Jack Anderson Sticks to His Guns

A committee of journalists fired off a reprimand to columnist Jack Anderson for his “role in bringing a gun into the Capitol” but did not revoke his press credentials. He rejected the reprimand. “We believe that you abused your privilege as a credentialed member of the daily press gallery, and needlessly jeopardized the relationship reporters have with the Capitol police,” Jeffrey Birnbaum, of the Wall Street Journal, wrote in a letter to Anderson. Birnbaum is on the five-member Standing Committee of Correspondents, which was created by Congress to decide who should work in and to allocate space in the press galleries. Anderson responded with his own letter, saying that he knew that terrorists were planning to make the United States their target and that political leaders would be in danger. “I’m appalled that the congressional leaders whose lives I wanted to protect seem less concerned about the threat to their security than the political embarrassment I apparently caused them,” Anderson said. During the taping of an interview May 24 with Sen. Bob Dole (R-Kan.) in Dole’s office, Anderson pulled from his pocket a gun that had been hidden in his television crew’s equipment. He said he did it to demonstrate security lapses.

--Former White House aide Oliver L. North read from the Bible at the wedding of his brother, Timothy, in Utica, N.Y. “I haven’t granted an interview in two years and all I will say is that I am glad to be here for my brother’s wedding,” North said after the weekend ceremony at Sacred Heart Church. During the wedding, North read from the book of Psalms: “The Lord is kind and merciful to those who fear him.” Outside church, North posed with those who wanted their picture taken with the former Marine lieutenant colonel. That included a woman holding up a North T-shirt and telling him he was her hero. A federal jury in Washington last month convicted North of three felonies in the Iran-Contra scandal.

--Former President Ronald Reagan will be honored at the National Cowboy Hall of Fame on July 21 in Oklahoma City. Reagan will be inducted into the Hall of Great Westerners, which salutes people who made significant contributions to Western heritage, and the Western Performers Hall of Fame, which honors actors whose portrayals have kept the lore of the Old West alive. As the former host of TV’s “Death Valley Days” and star of Western movies, Reagan exemplified the cowboy hero admired by generations, museum officials said.