Newsgroups: bit.listserv.words-l
Date:         Thu, 8 Oct 1992 20:26:40 EST
From:         Entropy Warrior <AUSBROOK@UCS.INDIANA.EDU>
Subject:      Anthony Lewis on Brett Kimberlin

    In this country government officials cannot stop anyone from speaking, or
punish him afterward, because they dislike his political message. That basic
understanding of the First Amendment has just been reaffirmed by the Supreme
Court in the St. Paul cross-burning case.
   But the principle has not helped  Brett Kimberlin.  A Federal prison inmate,
he has been silenced and repeatedly punished for wanting to tell the world that
he sold marijuana to Dan Quayle.
    It is nearly four years now since Mr. Kimberlin first tried to talk to the
press about his charge. What was done to silence him has been reported from
time to time. But by delay and obfuscation, the Bush Administration has managed
so far to avoid real public focus on what by all signs was an outrageous,
political abuse of power.
   Mr. Kimberlin was scheduled to talk to the press on Nov. 4, 1988, four days
before the election, at a conference arranged by authorities at the Federal
prison in Oklahoma where he was then held. Regulations permitted such meetings
with the press.
   A top aide in the Bush-Quayle campaign, Mark Goodin, heard about the
scheduled conference. He telephoned the Justice Department's director of public
affairs, Loye Miller, to complain. Mr. Miller told higher Justice officials and
the Bureau of Prisons.
   The director of the bureau, J. Michael Quinlan, then ordered the press
conference canceled. And at 11 that night he ordered Mr. Kimberlin confined in
"the hole," a 4-by-6-foot detention cell.
   Mr. Quinlan said he isolated Mr. Kimberlin to protect him from reported
threats. It is now acknowledged that there were no such threats.
   On Nov. 7, the eve of the election, Mr. Kimberlin arranged to telephone
reporters. An hour before the call he was returned to "the hole."
   On Dec. 22, 1988, Mr. Kimberlin was put in detention. That was after The
Legal Times published an article about what had been done to him. Officials
explained that he had violated telephone regulations, but later he was found
innocent of that charge.
   A suit by Mr. Kimberlin against Mr. Quinlan and others could bring out the
facts. Federal Judge Harold H. Greene of Washington ruled on Aug. 6, 1991, that
there was sufficient evidence to justify a trial of Mr. Kimberlin's First
Amendment claim that he had been isolated and punished "because of the content
of what he was expected to say."
   But Mr. Quinlan and the others appealed, and the Court of Appeals will not
hear argument of the case until Oct. 16. Meanwhile Mr. Kimberlin's lawyers are
barred from questioning officials about their actions.
   Officials have denied any political motive in what they did to Mr.
Kimberlin. But they have not had to answer questions, and there are too many
supposed coincidences for the blanket denials to be credible.
   One more supposed coincidence is that the Federal Parole Commission has
treated Mr. Kimberlin with singular harshness. He was convicted of marijuana
smuggling, which he admits, and of bombings, which he denies. He was eligible
for release in 1989, but the commission has now scheduled it for February 1994.

   Erwin N. Griswold, the former dean of the Harvard Law School and Solicitor
General in the Nixon Administration, petitioned the Supreme Court
unsuccessfully on Mr. Kimberlin's behalf to review the bombing conviction
because prosecution witnesses had been hypnotized before their testimony. Dean
Griswold says he has found  Brett Kimberlin  "able and reliable."
   "Dean Griswold has been wonderful to me," Mr. Kimberlin said when I spoke to
him on the telephone. "He writes to me. He never forgets my birthday. He's been
like a grandfather."
   On his case Mr. Kimberlin said: "The marijuana smoking is really a
peccadillo. I just thought it was worth people knowing. But what's been done to
me since then is an injustice and an outrage. I've been punished and harassed
and threatened simply for saying what I knew."
   Yes, whether Vice President Quayle bought marijuana is a question of no
importance. But it matters a lot if officials manipulated the Federal prison
system at the behest of a political campaign. That question should be explored
in the way best designed to get the facts promptly: a Congressional hearing.


-Entropy Publishing