1 A Senate committee chairman wants the FBI to look into a newspaper's allegations that one of President-elect Bush's Cabinet nominees headed a GOP organization 'riddled with former Nazi collaborators.'
2 The Oakland (Calif.) Tribune, in an editorial Dec. 28, said its questions should be answered before the Senate approves Bush's nomination of Edward Derwinski as the first head of the newly created Department of Veterans Affairs.
3 Sen. Alan Cranston, D-Calif., who will conduct the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee's confirmation hearings on the nomination, asked Bush to look into the editorial's charges in the course of 'its customary background investigation.'
4 The editorial said Derwinski associated with former fascists and anti-Semites in 1972 when he headed the executive board of the Heritage Groups for Re-election of the President and this year when he co-chaired Bush's Coalition of American Nationalities.
5 Through a spokesman, Derwinski said the charges amounted to 'guilt by association.'
6 Several members of the coalition resigned this summer after the Washington Jewish Week said they had pro-fascist or anti-Semitic records during World War II.
7 Derwinski, who served for 23 years as a Republican congressman from Cook County, Ill., is in the State Department as undersecertary for security assistance, science and technology.
8 He was not available for comment Thursday, but a spokesman, Bill Anderson, said of the editorial: 'It is guilt by association.
9 He has had nothing to do with the hiring or the service of those mentioned in this article.
10 Anyone who examines his record in support, for example, of Jewish organizations, or as a diplomat in Israel can categorically rule out any anti-Semitism on his part.'
11 Anderson said Derwinski had lent his name to Republican ethnic committees in every presidential election campaign since 1960.
12 Cranston, in his letter to Bush, said he raised the issue with Derwinski Wednesday during 'a nice meeting with him to discuss the forthcoming nomination.'
13 He sent Bush a copy of the editorial and wrote, 'As you can see the editorial raises serious charges.'
14 'Before the U.S. Senate approves him it ought to ask the nominee whether he intends to represent American veterans or Nazi veterans, American democratic ideals or those of foreign dictatorships,' the editorial said.
15 'Those questions are apt, given Derwinski's record of service in an organization riddled with former Nazi collaborators and his alleged role in passing U.S. secrets to the South Korean CIA in the late 1970s,' it said, but added: 'The record certainly doesn't prove that Derwinski is a closet Nazi sympathizer or a foe of democracy.
16 But it does call into profound question his judgment, in particular his willingness to turn a blind eye to the background and beliefs of notorious colleagues if they share his anti-communism.'
17 The paper quoted Russ Bellant, author of a study published by Political Research Associates in Cambridge, Mass., as saying that 'at least four people charged with war crimes were in leadership positions' of the 1972 Republican group Derwinski headed.
18 The research group calls itself an independent organization that gathers information on 'right-wing groups and trends.'
19 The editorial also said that during a 1977 House investigation of alleged South Korean influence peddling on Capitol Hill, Derwinski appeared to be responsible for leaking to the Korean government the defection of an official of the Korean Central Inelligence Agency.
20 But Anderson said the House Ethics Committee investigated and cleared Derwinski of tipping off the South Korean government.

A Senate committee chairman wants the FBI to look into a newspaper ' s allegations that one of President - elect Bush ' s Cabinet nominees headed a GOP organization " riddled with former Nazi collaborators . "
organization
How does the newspaper know the organization was riddled with former Nazi collaborators?