2nd Meese Choice Also Belongs to All-White Club

WASHINGTON —  Francis A. Keating II, like the other top deputy just nominated by Atty. Gen. Edwin Meese III, belongs to an all-white country club, raising the prospect that both could face difficulties in being confirmed as Justice Department officials.

Keating, now assistant Treasury secretary for enforcement and tapped for the No. 3 job at Justice, listed a stock share in the Southern Hills Country Club in Tulsa, Okla., on his 1987 financial disclosure form. A club official, who did not want to give his name, confirmed that Keating is still a member.

It was reported last week that John C. Shepherd, named by Meese to fill the job of deputy attorney general--the No. 2 post--is a member of the all-white Bellerive Country Club and the all-male Missouri Athletic Club in the St. Louis area.

Keating and Shepherd have yet to be formally nominated by President Reagan and still face confirmation hearings by the Senate. Keating would succeed Associate Atty. Gen. Stephen S. Trott, who has been named a federal appellate judge in California.

The president of Southern Hills, Thomas J. Hughes, said that although he is “not steeped in the tradition” of the club, “to my knowledge there never has been a black member.”

Keating also was once a member of another all-white club in Tulsa, the Tulsa Club.

But Charles Adams, office manager for the Tulsa Club, said Keating “resigned his membership when he left town.”

Keating, 44, was out of the country on a business trip Saturday and could not be reached for comment. Terry Eastland, a Justice Department spokesman, declined to comment.

Shepherd, a former president of the American Bar Assn., was recommended by Meese last Tuesday to fill the deputy attorney general’s job after the resignation March 29 of Arnold I. Burns.

Burns quit along with Assistant Atty. Gen. William F. Weld because of their apparent concern about the 11-month criminal investigation of Meese.