Cranston Puts Off Wedding, Blames Media for Pressure

In a puzzling suggestion that the cloud of scandal has taken a toll on his personal life, U.S. Sen. Alan Cranston abruptly announced Thursday that he will not be getting married on Christmas Eve after all.

Early in the week, the 75-year-old Cranston and his fiancee, 49-year-old Cathy Lee Pattiz, took out a marriage license in Santa Clara County. A photograph of the smiling couple was printed in California newspapers. Pattiz told reporters about plans for the ceremony and a Northern California holiday honeymoon.

Then late Thursday, a cryptic announcement was issued from his Washington office:

“When the press pounced upon us before we finished filling out the marriage license form, it became clear to me that this is not an appropriate time to start a marriage and that it would not be fair to Cathy to bring her into the middle of a stressful situation.

“So we will not be married on Dec. 24.”

Press spokesman Murray Flander said the decision was an indefinite postponement, not a cancellation.

Aides in Washington and California said the actions would have to speak for themselves--that Cranston “believes his private life should stay private.”

Throughout the autumn, Cranston has been under relentless pressure from constituents, opponents, reporters and even increasing numbers of his supporters over the Lincoln Savings & Loan scandal, in which the institution went bankrupt and 23,000 investors lost their savings.

Cranston was one of several senators to solicit large contributions from Lincoln owner Charles H. Keating Jr. That group of senators had intervened on Keating’s behalf with federal regulators in the months before the savings and loan went broke.

In past years, Cranston could walk through airports and hardly be bothered except by a few well-wishers. Now, virtually everywhere he goes, reporters and camera crews follow him--and angry investors who lost their savings at Lincoln pop up from time to time to accuse him of ruining their retirement years.

Pattiz is a former campaign worker and would be Cranston’s third wife.