Spectator's Notebook i Ile Washington DC gre are four TV

camera crews with hot lights permanently lit in the corridor snif`sitle the judiciary committee room in the dat°11se of Representatives. For Washington is ',lb:lit/hut impeachment and it looks as if it is to happen. But the scenarios for it are wa,Z.,arre. The House has to prefer the charges then the Senate tries the President. But if ctn.'s Process is uncompleted by the time the 0l," e'v.' Congress convenes in January, 1975, it vistents the whole process may have to be Ill til,,tted again giving a beleaguered Richard strP Yet another six months' grace. So his Y i t egY becomes clearer — tough it out. Itjeontl,t what happens if the trial starts? Lincoln

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(1,7-1 appear and briefly, contemptuously, disn thl a gossip accusation. Nixon does not have Va stature, so he will be tried in absentia. oh telling the proceedings like everyone else nq . v,.tele yision. Educated opinion has guessed I . tuql this might take up to a year with virJt4l ,1,1Y all major legislation brought to a halt ;ii4of 'e it is going on. Suddenly the whole basis OThtite American Constitution is in question. 144 seParation of the powers of the legislature I% the executive, shaped by remission from )1.%e autocracy of the English monarchy and tjse: corrupt unreformed House of Commons, t'An`11118 to have created a situation where ,.'lgo„e2.ioa will become, though briefly, unn16.1:jrnable, and with a troubled nation now )„ C, down the middle. tt Wednesday at 10 p.m. I walked past lil white House as a puff of white smoke 5 . e from the roof. Perhaps they were trying Ifill V L .,ei„ atican style to say a new president had IS' n'erged?

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tzSe jbeC)ctors on the make P1-„,th„rnost distrusted men in America are not I virv Politicians but the doctors, who have now seet114,11Y abandoned the practice of going to ,s'fflirb,siok persons. Rural areas and devastated ":5,lhe'n slums like the Bronx have been fled by isItl,ke Money-oriented medical practitioner who -,rear: no cash returns from primary medical '41.'e,111stead the specialist and the surgeon 1,flisin„tue princes in this head-hearted profesis'itici"' The new City Commissioner of Health thy me that in one study of the incidence of 1/1,1th,s,terectomie5 the only common factor was itis"„'' all the women concerned had hospital • I'fthrance: "If you had a Blue Cross card.

in Y'd have your uterus." ,

:Ilenator Byden told us an affluent con,ii1kcint who needed a kidney transplant "had '"oitlotinc4it $120,000 and was now still $180,000. Is Stevon -rs in debt." So he and Senator Adlai I,ima ; --son saw possibilities of some kind of i" lLorial Health Insurance. g rt is will almost certainly make the doctors la' the diteal r and ensure the power of the great );(dodth insurers. Blue Cross for hospitalisation p,\''',:nlue Shield for primary care. These nonr"otinlaking bureaucrats are scheduled in ,r0lie'llY every Bill to become the carriers of 'if°r risks. They already perform this function Iti'li the 20 million old and disabled covered by 41' LIE Medicare programme and the vast e't thejtY of the federal employees insured by lo t4i overnment. But they also contract to the io io'nc)!. thousands of schemes negotiated by f) TO as part of their agreements. 1 Rive2s jumble of overlapping schemes has ' the rise to a New York situation in which ie are seventeen separate Blue Cross or

ganisations marketing their wares with just one of them dealing with 400 different union employees' funds covering two million people and raking in premiums of $200 million annually. The pressure of such vested interests is formidable enough to putt off indefinitely anything resembling the British National Health Service which looks better and better the farther away you are. ,

Oddities

American life is traditionally badly reported in the British press, partly because it lends itself to being brightly and oddly written up. So I'll succumb as well. Where else in the world could you find a great metropolis like New York so starved of funds that it is having to float off a new corporation, financed by a bond issue, as the President of the City Council told me, "By way of desperation to encompass urgent social questions." Where else is it necessary to advertise in the subway cars, "Rape report line 233-3000. A policewoman will help you," because of the percentage of unreported assaults?

The subway trains themselves are remarkable for the graffiti and aerosol painted designs created all over them by people who go into the yards at night to create vast nightmarish designs.

Casual casualties

The most distressing feature for a visitor is still the brooding sense of suppressed violence in the streets, particularly in the rapid jostling pace of New York where the hotel guest finds a printed card on the pillow urging the locking and chaining of the door, the locking of luggage, checking of every person "purporting to render some service" and asking that any suspicious phone calls should be immediately reported to the management."

Do the cheek-by-jowl contrasts of savage poverty and affluence help breed this? Within a half-mile of elegant high-rise apartments are stricken areas resembling combat zones where a Spanish-speaking Puerto Rican mother may have to take a sick child to a hard-pressed public hospital casualty depart

ment to explain the problem to a graduate of Yokohama University. A legislator put it this way, "There is as much communication as a vet with his patient."

Up in arms

Britain's agonising over arms for the Chilean junta is paralleled here, but the broader Latin American picture clicks into focus after talking to legislators.

In addition to the frigates and submarines from Scottish shipyards, two US destroyers have just been recommissioned for sale to the Chileans and big aircraft sales are being negotiated.

Why do the Chilean rulers want to arm to the teeth? Explanation here is that American strategic policy is to bolster up the right-wing military dictatorships of Brazil, Paraguay and Chile as a counterbalance to what seems to be a leftish military regime in Peru. So the arms race is on, and it seems more than ever sensible that those Rolls-Royce engines should continue to gather dust in East Kilbride.

Founding godfathers

People do talk about Mafia here. Union leaders know Mafia figures, and the Teamsters are notorious for having some of their immensely powerful East Coast branches under racketeer control. It still sounds slightly shocking to a British union officer to hear an honest American union leader point to a colleague and say that part of his duties involves liaison with the underworld. They have to do it just as they regularly tip police officers guarding picket lines. Current rates are, five dollars for a patrolman and ten dollars for a lieutenant.

The Mafia exploits the labour movement in at least five ways. By control of services, whether trucking or garbage collection, money can be extorted from employers. If a union branch is run by gangsters they can put hoodlums on the pay roll. Even worse, they negotiate 'sweetheart' deals with management and get paid off in cash — regularly — part of the difference between what the workers should have got and what was formally negotiated for them. The huge pension and welfare funds are probably the major prize. They may not actually get looted. They don't need to. The commissions from insurance companies and investment brokers are so large in themselves. And while there is a union contract in existence — even if tainted — legitimate unions are bound by law not to interfere. All of this rubs off on the many excellent unions and is thought to account for the meagre 25 per cent of union organisation in the workforce. A branch president struggling against this said, "The worker senses corruption and he doesn't want to be ripped off by another predator in the market place".

Old wounds

Watergate showed the abscess of corruption in this society. But as the heads roll, the file gets opened and old cases get re-examined. One group is researching the famed and tragic case of Sacco and Vanzetti while the sons of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg have emerged and are alleging that evidence was suppressed that would have cleared their parents of that sketchy espionage charge that led to their electrocution. The United States is piing over the scabs of her history.

Hats in the ring

Clearly there is now a major political leadership gap here, so who is to fill it? Three Democrats are off and running for a chance to contest with Vice-President Ford. But only if Senator Kennedy stands aside. "Ted has it locked up. But will he run? Nobody knows. But he's travelling."

Clive Jenkins