Cranston Is Said to Escape Censure Because of Health

It was not Sen. Alan Cranston’s threats to expose ethics violations by other senators that saved the California Democrat from being censured by the Senate for his conduct in the “Keating Five” affair, sources said Friday.

Instead, the Senate Ethics Committee was swayed by a behind-the-scenes appeal from a Cranston friend, Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.), who argued that Cranston should be spared the embarrassment of censure because of his poor health.

Through months of closed-door meetings on the Cranston case, the Ethics Committee’s six members refused to discuss their deliberations. But details of the private negotiations have begun to emerge since the panel announced Wednesday it had decided to reprimand Cranston for misconduct, a relatively lenient penalty compared to a vote of censure by the Senate.

The panel concluded that Cranston, 77, who was diagnosed last year as having prostate cancer, had engaged in “improper and repugnant” conduct when he solicited contributions from Lincoln Savings & Loan owner Charles H. Keating Jr. while also agreeing to intervene with federal regulators on Lincoln’s behalf.

In his speech to the Senate after the reprimand, Cranston indicated he had told members of the committee during their private deliberations that he intended to divulge “example after example of comparable conduct” by his colleagues if the panel decided to recommend censure by the full Senate.

Cranston’s attorney, Harvard law professor Alan M. Dershowitz, later described this as a “hardball” tactic that helped persuade the committee not to recommend censure.

But sources familiar with the committee deliberations insisted that its members were not influenced by Cranston’s implied threat. They were aware of Cranston’s intention to use the conduct of others in his defense, one source said, “but they never felt threatened by it.”

These sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity, indicated that Cranston put more emphasis on his threat to expose other senators after the reprimand than he did during the actual deliberations. “If it was a hardball, he threw it after both teams had left the field and gone back into the clubhouse,” one source said.

Republicans on the committee, who had previously urged censure, were persuaded to accept the compromise after discussing it with Reid, who had been designated by Cranston as his representative in discussions with the committee, according to committee sources.

Reid, an attorney, was said to have emphasized with members of the committee that it would be unusually cruel to censure Cranston, not only because he already had announced his retirement at the end of 1992 but also because he was also battling cancer.

In fact, the issue of Cranston’s health became such an important part of the discussions that Sens. Howell Heflin (D-Ala.) and Warren B. Rudman (R-N.H.) interviewed Malcolm Bagshaw, one of the physicians who has been treating Cranston for prostate cancer. Rudman is vice chairman of the committee; Heflin was chairman of the committee when the Keating case began, and he continued to sit in judgment of Cranston’s role in the case after his term as chairman ended.

In statements to the Senate, both Heflin and Rudman indicated Cranston’s health had been a pivotal factor in the committee’s decision not to recommend censure.

It was Sen. David Pryor (D-Ark.) who proposed what turned out to be the final compromise between Democrats and Republicans, sources said. Pryor’s proposal--a reprimand of Cranston to be read on the Senate floor with all members present--represented a middle ground between Republicans seeking censure and Democrats who opposed it.

Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.), a committee member who had called for censure, was the last to agree to the compromise, sources said. Heflin was said by some to have been the panel member who suggested the word “repugnant” to describe Cranston’s actions.

Cranston spokesman Murray Flander said Friday that he did not know why the committee chose to reprimand the senator instead of censuring him.

In a news conference immediately following the reprimand, Cranston said he had told the committee he intended to expose the behavior of other senators only to prove that he had not violated the norms of the Senate. He emphasized that he was not accusing other senators of wrongdoing but simply trying to prove that he was not guilty of unusual behavior.

“I indicated to the Ethics Committee members that I could demonstrate that my actions were not in violation of any Senate norm, and I gave them a few examples of senators who would prove my point,” Cranston said. He refused to repeat the names he had cited.

But sources within the committee insisted that Cranston never cited the names of any senators in discussions with panel members. They said Cranston formally discussed the possibility of identifying specific senators with only one committee member, Rudman, who told Cranston the committee did not want to know the names of the people to whom he was referring.

“The committee’s view was that if he had some information about instances in which he felt members had bent the rules, he should forward it to the committee,” a source said. “But the committee felt the names were irrelevant if they were going to be used only as a defense in his case.”

After Cranston agreed to accept the compromise, many senators were stunned when he stated publicly Wednesday that he had evidence to prove that other senators were guilty of the same behavior. He indicated that this strategy had been urged upon him by Dershowitz, who said he was disappointed that the senator had not chosen to publicize these other examples.

Rudman, who challenged Cranston’s statement--saying “everyone doesn’t do it”--remarked later that Cranston had angered a majority of senators on both sides of the aisle. “I think it was less than honorable,” he added.

Although some angry Republicans, such as Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska, threatened to independently offer a censure motion in response to Cranston’s allegations, Rudman said he had encouraged members of his party to forget the Cranston matter.