Honest Graft: Big Money and the American Political Process.

• Author: Stern, Philip M.

Honest Graft: Big Money and the American Political Process. Brooks Jackson. Knopf, $18.95. A disclaimer: I am a long-time admirer of Brooks Jackson and, in my own writing, drew heavily from his work as an investigative reporter for The Wall Street Journal. So I approached Jackson's book with high expectations. He has not disappointed me.

Jackson was granted an exceptional insider's view by a remarkable agreement he reached with California's Rep. Tony Coelho, then chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the DCCC. For reasons of his own, the ambitious Coelho permitted Jackson to sit in on all the committee's staff meetings and, even more extraordinary, to read all of the staff reports to Coelho. In addition, Coelho spent hours with Jackson, confiding to him and his tape recorder.

Jackson, usually a hard-bitten skeptic, betrays his admiration-even while recounting Coelho's questionable money-raising tactics and painting him as morally schizoid. He repeatedly calls Coelho a "would-be priest," referring to the lawmaker's early desire to enter the priesthood, an ambition thwarted by a teen-age car accident and the Catholic church's inscrutable rule barring men subject to epileptic seizures from the priesthood.

Yet as a young congressional aide in 1970, this "would-be priest" failed to report to federal prosecutors what Jackson terms a $500 "bribe attempt" by a lobbyist, because "he didn't want to stir a scandal." (Coelho did, however, return the $500.) Years later, as a congressman, the "would-be priest" also readily accepted a free ride in Philip Morris's jet aircraft, and finagled campaign contributions from business interests, occasionally in the most heavy-handed manner. In 1984, Coelho dispatched a letter to the Home Builders' chief lobbyist, soliciting campaign funds for New Jersey Rep. Joseph Minish, and reminded the lobbyist that Minish mus the fourth highest member of the House Banking Committee, which handles subsidies worth billions to the home builders. Coelho's letter said that the hesitation of the builders' political action committee in making the $5,000 maximum allowable contribution to Minish "causes us to be concerned that the [good relationship the homebuilders have had with House Democrats] will be damaged.,, To underline its authority Coelho had the letter signed by the chairman of the banking committee, by Jim Wright, then Majority Leader, and, most important, by the Speaker of the House, Tip O'Neill.

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