The Berkshire Eagle from Pittsfield, Massachusetts • 5

The Berkshire Eagle. Tuesday, Jan. 22, 19855 Our Berkshires Trust the president Dreaming about an empire By Anthony Lewis Jean MacLane, portraitist By Gerard Chapman to a country or so American governments used to think. Just four years ago the American hostages in Iran were at last released. International law was one of the levers used by the United States in the effort to bring that terrible episode to an end.

We sued in the World Court, and deplored Iran's failure to participate and defiance of the Court's decision. Even in the emergency circumstance of the Cuban missile crisis of 1962, President Kennedy made a point of complying with all the legal niceties of treaty obligations. He thought respect for law would increafc American influence in the world community. Reagan and his legal advisers have made consistently clear how little regard they have for the law in domestic affairs as in international. When federal appeals courts held unlawful the stripping of Social Security benefits from hundreds of thousands of disabled Americans, the administration made the astounding claim that it was not bound to follow the decisions in those judicial circuits where they were the law.

Law has been the balance wheel of the American system, a prime reason for our living under one Constitution for nearly 200 years. Law has been able to play that role only because presidents, most of them, have in the end respected courts. For after all, as Alexander Hamilton wrote in The Federalist, courts have "neither force nor will, but merely judgment." A BOSTON RONALD REAGAN'S greatest political accomplishment is implicit in the fact of his second Inaugural. He has restored popular trust in the presidency, reversing a deep skepticism about the office that had set in with the disappointments and abuses of the Johnson and Nixon years. But we have paid a price for the achievement.

With trust has come a renewal of the old instinctual drive for more power in the White House. It is disguised by the geniality of Reagan, but it is there: the push for an imperial presidency. What I mean by that phrase is power that can be exercised without the traditional restraints of the American governmental system: without having to go to Congress for authority, without having to explain to the American public, without having to justify itself in law. In short, it is power without accountability. President Reagan's Nicaraguan policy is an acute example.

He decided to wage a terrorist war on Nicaragua. To carry it out, the CIA organized and paid the contras in secret. Acting in secrecy is the neatest way to exercise power without accountability. When the secret leaked and Congress became concerned, Reagan did all he could to keep Congress from playing its constitutional role. He asked Congress to approve funds for the contras without making clear the objective of the campaign, whether to pressure the Sandinistas to stop exporting revolution, as he sometimes said, or to overthrow their government.

There can be no accountability in obscurity. The latest turn in the story was the president's decision to boycott the World Court proceedings on Nicaragua's suit against the United States. This time the forum was legal, but once again the purpose was to avoid accountability. The State Department, in announcing that the U.S. would withdraw from all participation in the case, offered various legal arguments arguments that had lost before the judges.

But the real reason was evident. The Reagan administration feared that the court proceeding would bring out the facts of its aid to terrorist activities and focus attention on its violation of treaties. Of course international law is not a solid edifice, and the World Court has no ready way to enforce its decisions against recalcitrant states. But respect for the Court and international law gives a certain legitimacy STOCKBRIDGE AWHILE AGO "Our Berkshires," May 29 we told of a longtime summer resident of Stockbridge and prominent artist of his time, John C. Johansen.

His wife, Jean MacLane, was also an artist who achieved stature in her own right. The two met as students at the Art Institute of Chicago, where she was listed as Myrtle MacLane; her marks over the period 1894-98 averaged 73.0, and there is a notation: "Honorable mention for best group of four black-and-white compositions for illustration; $50 grant 1st prize." She went on to study in New York City under William Merritt Chase, among others, and in Italy. (Myrtle) Jean MacLane was born in Chicago on Sept. 14, 1878, and was married to John C. Johansen on Oct.

5, 1905, at Brooklyn, N.Y. She and her husband established separate studios in New York City but shared working space when they summered in Stockbridge, beginning in 1917. Three years later tney purchased a portion of the estate of railroad magnate Charles S. Mellon, "Council Grove," in Stockbridge, on the land behind the firehouse, and renamed it "Weybourne Hill." Thirty-three years later they sold it and moved to Connecticut, where she died in Stamford on Jan. 23, 1964.

