Pentagon Irked : Military Plane Carries Lone Congressman

The Defense Department, after agreeing to fly five congressmen to Brazil on a fact-finding trip, dispatched a military plane last week with only one congressman aboard. Pentagon insiders, suspecting that the other four never intended to come, say the military was the victim of “congressional subterfuge.”

As a result, Rep. Bill Alexander (D-Ark.) led a party of seven, including his daughter and several staff members, to Brazil after flying aboard the military equivalent of a DC-9 Wednesday. The seven are being attended by a doctor and four military escorts in addition to the normal crew of six.

Costly Flight

At an operating expense of $2,310 an hour, the cost of flying one way to Brazil is roughly $25,410.

Moreover, the Air Force has been told that Alexander and his party wish to fly to San Pedro Sula, Honduras, after leaving Brazil, at which point the congressman and his daughter will leave the plane and return by other means. The plane will thus fly back to Washington on Tuesday without any member of Congress aboard.

Details of the trip were learned through interviews with Pentagon and congressional sources, who insisted on anonymity. The Associated Press also obtained several documents, including an Aug. 7 letter from House Speaker Thomas P. (Tip) O’Neill Jr. (D-Mass.) to the Pentagon that said Alexander would be leading an official delegation of four other congressmen and their wives.

Efforts to reach Alexander’s party at its Rio de Janeiro hotel were unsuccessful.

Denials From Congressmen

In the letter to the Pentagon’s legislative affairs office, O’Neill said Alexander, the deputy House whip, would be accompanied by Reps. Ronnie G. Flippo (D-Ala.), Butler Derrick (D-S.C.), Toby Roth (R-Wis.) and Dan Glickman (D-Kan.). The congressmen or their spokesmen maintain, however, that they never planned to make the trip.

“That’s what is so galling,” said one Air Force official. “It’s bad enough that we take the grief for having to provide airplanes for these junkets. But it looks like here that there was a little congressional subterfuge involved.”

No Guidelines

The Pentagon does not maintain a strict guideline on how large a congressional party should be before a plane is provided for an overseas trip. Chris Matthews, spokesman for O’Neill, said that “usually a minimum of four or five” congressmen are needed to get a plane assigned by the Pentagon.

Judy Smith, Alexander’s secretary, said the purpose of the trip was to inspect alcohol fuel production, a major industry in Brazil.