Meese Fires His Chief Spokesman : Defense of Boss Seen Lacking Zeal, Ousted Aide Says

WASHINGTON — Atty. Gen. Edwin Meese III’s chief spokesman, Terry H. Eastland, announced Monday that Meese fired him for failing to defend the attorney general aggressively enough against “any and all criticism,” a move that left even some of Meese’s staunchest supporters shaking their heads in disbelief.

Eastland, 38, a conservative who is highly respected by political appointees and career attorneys at the Justice Department, as well as reporters covering the embattled attorney general, decided to resign his $77,500-a-year post immediately even though Meese had given him 30 days to leave.

In a letter to Meese, Eastland said that the department’s Office of Public Affairs, which he headed, “has an obligation to serve not only the attorney general but also the Department of Justice and the American people.”

Calls Action ‘Astonishing’

Meese’s chief speech writer, William A. Schambra, also resigned immediately Monday, in protest of Eastland’s dismissal. Schambra said that he found Meese’s action “astonishing,” adding that it left him “perplexed and deeply disturbed.”

Several Justice Department officials linked Eastland’s removal to what they predicted would be an all-out fight by Meese in response to an expected report later this month by independent counsel James C. McKay on his yearlong investigation of the attorney general. The officials said Meese did not believe that Eastland would be effective in that battle.

Eastland told a press conference that he knew nothing of such strategy but did add: “As I saw things, it would be difficult for me to be as aggressive as he might like.” He described himself as “someone who could not be indifferent to what might be contained in, or flow from, the independent counsel’s report.”

McKay has been investigating Meese on a number of legal matters, including his role in a controversial $1-billion Iraqi pipeline project and actions he took that benefited the scandal-torn Wedtech Corp. The independent counsel has indicated that he is unlikely to indict the attorney general and will instead issue a detailed report.

Eastland and Schambra, who was on leave from the American Enterprise Institute, are the third and fourth high-ranking department officials to leave because of Meese’s legal troubles. Deputy Atty. Gen. Arnold I. Burns, the department’s No. 2 official, and Assistant Atty. Gen. William F. Weld, chief of the criminal division, resigned in unison March 29 to distance themselves from Meese’s legal difficulties. Several of their aides quit as well.

Bennett Offers Job

Eastland’s removal drew critical comments from some of the Administration’s leading conservative supporters. One noted conservative within the Cabinet, Education Secretary William J. Bennett, praised Eastland as “an excellent man” and offered him a job at his department.

Sen. Strom Thurmond (R-S.C.), usually a key Administration ally in his role of ranking minority member on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said he was surprised and concerned over Eastland’s dismissal. After McKay issues his report, Thurmond said, the Judiciary Committee will conduct hearings at which Meese and “interested witnesses” will be asked to testify.

Meese likened his dismissal of Eastland to a change of management by Edward Bennett Williams, owner of the loss-prone Baltimore Orioles. The attorney general told colleagues that he wanted someone as chief spokesman who would get the “Justice Department’s story out.”

“Basically, I decided this was a good time for a change in leadership,” Meese told reporters after Eastland’s announcement. “This was a matter basically of my determination that for the rest of the year we could use some new leadership, and he was agreeable to that.”

Korten Named to Post

Meese named Eastland’s deputy, Patrick S. Korten, to succeed him as public affairs director. Korten, 40, has a more combative style than Eastland and appears to relish the opportunity to respond in personal terms to criticism of Meese by such outspoken Democratic senators as Carl Levin of Michigan and Howard M. Metzenbaum of Ohio.

Eastland, in a policy that Korten said he believes is correct, had been referring questions about McKay’s investigation to Meese’s personal lawyers, Nathan Lewin and James E. Rocap.

Korten, however, sometimes chose to respond to such queries. He questioned, for example, the impartiality of highly critical reports by a Senate subcommittee headed by Levin on Meese’s financial dealings and actions that affected Wedtech.

Praises Meese

On Monday, he praised Meese as “a very ethical man, a very moral man. I think that comes, moreover, from a deep-seated religious background. I know him to be, from my experience in recent years, a fine, decent individual who always does what is right and moral and ethical.”

Much of McKay’s investigation on Meese focuses on actions he took as a government official that benefited his longtime friend and former lawyer, E. Robert Wallach, and on assistance that Wallach extended to Meese. The actions by the attorney general involved Wedtech, a now-bankrupt defense contractor that Wallach served as a consultant, and the Iraqi pipeline project, which was never built but resulted in a $150,000 fee for Wallach as a promoter.

The independent counsel is also looking into Meese’s dealings with W. Franklyn Chinn, a former financial adviser to him and Wallach. Chinn has been indicted on federal racketeering and conspiracy charges that include accusations he accepted funds from Wedtech to help influence Meese.

Some sources believe that the action taken by Meese on Monday would harm the attorney general rather than help him.

Eastland Defended

One senior Administration official and outspoken conservative, for example, said that Eastland has held “one of the toughest jobs in government during the last six months and I think Ed Meese has been well served by him.”

“It’s a mystery to me why he would do this at this particular time--before the special prosecutor’s report.”

Two of Meese’s closest advisers at the Justice Department, Assistant Attys. Gen. William Bradford Reynolds and Charles J. Cooper, did not know in advance of Meese’s decision to remove Eastland, associates said. Neither returned a reporter’s calls.

At his press conference, Eastland said he felt “no anger at all at the attorney general” and said Meese “never asked me to do anything I regarded as unethical.”