◆ SpookStack

The Honorable Alan Cranston Senate Office Building Washington, D.C. 20510 ' Dear Senator Cranston: If the enclosed clipping from the editorial pages of the San Francisco Sunday Examiner & Chronicle of February 17, 1980 correctly expresses your view of the so-called AESCAM investigation by the FFI, I am surprised and disappointed. It seems to me that honest members of Congress, as I consider you to be, should suprort the efforts of the FBI to uncover lawbreakers, where ever they are. In the other enclosed article from the Oakland Tribune of February 17, 1980, King Features Syndicate writer Nicholas Von Hoffman shows that the Congress is not effectively policing its own members when they go astray. Some members of Congress do not appear to be hound by the laws which the Congress itself enacts. Or, perhaps they feel that if they are apprehended in some unlawful or disgraceful act their fellow members will rise to protect them. This seems to be the case. The current suvlie attacks upon the FBI by some members of Congress for daring to intrude upon their sanctuary fall in the latter category. As elections approach, I realize that it is most embarr- assing to all members of Congress to have some of their members revealed as having been involved in some unlaw- ful or disgraceful aet. However, the best way to avoid this is for the Congress itself to become more effective in policing itself. This is the first letter that I have ever written to you. However, events of misdeeds by various members of the Congress over the past several years, culminating in this latest episode, have impelled me to do so. It is George Washington's birthday 3s I write. I wonder what the Father of Our Country wojl ay if he could witness the present scene in *he