Nation: I Have a Job to Do

A "special counsel" is assigned to probe those peanut loans

Attorney General Griffin Bell had argued for months that his own people in the Justice Department could objectively investigate the loans, upwards of $4.6 million, made by Bert Lance's Atlanta bank to the Carter peanut warehouse in Plains, Ga. It was a hard argument to sustain. Not only was Bell a Democrat, of course, but he was an old friend of the Carters' and of Lance. Faced with increasing criticism, Bell last week finally decided to put the probe into other hands. His choice was highly qualified: Paul Jerome Curran, 45, who...

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