The Voloshen Connection

At first it seemed little more than a routine civil suit brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission. Overnight, however, the case burgeoned into a Washington scandal involving the office of House Speaker John Mc-Cormack. The first to be tarnished was Dr. Martin Sweig, 46, McCormack's $36,000-a-year aide for the past 24 years, who was suspended by the Speaker last week pending a complete inquiry.

Sweig was named in the suit as having arranged a meeting last May between the SEC and representatives of the Parvin/Dohrmann Co., a manufacturer of hospital, restaurant and hotel equipment with interests in Las Vegas gambling operations. The purpose of the parley was to end the commission's ban on the sale of the firm's stock; six days later, the stop order was canceled. Subsequent investigation persuaded the SEC to bring the suit last week on charges that the price of Parvin/Dohrmann stock was being manipulated. The case raised the specter of high-level influence peddling through McCormack's office.

Frequent Visitor. A central if somewhat mysterious character in the affair is Nathan Voloshen, 71. Ostensibly, Voloshen is a Maryland attorney with New York connections, but his real trade is opening doors in Washington. He was named by the SEC as the link between Sweig and Parvin/Dohrmann. For his services in making the connection, Voloshen received $50,000 from the grateful firm. When Parvin/Dohrmann Chairman Delbert Coleman sought the services of Voloshen, there was little doubt that he could produce. Voloshen's was a familiar face in the Speaker's suite, a fact attested to by Herbert It-kin, a Government informer in investigations of racketeering (TIME, Oct. 17).

Itkin told TIME Correspondent Sandy Smith that he had visited Voloshen in the Speaker's offices to talk over deals on five separate occasions between April 1963 and October 1966. "Voloshen would sit there, with his feet on the desk, making telephone calls all over the country," Itkin told Smith. These transactions, said Itkin, involved everything from schemes to bribe several Congressmen to purchasing land for gas stations in Florida on the advance knowledge of Army plans to build nearby.

While McCormack acknowledged knowing Voloshen, he denied that the dapper wheeler-dealer used the Speaker's suite as his headquarters: "He's a friend of mine, but he's not in my office much." Reporter Smith's investigation indicated otherwise. On Sept. 25, Smith asked for Voloshen in the Speaker's office. An aide said: "We haven't seen Mr. Voloshen today, but he may come in." The assistant also furnished the telephone number and address of the attorney's Manhattan office. Last year, in an interview with the Washington Post, Sweig called Voloshen a "very honorable fellow" who had been friendly with McCormack for about 30 years and was a visitor to the Speaker's offices "once or twice a week."

Skimminq. In his dealings with the Parvin/Dohrmann Co., Voloshen has indirectly connected the Speaker's office to some unsavory individuals--though McCormack himself may never have heard of them. Chief of these are Sidney R. Korshak, a Los Angeles attorney and intimate of Chicago gangsters, and Edward Torres, a mob-affiliated gambler who was involved with illegally skimming gambling proceeds in Las Vegas. Both are members of a group that controls the company.

Voloshen's activities have stirred other interest. A federal grand jury in New York is investigating telephone calls he made from the Speaker's office to the Justice Department in an attempt to gain the release from jail of Frank ("Cheech") Livorsi, an eastern Mafia leader, because of the mobster's ill health. Another is looking into the roles of Sweig and Voloshen in a contractor's efforts to add $5,000,000 to the $11 million cost of a garage under the Rayburn House Office Building.

What will Congress do about the implications of Voloshen's presence and influence on Capitol Hill? Congress has always been reluctant to police its own ethical standards. But if congressional leaders pursue the Voloshen case energetically, they may catch a scandal of Bobby Baker proportions.

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