When Reagan decided to pull out of the World Court proceedings on Nicaragua's case because he had lost in the first phase, I thought of another president who lost a legal decision and minded greatly. That was Harry Truman. In 1952, during the Korean War, President Truman seized the country's steel mills to prevent a damaging strike. The Supreme Court held, 6-3, that he had acted without necessary congressional authority. Truman was furious.

He wrote in his memoirs that the Supreme Court had ignored the facts and ignored history. But the passage in the memoirs goes on to say: "Word of the Court's decision reached me in my office in the early afternoon of June 2, and before 3 o'clock I had issued an order to comply with the decision and return the plants to the steel industry." 1985 New York Times News Service Richard P. Davis, courtesy of Charlotte Davis Jean MacLane; self-portrait (1939) Would you rather putt or pet? deGersdorff (Mrs. D. Percy Morgan Jr.) and her daughter Suzette, now Mrs.

Robert C. Alsop of Tyringham. In 1936 she exhibited "Mary Wilde," a portrait of the 3-year-old daughter of Col. and Mrs. H.

George Wilde of High Lawn Farm in Lee, and now Mrs. Robert Carswell of Great Bar-rington. Her work, described as "brilliant in color and design, executed with dignity, wholesomeness and sound craftsmanship," won her admission to the National Academy of Design, the American Institute of Arts and Letters and several other professional groups. Her awards and prizes were too numerous to detail here. Perkins, the first woman Cabinet member, appointed during the administration of President Franklin D.

Roosevelt. But Jean MacLane did not confine her portraiture entirely to women; she did paintings of such prominent men as William Gillette, famous for his stage portrayal of Sherlock Holmes, Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt and Brand Whit-lock, the latter in the permanent collection of the Toledo Museum of Art. With her husband, Jean MacLane was active in Berkshire art circles, exhibiting in Pittsfield and in the annual art shows of the Stockbridge Art Association. In 1933 The Eagle's art critic singled out her "exquisite flower paintings," and that year she won the Crowninshield Prize for her "Portrait of William Gillette." Again, in 1936, her "Portrait of Margaret" in tempera won the same prize. In 1928 she showed a portrait of two Stockbridge personalities, Alma By Mike Royko Some of them even expressed relief that their husbands had died or become infirm, so they did not have to do it anymore.

The only complaint that I have about Ann's survey is that it was directed only at females. But, then, aren't most sex surveys? Nobody ever asks us about our needs, our frustrations, our longings and yearnings. It's always: "Madam, do you have your quota of orgasms? Does your husband engage in an adequate amount of foreplay? Does the earth shake?" We have become the forgotten sex, except during the recently endured Age of the Wimp, when many modern men didn't wait to be asked, but blubbered out their most embarrassing thoughts to anybody who would tolerate them. CHICAGO I HOPE nobody blushes, but I am going to pose a rather personal question to male readers. Given a choice, men, would you rather be having sex with your wife or out bowling with your buddies? If you aren't a bowler, just substitute fishing, golf, shooting pool, leaning on a bar, watching TV, or whatever your favorite recreational activity is.

This question was inspired by something my friend Ann Landers recently wrote. She asked her female readers if they would be content just being cuddled and treated tenderly and forget about going all the way. The response was fascinating. Her readers overwhelmingly voted in favor of skipping doing it for being cuddled. But the average guy is never asked about such things.

So, to provide some balance to Ann's survey, I am conducting my own. Naturally, I can't ask the same question choose between sex or being merely cuddled since that is not a choice most men would make, although some fellows might feel differently in San Francisco. So I have substituted other options, such as the above-mentioned choice between sex or bowling, etc. And if that isn't the kind of question that you want to answer, here are a few others you might consider. Given a choice, would you prefer a wife who makes frequent demands on your weary bod, or one who is content to cook, clean, shop, tend the house, walk the dog, change the kitty litter, address the Christmas cards, and project a pleasant, obedient, cheerful demeanor? In the evening, do you prefer a wife who leers and nudges you toward the bedroom, or would you rather be allowed to sit up drinking beer and watching the late, late show until you fall asleep in your chair and are awakened by the national anthem? Jean and John Johansen had two children: Margaret (Mrs.

