Inappropriate Resting Place

When Republicans last month seized upon a conservative magazine’s allegation that the Clinton administration gave waivers for burial in Arlington National Cemetery to favored campaign contributors, Army Secretary Togo D. West Jr. responded with a spirited and detailed denial, criticizing unverified reporting. Many, including this editorial page, agreed that allegations are not facts and suspicion is not evidence.

It now appears that in at least one case, involving M. Larry Lawrence, a former ambassador to Switzerland and a big contributor to President Clinton’s 1992 campaign, the evidence is in.

Lawrence claimed he was a merchant mariner in World War II who sustained a major head wound when his ship was torpedoed in the Arctic Ocean. There is no record of such service. The president announced Monday that Lawrence’s widow has asked to remove the body and have it reburied near their home in San Diego, which is appropriate and also clearly face-saving for the White House.

The University of Arizona says its files show Lawrence was a student there and a member of the varsity football team when he was supposed to be recovering from his battle-related head injury. It was largely on the basis of his claimed wartime service that a waiver was granted to bury Lawrence in Arlington.

How the rigorous security screening required for presidential appointees failed to reveal the former ambassador’s fabrications awaits explanation. Our government, like the society it serves, operates to a great extent on a basis of implicit trust. Did FBI investigators, like Lawrence’s colleagues, simply accept as truth his claimed wartime service and injury?

Had no waiver been given allowing Lawrence to be buried in Arlington, his fictionalized past would probably have remained undiscovered. But a waiver was granted, and it led to a lie being exposed. That exposure should have happened well before Lawrence was laid to rest among heroes.