The Conflict of Interest

In a federal courtroom in Washington last week, the Government lost an important test case. Attorney General Herbert Brownell had charged Herbert A. Bergson, boss of the trustbusters under the Democratic Administration, with violating the "conflict of interest" law.

Says the law: No former Government employee, within two years after leaving Government service, may prosecute "any claims against the U.S. involving any subject matter directly connected with which such person was so employed . . ."

As a Government lawyer, Brownell charged Bergson had prosecuted a price-fixing and monopoly suit against the Minnesota Mining & Manufacturing Co. and the Carborundum Co., and had refused to permit the U.S. Pipe Line Co. to offer price differentials to oil shippers on a proposed new pipeline. Later, as a private attorney, Bergson got a Justice Department clearance for a merger between Minnesota Mining and Carborundum (which did not take place), and worked out a method of getting the price differential permission for U.S. Pipe Line by guaranteeing that no shipper would use more than 20% of the line's capacity. For these two jobs, Bergson's fee was $115,000.

Bergson denied that he had ever passed on the U.S. Pipe Line request, but his chief defense was that "claims" against the Government under the law could involve only money or property. Judge Charles F. McLaughlin agreed and, since he directed the jury to acquit Bergson, the Government cannot appeal. Any other interpretation, said the judge, "would lead to absurd results," and he took the occasion to lecture Government attorneys that the legal interpretation of criminal laws is "not a game to be played." Brownell, who feels that there is an ethical consideration as well, announced that he would ask Congress to close the "loophole" in the law.

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