Ethics Office Looks Into Meese Letters Backing Japan Meeting

The Office of Government Ethics began an investigation Tuesday into a letter signed by Atty. Gen. Edwin Meese III and sent to 30,000 people encouraging them to attend a conference in Japan, the head of the office said Tuesday night.

“It started today,” said Frank Q. Nebeker, head of the ethics office. “As a judge, I have received invitations of this sort in year’s past. I don’t know at this point what this one is.”

Nebeker, a former judge on the District of Columbia Court of Appeals, said he was not sure what the problems might be with the mailing, adding: “We’re attempting to ascertain what the facts are.”

In the letter, Meese is soliciting attendance at a meeting for which the U.S. sponsor is a profit-making organization.

The presidential order on ethics that is policed by the ethics office forbids federal officials from engaging in any conduct that might present the appearance of a conflict of interest or of losing objectivity in governmental decision making or favoritism. The appearance of such a problem is enough to trigger an investigation, even when such problems don’t exist in reality.

Use of Department Seal

It is a crime to use the Justice Department seal for non-authorized purposes.

Meese’s letters on Office of the Attorney General stationery with the Justice Department seal invited the recipients to join him at a legal and economic conference in Japan on Aug. 29 to Sept. 1. Meese will be heading the U.S. delegation to the conference, called “The U.S.-Japan Bilateral Session: A New Era in Legal and Economic Relations.”

The meeting is sponsored in part by the Citizen Ambassador Program of People to People International, according to the letter.

While People to People International is a nonprofit organization set up originally in the State Department by then-President Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Citizen Ambassador Program is a profit-making organization, the chairman of that firm said Tuesday night.

“Yes, the Citizen Ambassador Program is for-profit, which is how Eisenhower established the program with the intention of making it self-supporting,” Norm Swanson said in a telephone interview from his home in Spokane, Wash.

Lists of Names

Swanson said the letter went to about 30,000 people whose names were “provided by everyone from the American Bar Assn., the advisory committees on both sides, to the American Chamber of Commerce in Japan.”

Justice Department spokesman Terry Eastland said the department was unaware that a profit-making organization was involved, but he contended that even if it were, Meese’s involvement might still be justified due to the department’s interest in international legal questions.