ustxtxb_obs_1974_05_24_50_00010-00000_000.pdf

Oh that Bullock Bob Bullock, professional anomaly, goes marching on. After what seemed like years of his campaign for the Democratic nomination for state comptroller, Bullock thoroughly dismantled Hugh Edburg, who was Robert Calvert’s choice for the position. What other statewide candidate was endorsed by both The Houston Chronicle and The Rag? What other candidate was being mentioned by the Associated Press’ Garth Jones as a possible new leader for Texas liberals at about the same time he was telling one liberal, “I know you folks don’t trust me, but after I get into that office you’re gonna be proud”? Who else would you choose as a perfect opponent for a Republican ex-POW who is supposed to get strong backing from John Connally? We haven’t seen it elsewhere, but The New York Times carried an AP story, headed “Texans Pick Candidate for Governor,” about the May 4 primary. Eight paragraphs in were these lines: “The Briscoe-Farenthold race was a replay of their 1972 primary battle … Minor candidates that year forced a run-off . ” Sic transit gloria, Ben and Preston. CBS reporter Bruce Morton resorted to superlatives to describe the two Texas members in his profile of the House Judiciary Committee. “The best mind on the committee,” he said, “may belong to Barbara, Jordan.” Jack Brooks got credit for the “tartest tongue,” and for this observation on the charges against Mr. Nixon: “I know he’s a lyin’, thievin’ s.o.b. but is that impeachable? U.S. Rep. Henry Gonzalez recently informed his House colleagues that May is National Taco Month, an observance sponsored by the National Taco Council, which is headquartered in San Antonio. “If you have not been before, it is time to go and learn that every day is taco day in San Antonio,” he told his fellow public servants. Bailing out reprinting great chunks of the Nixon transcripts. Apparently the editors have been reading them as well. On May 10 the Express became the first Texas daily to call for the President’s resignation. In an editorial headed “Nixon’s Support Gone So He Ought to Resign,” the paper said, “The President’s most powerful Republican allies are telling him to get out of the White House … Mr. Nixon’s last chance to do something decent for his 10 The Texas Observer Political Intelligence country has arrived. He should take it and resign.” In the previous day’s lead editorial, the Express said, “A reading of the transcripts, as edited and released by the President, shows conniving and concealment as part of the basic strategy for dealing with criminal involvement by White House people. Having read the White House’s transcribed versions, one is compelled to wonder what unedited versions would reveal. .. . Republicans ought to recapture their party without delay.” John Connally says the Nixon transcripts show that “heroes have feet of clay, too” but that they reveal nothing for which President Nixon should be impeached. Conally ventured the opinion that “Nixon’s ability to lead has diminished, and his ability to lead with confidence,” but asked, “Is that the way the country should work, the President resigning because he may be unpopular?” Jack Anderson reports that John Connally phoned Atty. Gen. Richard Kleindienst and asked him to intervene in the investigation of Jake Jacobsen’s savings and loans problems. According to Margaret Mayer of the Dallas Times Herald, who is a staunch ally and sometimes an apologist for Connally, says the former Texas governor “called Kleindienst to make sure the investigation of Jacobsen for misapplication of funds was a legitimate probe of wrongdoing and not politically inspired. The Sharpstown scandal plus other actions brought by the Justice Department in Texas since the advent of the Nixon administration had Democrats there convinced they were the victims of a Republican political vendetta, Connally pointed out.” Jacobsen eventually was indicted by the feds for playing around with savings and loans funds. The trial is set for May 6 but Jacobsen is trying to get a two-month postponement on the grounds that a key witness is sick. Jake Jacobsen’s perjury charge . arising out of the dairy scandal has been dismissed by a Washington judge on a technicality. Leon Jaworski’s Watergate staff is expected to try again on another charge. Former lobbyist Bob Lilly has stated that George Mehren, general manager of Associated Milk Producers, Inc., offered Herb Kalmbach $150,000 if he would first “slow down the anti-trust action” against the mammoth dairy coop. The deal was never struck but it could explain the 30 checks for $5,000 that Mehren signed and later voided on April 4-5, 1972. To date, Mehren hasn’t been able to remember what the checks were for. Chicken feed No sooner had we read James . Hightower’s New Republic article \(“Mississippi Saga of the Chicken-Fried passed a bill, sponsored by Sen. James Eastland, that proposed to reimburse five corporate chicken farmers than the news arrived that the House Agriculture Committee had voted the bill out. instrumental in attaching several amendments, one to provide that indemnification would be offered for “actual loss,” rather than to provide “fair value.” Another set a $10 million ceiling on the payments. Hightower estimated that payments would be allotted this way: $585,000 for 785 farmers, $450,000 for 1100 processing workers and $9 million for the five corporations. The payments came about because the processors were forced to destroy about 8 million chickens who had been contaminated, in some round-about manner, with dieldrin. Eastland and other Mississippi representatives first tried to get the EPA to raise its official tolerance level for dieldrin. While Glenn Campbell sings romantic songs of the migrating snow geese on television, the geese are dropping like flies in the rice fields near Houston. For the third year in a row, a “sizable” number of snow and blue geese died after eating rice coated with aldrin, a nerve poison in the DDT family that is applied to seed rice to protect it against rice water weevils. Some rice farmers are trying to protect the geese by planting non-poisoned rice seeds, but the aldrin treatment is so common that untreated seed has to be specially ordered. The San Antonio Express has been