Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, July 22, 1993                   TAG: 9309050299
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A10   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

FREEH

This involves erasing the divisive bitterness left behind by former Director William Sessions, fired by Clinton the day before Freeh's nomination. Even more, however, it involves upholding a professional rather than personal definition of the principle of an independent FBI.

Freeh appears to be an excellent choice for doing so, and for restoring agency morale.

The Sessions mess was a leftover inherited by Clinton from the final days of the Bush administration. In January, the Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility, based on sworn statements by 100 FBI agents, reported that Sessions had abused his office by mischarging the government for personal travel expenses, improperly billing the FBI nearly $10,000 for a fence around his home, and refusing to turn over documents on his $375,000 home mortgage, suspected by investigators to be a sweetheart deal.

Sessions claimed he was the victim of trumped-up charges by vindictive rivals. Given the ferocity of office politics at Justice during the Bush years, the claim was not utterly implausible. But the allegations against Sessions are lent credence by the conclusion of Clinton and Attorney General Janet Reno, neither involved in the intramural squabbles of a previous administration, that Sessions had to go.

At the least, the manner of Sessions' leavetaking suggests a misconceived sense of grandeur on his part. Rather than accept Clinton's invitation to resign gracefully, Sessions forced the president to fire him. Among other things, Sessions' insistence on a nasty parting diminished his many significant accomplishments, including the recruitment of more minority and women agents.

In refusing to resign, Sessions said he was upholding the independence of the FBI. But properly understood, the principle of FBI independence is not about some sort of privilege for the director to do anything he pleases, a la J. Edgar Hoover. It does not mean, to take one Sessions example, the right to bump agents from airline flights so your wife can have the seat.

Rather, it is about maintaining a professional, nonpolitical law-enforcement organization. On that score, Clinton should be given credit. For the new FBI director, the Democratic president has nominated a fairly recent (1991) Republican appointee to the federal bench.

During his short time as a judge, Freeh has not made a particularly distinctive mark. It is his pre-judiciary career, however, that provides his main credentials for the FBI post. In the No. 2 slot in the huge U.S. attorney's office in Manhattan, Freeh was noted as a careful but creative - and successful - prosecutor of complex cases. He also has been an undercover FBI agent, which should help him secure the respect of the bureau he is to run.

Freeh could prove an inspired choice to restore confidence in a troubled agency with a problematic past.