Cancer Care to Make Cranston Miss Most ‘Keating 5’ Hearings

Sen. Alan Cranston (D-Calif.), who disclosed last week that he has prostate cancer and will not seek reelection, said Tuesday that radiation treatments will prevent him from attending most of the Senate Ethics Committee hearings into the “Keating Five” scandal.

Beginning Monday, Cranston, 76, will receive five treatments each week for the next seven weeks on an outpatient basis at the Stanford University School of Medicine at Palo Alto, a spokesman said.

The hearings, scheduled to begin Thursday, are expected to continue for at least 10 days. Cranston said he plans to attend the first two days of the hearings but will be unavailable after that because of the treatments.

In a letter to the committee, he offered to give a deposition during the weeks of Nov. 26 and Dec. 3 while he is undergoing treatment. After Dec. 7, he said, the progressive effect of the treatment will leave him too weak to provide a deposition.

The committee is investigating charges that Cranston and four other senators improperly used their influence on behalf of Charles A. Keating Jr., former owner of Lincoln Savings & Loan of Irvine, Calif., after receiving political contributions from Keating.