direct negotiations between the Nationalist to settle their disputes. "I think that is a nice legalistic way to approach it," he said, "but I think it is completely unrealistic. I am only saying at this point that the United States is seeking in a very measured way while maintaining our treaty commitments to Taiwan we are seeking a more normal relationship with the People's Republic of China." He added, too, that he was not trying to irritate Russia.

"It would make no sense for the United States, in the interest of world peace, to try to get the two China and Russia! at each other's throats because we would be em-, broiled in the controversy ourselves," Mr. Nixon said. In the same press conference, Mr. Nixon said he "expected" to go to China some day in some capacity. The question presents itself on what America conceivably has to gain by encouraging a condition in which Taiwan will become a province of China.

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