Conservative Group Makes No Mention of Meese : Strict Ethics in Justice Dept. Urged

The Heritage Foundation, a conservative Washington think tank that employs former Atty. Gen. Edwin Meese III as a distinguished fellow, said Sunday that it is imperative that the Justice Department “hold itself to the highest ethical standards.”

In a blueprint for the incoming Administration’s next four years, which will be issued soon, the foundation held that “American society has suffered a deepening distrust of authority,” and said the “Department of Justice has not been spared this obloquy.”

The report made no mention of Meese, who resigned as attorney general last summer after an independent counsel concluded that he probably violated conflict-of-interest and tax laws while in office, but decided against prosecuting him.

Calls for ‘Self-Scrutiny’

“Heightened suspicion, even when misplaced, calls for heightened self-scrutiny,” said the report, a copy of which was obtained by The Times.

The report was written by Marshall J. Breger, chairman of the Administrative Conference of the United States, with contributions from several others, including President-elect George Bush’s designee for White House counsel, C. Boyden Gray.

The Heritage report, of which the Justice Department section is only one chapter, is titled “Mandate for Leadership III,” and is similar to studies the organization submitted, with substantial success, to influence the agenda of President Reagan’s two terms.

The Justice Department in the Bush Administration “should be the leading force in two ‘wars’--on drugs and against dishonest government,” the report said. “Perhaps, most important, the department must hold itself to the highest ethical standards . . . (and) must avoid even the appearance of impropriety.”

While praising the Reagan Administration for reversing the “politicized liberal agenda” that it said Justice Department officials advocated under former President Jimmy Carter, the Heritage Foundation said the Administration’s overall record on justice “is mixed.”

Praises Appointments

The report gave the Administration high marks for appointing judges committed to “judicial restraint.” In addition to three Supreme Court members, the Reagan Administration appointed 81 of the 168 sitting federal appellate court judges and 275 of the 575 District Court judges.

“With their lifetime appointments, these judges will influence the development of the law for decades,” the report said.

But the report said the Administration’s “ ‘war on drugs’ cannot be called a success” and contended that Bush can learn from past success.

Noting that the United States has vast and hard-to-police borders, the report urged the Administration to shift emphasis from the supply to the demand side of the drug problem--a direction that Atty. Gen. Dick Thornburgh has already said he will stress.

But the Heritage Foundation urged Bush to go further by targeting the 32 million Americans who use illegal drugs, making drug testing “more prevalent in many areas--schools, the transportation industry, workplaces, prisons.”

Criticizes Turf Wars

The report faulted the Administration for failing to end the inter-agency turf wars that have hampered the battle against drugs.

The Customs Service “adopted a ‘zero tolerance’ policy of seizing any yachts with drugs, but the Coast Guard pronounced it unenforceable,” the report recalled. “The CIA and the State Department failed to transmit international data to (the) Justice (department) in a timely fashion.”

Among the key changes the Heritage Foundation proposed were:

--Creating a new post of assistant attorney general for national security and international affairs to end the wide dispersion of these responsibilities.

--Clarifying and simplifying the ethics laws to solve problems of overregulation and underenforcement. Complex and confusing provisions under present law have a chilling effect on the recruitment of talented government officials, according to the report.

--Creating the post of second associate attorney general to further relieve the attorney general of administrative duties that now interfere with his concentration on broad policy themes.