Robert Worthington) and John MacLane Johansen. He was the architect who designed the unusual home of Alice McNiff on the east side of Stock-bridge Bowl "on a theme of a rectangle and two circles." The feathered nests PACs and legislative consciences By Kim Cushman THM MONEY BUVS INFLUENCE ND THE DEWOCCMIC HON CW YOU ACCEPT CONTBBUTVOK1S T-GOM Politic m. tcwou committees During their third of a century in the Berkshires, Jean MacLane established a reputation as a portraitist of women and children and as a painter of flowers; she occasionally did a landscape. Her "Queen Elizabeth of the Belgians" is in the World War I collection of portraits in the National Museum of American Art, a division of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington. In the "Inventory of American Paintings" compiled by that agency, she is represented nine times.

One listing is of "Still-Life Flowers," owned by the National Trust for Historic Preservation at Chesterwood in Stockbridge. Another is a portrait of her husband, owned by the National Academy of Design in New York, as is her self-portrait. A group portrait is owned by the Art Institute of Chicago, and other listed paintings are in various museums throughout the country. Says a biographical source, "One of her important paintings was 'Tennis Days' (1935), a study of two boys and two girls resting after a tennis match, a work that received the first Altman Prize from the National Academy of Design." She portrayed the Hon. Frances Other Opinion Negotiations The Cape Codder Negotiations are relatively simple things.

Two parties confront each other with the same intent: to come away with a satisfactory agreement. The same thing is true of negotiations as is true of speculation in the stock market. Bulls can win, bears can win, but pigs lose every time. Those who think of negotiating as the device for extracting the maximum advantage out of the deal are the ones who gum up the works for everybody. No statistics exist to show how many man hours of work and work hours of production have been thrown away because the negotiators were trying to do something other than to negotiate.

They were trying to "show those bums." They were trying to "save face." They were trying to "teach 'em a lesson" or "show who's boss" or "give them the hotfoot." This will be true, too, of the forthcoming negotiations with the Soviets over arms reductions. If the two sides become intransigent, the world will be the sufferers. If the two sides try to do something other than reach an equitable solution to the lethal lunancy known as the arms race, the world will be that much closer to the edge of extinction. Both Russia and the United States have everything to gain from a reduction in the production and distribution of nuclear armaments. But if our negotiators go into these talks with the intent to "show the Russians," we're in trouble; and if Russia goes into them to "save face," we're in trouble.

Negotiating is the process of trading and compromise with the end purpose of reaching an acceptable degree of equity. If this isn't what the American and Russian negotiating teams are prepared to do, the outcome is a foregone conclusion. We're dead. DD YOU SfV ONE ONE NOTE? VIOLATES THE PRINCIPLE ONE WW, ONE VOTE 7 WILLIAMSTOWN CONGRESSIONAL campaigns are now longer and more expensive, the winners brighter, better staffed and informed than ever before. Why, then, do today's legislators often suffer in comparison to their predecessors when it comes to getting the job done? One of the reasons is the rampant growth of political action committees (PACs).

PACs are formed by unions, corporations, trade associations and ideological groups to raise money for distribution to candidates. Since the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 became law, their number has soared to 3,803. While the Act imposes a $10,000 ceiling on donations to a politician from any one PAC in an election cycle, it does not stipulate an aggregate limit. Consequently, there has been a dramatic jump in special interest group giymg to House and Senate races, from $12.5 million in 1973-74 to an estimated $104.3 million in 1983-84. Moreover, their contributions have increased as a proportion of total congressional fund raising, reaching 23 percent last year.

3ft 3C 3C These trends are evident in collections for the Berkshires' own Silvio O. Conte, who took $2,592 from PACs in 1977-78, but received at least $80,600 in his most recent reelection bid. What impact has the surge in political action committee spending had on our system of representative government? The optimists argue it has involved more Americans in the political process. They claim PACs are educating Congress on the issues, and have put candidates of modest means on an equal footing with their affluent counterparts, who are permitted to draw on their Kim Cushman was a legislative aide on Capitol Hill from 1979 to 1983. He is now working on a political novel in own resources without restriction.

