(Sherman Adams - aka: The Abominable No-Man)

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Take for example, Sherman Adams, former Governor of New Hampshire and Assistant to President Eisenhower. Adams wielded an incredible amount of power in the Eisenhower White House, influencing decisions by influencing which people had access to Ike and which ones didn't. Rumors began circulating that Adams had been involved in intervening on certain investigations involving the FCC and the Civil Aeronautics Board.

But the straw came in the form of a Vicuna coat, which Adams was said to have received in exchange for favors from Bernard Goldfine, a textile manufacturer and campaign contributor to Adams as well as numerous personal gifts/loans (and a house in D.C. shortly after his appointment).

As the scandal gained speed, and revelations of loans, gifts and favors continued to surface, Eisenhower could no longer keep Adams in his role as Assistant to The President, especially since it was an election year and the scandal could create damage to some key elections.

Sherman Adams: “Several months ago a committee of the House of Representatives started hearings designed to illicit information as to whether or not any person or persons had exerted improper influence upon the regulatory agencies of the Government. In the course of these hearings I testified before that committee. The sworn testimony that I then gave, together with that of every responsible official of whom the committee made inquiry, clearly established that I had never influenced nor attempted to influence any agency or officer or employee of any agency, in any case, decision or matter whatsoever. Despite the fact that this testimony is wholly undisputed, a calculated and contrived effort has nevertheless been made to attack and to discredit me.”

So Adams resigned on September 22, 1958 and quickly faded into the woodwork until his death in 1986.

And the Ethics scandals just keep on comin'.

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From reports regarding a terrorist bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Saigon, resulting in over 200 casualties and calls from Capitol Hill for retaliation. The White House was debating how to go about it. The Hawks in Congress called for an immediate bombing of Hanoi. The bottom line was; this was the first time the Viet Cong hit so close, and it created an embarrassing situation for the U.S. to deal with. How it would be handled would give some indication as to how long this conflict would go on for.

Elsewhere on Capitol Hill - The HUAC Hearings took a turn for extremist groups on this day. With approval given to commence an investigation of the KKK, Black Muslims and The Minutemen. A few protests were voiced, asking how come the KKK and not CORE or the NAACP were being investigated. The old "those Civil Rights groups are loaded with commies" mantra went echoing around the halls of Congress.

And today was the day The Freedom Of Information Act was introduced, bringing an immediate storm of controversy and condemnation from the White House, saying people didn't have the right to know certain things. The opposition thought transparency was a good thing for the Government. But it was also hinted LBJ might just veto the thing if it passed the House and Senate.

Charles De Gaulle issued a stinging denunciation of the French Scientific community. Not that they were screwing up, but that they were insisting on speaking English, especially when it came to International Conferences. Long an opponent of too much Americanization of Europe, the latest tirade from De Gaulle brought into focus the fact that, as much as he claimed to love America, he just hated the way we spoke, and ate food, and listened to music, and drove cars.

And finally, a story about LeRoy Dunlap, who was convicted of robbery and murder in absentia in 1920, since he escaped custody before trial. Dunlap was handed the Death Penalty and managed to evade the long arm of the law for some 45 years, assuming a new name and a new life in the process. Until 1964 when his true identity was discovered. Most everyone had forgotten the case and most of the documents associated with the trial had been long destroyed. But the wheels of justice insisted on grinding forward, so he entered a guilty plea with the proviso that his sentence be reduced to Manslaughter and he be given a prison term, rather than the death penalty. Dunlap, who was 64 and a Grandfather, was convicted and sentenced to from 2-20 years and was eligible for parole when he hit 66.

And that's how it rolled on this particular March 30th in 1965 as delivered over NBC Radio via their News In Review feature.

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From Radio Tokyo came rumors the British forces in Singapore were asking the Japanese for an armistice, but no word of confirmation from London. Meanwhile, The Japanese were launching an offensive in Sumatra aimed at taking the oil fields in Palembang, which were the largest in the Far East and the main source for fueling Allied ships in the Pacific. The Dutch were readying destruction of the fields.

In Britain, further fears of a pending invasion were fueled by reports of the sighting of German warships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau in the English Channel. Speculation had it the ships, largely unopposed, could provide cover for an invasion force as a sizable German fleet was now in the North Atlantic. For our part, it also fueled speculation that the Germans could conceivably stage a "prestige raid" of the East Coast of the U.S. since our navies were stretched way too thin to be effective. As one government official put it we were "fighting a two ocean war with a one ocean navy".

The only good news to be had came from the Eastern Front where Russian forces were pushing the Germans back to the old Polish border and had re-taken four towns in the process. German casualties were reported as heavy during this offensive.

All this had an alarming effect on Congress, who sent out calls for stepped up War production and an investigation as to why Synthetic Rubber production hadn't been increased before Pearl Harbor when just this scenario was considered. In the interim, a demand for the immediate conservation of rubber was issued as supplies were quickly drying up. And an investigation into the causes for the suspicious fire that destroyed the French Liner Normandie in New York was issued and a request the investigation not be handled by the Navy Department.

Labor was adding to the picture as some 600 workers at the nations biggest Aluminum production facility in Detroit went on strike over a demand for Sunday double-time pay.

All in all, a pretty dismal day (for a Sunday no less), this February 15, 1942 as reported by NBC Radio on their Weekend Roundup.

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(Joseph Valachi (center) - Before him, the Mafia was a rumor)

Hard to imagine that before the Valachi Hearings grabbed the headlines and the attention of most Americans in 1962, the Mafia was something of a rumor as far as hard evidence of organized crime was concerned.

But once the investigations started and Joseph Valachi's revelations came to light, it was as if the floodgates of life in the Underworld came pouring out for all to see. The hearings, chaired by Senator John McClellan (D-Arkansas) and guided by Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy went on for weeks and were televised by all the networks. People were fascinated by it and couldn't get enough of the daily goings on.

McClellan: “The existence of such a criminal organization known as Cosa Nostra is frightening. This organization attempts to be a form of government unto itself and outside of the law. This tightly knit association of professional criminals demands and gets complete dedication and unquestioned obedience of its members to orders instructions and commands from the ruling authority or boss . . or bosses thereof. Family, religion and country are all secondary and require to be subservient to the interests of this vicious criminal syndicate.”

It was the stuff of books, TV shows and movies - and its never let up.

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(Attorney General Edward H. Levi - you wonder what he'd have to say today)

". . .for example some of the alleged instances of misuse of the FBI over previous periods have involved directions from the White House, often from low ranking officials, given orally and couched in terms of law enforcement of national security. They involve such matters as surveillance at a political convention, investigations of a newsman unsympathetic to the administration cause, or the collection of information on political opponents. The proposed guidelines require that the request be made or confirmed in writing, specify those who may make requests, require the official initiating the investigation be identified, the purpose of the investigation stated among certain routine areas, and where a field investigation is initiated, an attestation that the subject has given consent".

Attorney General Edward H. Levi (1975-1977) addressing the American Bar Association convention in Montreal in 1975. Post-Watergate, post-Nixon. Listening to this address, I wondered what Levi would have to say about Roberto Gonzalez and the shambles the judicial system had become - falling very far from the "high moral ground" we had been so tenuously placed. I was struck by Levi's mention of the "ambiguous nature" of our Constitution as part of the genius of it. But all it of seemed to be based on an assumption it would never be manipulated to fulfill an agenda of fear. The unscrupulous placed in charge to find loopholes in order to justify immoral behavior and the degree in which those behaviors are carried out.