Taking responsibility is key to leadership

? Even in this democratic age, some organizations have clung to the hierarchical principle and been admired for it. Through two decades of declining trust in representative institutions notably, quarrelsome legislatures and Congress the American people have continued to express their esteem for the military and for the Roman Catholic Church, whether or not they had any affiliation with them.

But organizations with clear chains of command risk their reputations when those in charge refuse to accept responsibility for things that go wrong. That is why this city is far more upset with its devious cardinal than with its wastrel politicians and also why Washington is so contemptuous of the Army secretary who passed the buck to an underling for a conspicuous violation of discipline.

Cardinal Bernard Law and Army Secretary Thomas White are only two of the most conspicuous practitioners of the game of accountability dodge ball. But because the institutions they represent are so important to this country, their sorry examples send a really alarming message.

So much has been said and so powerfully about Cardinal Law, especially by those like E.J. Dionne, Mary McGrory and Maureen Dowd, who share his faith, that I was inclined as a non-Catholic to restrain myself. But a visit here on a political reporting trip last week brought home the anger and frustration so many of the good people of this city are feeling.

The outrage has been building ever since The Boston Globe revealed that known pedophile priests had been sheltered from prosecution, moved from parish to parish and promoted to more important positions. As the scandal spread across the country, demands for Law’s resignation grew ever louder here to all of which he has turned a deaf ear.

The fury climaxed at least for now last week when extensive excerpts from the cardinal’s deposition by lawyers representing 86 alleged victims of sexual abuse by clergy he supervised were published on two full pages of the Globe.

What Bostonians read was a series of evasions and memory lapses that would have done credit to any Enron executive. When Law took over his duties in 1984, one of the first pieces of mail to reach him came from a parishioner, Marge Gallant, telling him that three nephews and four grand-nephews had been abused by Father John Geoghan.

Law confirmed that it was his writing and signature on a letter asking his deputy to make an “urgent” inquiry. But he swore under oath that he could not recall receiving the Gallant letter or writing the instruction. And when asked why he had approved Geoghan’s transfer to another parish, where his abuses allegedly continued, he said there must have been approval from some physician or other “professionally competent” person. But darned if he could identify that mystery man or produce a letter to that effect. And when the bishop of the parish to which Geoghan was assigned protested in writing to Cardinal Law, he couldn’t recall receiving that letter either.

In a classic buck-passing comment, Law said, “My presumption would be that those assisting me in handling these matters would have also done what was appropriate.” You can see why people are spitting mad here.

Secretary White’s wrongdoing is, fortunately, of a lesser order, but it tarnishes the Army, in which he rose to the rank of brigadier general before retiring and becoming an executive of, yes, Enron. White’s boss, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, was preparing to cancel development of the Army’s Crusader artillery system when, mysteriously, a set of Army “talking points” reached members of Congress, alerting them that Rumsfeld was out for “a quick kill” that would “put soldiers at risk” in future combat.

Circulation of this scurrilous accusation was blamed by the Army inspector general, not on White and not on the major general who is White’s liaison with Congress, but on a deputy in the Army’s congressional relations office. That official, Kenneth Steadman, resigned “voluntarily” from his $118,000-a-year job.

But there can be little doubt he was doing what he thought the boss wanted. White had been an outspoken advocate of the Crusader system. The IG report that exonerated him also said that when he was officially advised on April 30 that Crusader’s days were probably numbered, he instructed his subordinates to keep telling anyone who asked that the Army still supported Crusader because it was part of the president’s January budget.

The talking points were written on the basis of that instruction by an unnamed official other than Steadman and distributed by Steadman, ostensibly acting on his own. White professed to be shocked, shocked at what was going on.

In the church or in the military, shucking responsibility is shameful. That’s a lesson that Cardinal Law and Army Secretary Thomas White obviously haven’t learned.


David Broder is a columnist for Washington Post Writers Group.