Supporters of the phenomenon also maintain that challengers must be allowed to speak freely to surmount the advantages of incumbency. It should be noted, however, that important segments of society, the poor, for example, are handicapped in the PAC-man game, which requires time, organization and, of course, wherewithal. Although just how the balance of power is shifting remains to be seen, clearly the consensus-building roles of the Democratic and Republican parties are diminished. The Hill is undergoing a balkanization which impeded the formation of coherent national policy. Brobdingnagian deficits are a result.

In addition, the "issue briefs" special interest use to "educate" lawmakers are frequently self-serving. While their contributions have reduced the unfair edge enjoyed by millionaire office-seekers, the same objective could be achieved with federal matching funds. Finally, the figures indicate that in 1983-84, as in the past, PACs spent far more on incumbents than their opponents; in races for the Senate, they gave the former $18,047,561, the latter $5,813,655. In fact, a cozy relationship has developed between the well-heeled lobbyists and incumbents. In the 96th Congress, PACs sponsored by the United Auto Workers, the National Automobile Dealers Association and the American Medical Association were three of the most munificent.

It is no coincidence that the legislature guaranteed $1.5 billion in loans to Chrysler; shot down a proposed Federal Trade Commission (FTC) regulation requiring used-car dealers to disclose known defects to customers; and barred the FTC from investigating price fixing by physicians. The National Association of Realtors, commodity traders and farm groups have also held sway in Washington with a little help from Mammon. The long and short of it is What makes your pulse race faster and your breathing grow heavier dropping a 40-foot putt, landing a six-pound bass, bowling a 230 game, watching your favorite baseball team win a pennant, or seeing your wife waddle across the room in a negligee? Do you prefer an old-fashioned woman who closes her eyes, clenches her teeth and meekly submits to your carnal demands, or a modern creature who points at the boudoir and says: "Move the mood is upon me?" If you wish to take part in this survey, all you have to do is tear out the eolumn, underline your responses, and send them to me. Or, if you wish, you can elaborate, pour out those innermost feelings on your needs, your desires, your secret cravings. I mean, that's what a newspaper is for, right? You can write a letter about the above questions or anything you consider relevant, or even irrelevant.

Omit your name or include it. Names will, of course, be kept confidential unless you want it published to shock and horrify your wife. Later, I will tabulate and print the results and some of the more interesting letters. I ask only that you write nothing too lewd, since I would not want my secretary to spend her day blushing. Or snickering.

Address your letters this way: Mike Royko, Sex or Bowling Clinic, Chicago Tribune, 435 N. Michigan Chicago, 111., 60611. And soon we will have some important scientific and sociological data. If nothing else, you will know whether to invest your money in a company that makes waterbeds or one that sells putters. 1985 Tribune Media Services.

Inc Not everyone on the Hill pockets special interest donations Senator Boren of Oklahoma doesn't and many of those who do probably remain true to their electorates. Nonetheless, the present campaign financing statutes have legalized bribery. Like any other cross section of the country, the House and Senate have their share of weakness, as Abscam and the page scandal demonstrated. The solution? Reform-minded politicians have introduced bills capping total PAC contributions per candidate per election cycle and providing for matching funds, but they haven't a kiwibird's chance of flying without much stronger public pressure than has been brought to bear to date. that votes are being auctioned.

A concomitant problem is our so-lons' increased willingness to accept funds from out-of-state interests. Conte has received thousands of dollars from such sources, including Long Island Aerospace and Hughes Aircraft. Residents of Western Massachusetts may find themselves wondering what could happen to his ability to represent his district effectively. The PAC explosion means, too, that certain members of Congress stand to become wealthy. Although Conte is nowhere near the top of the list of leading money recipients, his popularity at home has made heavy outlays in defense of his seat unnecessary.

Since his contest with James MacGregor Burns, his stif-fest competition has been milder than 3.2 beer. Why has he been loading his war chest? His administrative aide says he's just running with the pack. The well-kept secret: Congressmen elected before 1980, including Conte, can take their unexpended PAC boodle with them when they retire. Readers desiring more information about political action committees and their gifts to specific individuals may call the Federal Election Commission, toll-free, at 800424-9530, or write the agency at 1325 Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20463..