Postal Gov. McKean Quits; Figured in Meese Loans

The White House confirmed today that Postal Service Governor John McKean, the three-time chairman of the panel whose resignation was demanded by the head of a congressional committee, has quit.

McKean is the San Francisco accountant who helped Atty. Gen. Edwin Meese III obtain $60,000 in unsecured loans shortly before McKean’s appointment to the postal board in 1981.

Meese was serving as White House counsel to President Reagan at the time of the questionable loans.

McKean, who resigned on Tuesday, had been scheduled to appear today before the House Post Office and Civil Service Committee. The chairman of the committee, Rep. William D. Ford (D-Mich.) had demanded his resignation.

The General Accounting Office determined that Postal Service funds were improperly used to pay for a counsel to represent McKean at Meese’s confirmation hearings as attorney general.

The Office of Government Ethics also said McKean appeared to have “used his position as chairman of the Board of Governors to influence the postmaster general’s award of a contract to a client of his own accounting firm.”

McKean operates an accounting and financial consulting firm in San Francisco that he founded in 1958. He also serves on the board of directors of the Bayview Federal Savings and Loan Assn. of San Francisco.

In 1984, 1985 and 1986, he served as the chairman of the postal panel, but he opted not to run for reelection to the chairmanship in 1987, a postal service spokesman said.

The part-time post of postal governor pays $10,000 a year, the spokesman said, adding that there are nine postal governors appointed by the President and they select the postmaster general and the deputy postmaster general.