The Junketeers

For a select group of Americans there is a global plan of expense-paid travel. In Paris, for example, such a privileged person may be met on arrival by an officer of the U.S. Embassy--sometimes fondly called "the Boodle Man." The traveler is handed an envelope containing the boodle: as much as $500 in French francs. From then on, the visitor is on his own, needs only to check in with the embassy's boodle man to replenish his wallet. In 1955 in Paris alone, some 700 Junketeers availed themselves of this service, to the tune of $100,000; in 1956, the number dropped to 400, the amount to $46,000.

To be eligible for membership in this exclusive club, Americans must be members of the U.S. Congress, or staff employees of the various congressional committees. The money they spend comes from counterpart funds, i.e., local currencies accruing to the U.S. Government in exchange for U.S. dollars spent under foreign-aid programs. And best of all, though the law requires that such expenditures be reported, the reports need not be fully detailed or made public.

Nail-Chewing Functionaries. For the most part, the funds are spent with a sense of responsibility by Congressmen and their staffs educating themselves. But there are some who ride the Uncle-pays plan like a gravy train. Last week, in offices scattered all over the world. U.S. diplomatic and information officials were recounting a nightmarish story of two such hellbent freeloaders, both staff members of the Senate Appropriations Committee. They are Grace Johnson, fiftyish, tough-talking, weight-throwing $10,000-a-year staffer and longtime friend of Louisiana's Democratic Senator Allen J. Ellender; and her companion, Mississippi-born Mary Frances Holloway, fortyish, an assistant committee clerk. Twice, the two women made prolonged trips abroad, ostensibly to investigate the operations of the U.S. Information Service, each time leaving a wake of empty bottles, empty pockets and nail-chewing functionaries.

The nightmare was the same nearly everywhere: the investigators showed up in Paris last fall in the company of former Senate Page Boy Joseph Stewart, 22, who came along as aid-de-camp. The women spent 20 days in Paris, appeared only rarely at the embassy. A typical business request: a list of USIS employees, salaries, etc.--the kind of information that is always available in Washington. For the rest of their stay, the investigators searchingly investigated shops, restaurants, bars, entertained themselves to exhaustion.

"You're Out." In another European capital, the investigators grumbled about their meager counterpart allowance ($100 daily apiece), complained about their hotel rooms (de luxe), threatened to "make it tough" for any official who failed to come across with any of a variety of services they demanded. "If you don't give us the treatment we expect," announced one of them to a high U.S. official, "you're out. We'll take care of you when we get back to Washington." At one point, Investigator Johnson cabled then-SHAPE Commander General Alfred Gruenther, demanded an airplane to fetch them for delivery at their next stop. The general declined, but another time, in Italy, the women conned the Air Force out of a plane for their own use.

"The Worst." In two years, the nightmare spread from Western Europe through the Middle and Far East. Things got so bad that American embassies would cable ahead to the investigators' next stop, warning diplomatic colleagues not to invite local nationals to any social functions in the ladies' honor. In one Asian capital, where the U.S. has spent millions to win friends and firm up touchy relations, U.S. officials did not get the word in time. When the Misses Johnson and Holloway arrived, they were welcomed with a cocktail party in their honor, with select local nationals also invited. So embarrassed were the Americans who attended by the loud and raucous conduct of the travelers that the next night they got the ladies lost so that they would miss the best part of a second party scheduled in their honor. "Abuses of congressional privileges, if any, are usually very slight," said one American diplomat. "These two women are the worst we've ever known."

Why did not U.S. diplomats report the conduct of the voyaging women back to Washington? The reason echoed from all corners of the world. As one official put it: "We would reap the wrath of Congress. We'd have a very bad time [e.g., at future Appropriations Committee budget hearings]. We've seen it happen before: congressional self-protection goes into effect, and the club just closes ranks. In this sort of a situation we can't win. We'd sooner suffer in silence."

Last week Investigators Johnson and Holloway, back from their ride on the gravy express, preferred to stay incommunicado. But there were rumblings in Washington that the Senate Appropriations Committee was quietly investigating its investigators, might soon send them packing for good.

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