Glenn Tells Ethics Panel of Aid to Keating

Sen. John Glenn (D-Ohio) met privately with the Senate Ethics Committee on Wednesday and said he thoroughly discussed all aspects of his assistance for Charles H. Keating Jr. while the businessman’s savings and loan was collapsing.

Glenn, one of five senators who intervened with regulators for Keating and also accepted political donations from him, met with the committee in private for 2 1/2 hours. He refused to disclose the substance of the discussions.

“I survived,” he said. “I appreciated very much the fact that the committee would take the time to discuss this whole issue with me, which we did. There was adequate time to present everything.”

The committee’s vice chairman, Sen. Warren B. Rudman (R-N.H.), said no decision on Glenn’s case had been made.

The senators, appearing individually at closed hearings this week and next, will explain their intervention with U.S. banking regulators and their acceptance of a total of $1.3 million in political donations from Keating and his associates.

Congressional sources have said committee special counsel Robert S. Bennett recommended that cases be dismissed against Glenn and John McCain of Arizona, the only Republican among the five. McCain is to appear today.

The six-member committee has not acted on Bennett’s recommendation or on his conclusion that the panel should proceed with cases against Democratic Sens. Alan Cranston of California, Dennis DeConcini of Arizona and Donald W. Riegle Jr. of Michigan.

The panel has the authority to rebuke by letter any senator found in violation of standards of conduct, or it could recommend full Senate sanctions of censure or expulsion.

Federal regulators had already concluded that Keating’s Lincoln Savings & Loan of Irvine, Calif., was heading toward failure when the senators held two crucial meetings with the banking regulators in April, 1987. The thrift was not seized by the government until April, 1989.