(10 of 12)
On Tuesday, Powell, who had broken off his vacation and hurried back to town, issued the White Paper that was intended to end all of the critical questioning. It did not. Most notably, the document contended that "at no time has there been any contact in either direction between the White House and the Department of Justice concerning the conduct of this investigation, except for the FBI interviews with Phillip Wise." The paper cited only one meeting between Brzezinski and Libya's Houderi. There was no mention of any role played by Rosalynn Carter.
On Tuesday the President also ended his public silence on Billy's Libyan antics. Said he in a prepared statement: "I do not believe it's appropriate for a close relative of the President to undertake any assignment on behalf of a foreign government." That pronouncement was obviously true, but it was also overdue—and too mild for the situation.
Now there were rising demands on Capitol Hill for a congressional investigation. Six Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee voted to ask the full Judiciary Committee to hold hearings on Billy's Libyan relations. Said Kansas Senator Robert Dole, with a partisan flourish: "It ought to be cleared up before the Democratic Convention —I think a lot of delegates might like to know what the facts are before they cast their vote."
By this time, the Senate's Democratic leaders saw no way to stall or squelch an inquiry—even if they had wished to. Majority Leader Robert Byrd and Minority Leader Howard Baker met repeatedly to find the best way to proceed. Since he is challenging the President's renomination, Senator Edward Kennedy, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, excused himself from any role in the inquiry.
On Thursday a solution was found. Called a special subcommittee of the Judiciary Committee, the panel will consist of five Democrats and four Republicans, including one each from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. While those two members had not yet been selected, the Judiciary Democrats will be Indiana's Birch Bayh, acting as chairman; Arizona's Dennis DeConcini; Montana's Max Baucus and Vermont's Patrick J. Leahy. The Republican Judiciary members will be South Carolina's Strom Thurmond, Maryland's Charles Mathias, and Dole. The committee plans to meet this week to set up a timetable and rules of procedure. President Carter promptly promised to cooperate fully with the panel. Senator Byrd later encouraged him to lay it all out "on top of the table." Said he: "It shouldn't have to be extracted day by day, tooth by tooth."
The same day that presumably candid White Paper began to look tattered. Reporters revealed that Brzezinski had held three meetings rather than just one with Libya's Houderi. The fact that the President had joined the meeting with Houderi after the raid on the U.S. embassy in Tripoli was also disclosed.
Rosalynn's involvement became known on Thursday. Reporters had kept pushing Powell to