MILITARY SERVICE, OBITUARIES TWO GREAT EQUALIZERS

Two of the great equalizers in American life are military service and the obituary page. Regardless of wealth or station in life, all men and women are equal when they march to the sergeant's cadence in boot camp and when they harken to the final call.

One day last week, there was a basically unspectacular obituary page. Amongst those who had died were: Augie "Goo Goo" Galan, a decent National League outfielder of the '30s and '40s; a retired luxury liner captain; a prison chaplin; a trustee of a seminary.

Then there was an obit of modest length on Lauchlin Currie Juxtaposed, by coincidence, below a picture of former President Richard Nixon depicting Nixon applauding at the funeral of Rev. Norman Vincent Peale. Lauchlin Currie and Richard Nixon were strangely brought together on the obituary page.

Currie, a Harvard PhD in economics, went to work for the Federal Reserve Board in 1934 and ultimately became the chief economic advisor to Marriner Eccles, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve.

Eccles was one New Dealer who did understand - as Keynes understood - the underlying economic cause of what was going onin the Great Depression. "It was not primarily the result of failure of capital goods to expand; it was primarily the result of a contraction of consumer purchasing power at a time when consumer-goods inventories had been overexpanded by speculative forward buying on the part of businessmen." Lauchlin Currie supplied Eccles with the research materials and statistics to back up his analysis and conclusions.

Franklin Roosevelt didn't agree. He hated federal budget deficits. He had campaigned against them in 1932. he was determined to balance the budget by the time he left office. As Anne O'Hare McCormick wrote in 1937, "You must remember that Roosevelt is at heart a Dutch householder who carefully totes up his accounts every month."

Roosevelt, true to the spirit of his cousin Theodore, blamed the economic doldrums and the decline in buying power on the high price structure of monopoly enterprise. By early 1937, Roosevelt believed that recovery was on the way. Federal policies were structured to balance the budget in accord with "sound business practice." In the first nine months of 1937, the federal treasury had accumulated a $66 milion surplus. Suddenly, on October 17, the market crushed again.

Eccles, Currie and Leon Henderson (Harry Hopkins' economist) rushed to Hyde Park to confer with Roosevelt. The president was alarmed. Business had been demanding both a balanced budget and lower taxes. (Half a century later, in the Reagan recession of 1981-82, business wanted lower taxes, but conspicuously did not demand a balance budget.) Eccles had warned FDR a year earlier that it would be a disaster to attempt to balance the budget with unemployment at such high levels.

Eccles and Currie kept after him to increase government spending. In a deep slump, "prime the pump" they argued; Lord Maynard Keynes was right. Every president since Roosevelt has been an admitted or at least a closet Keynesian. Nixon, the man in the picture next to Currie's obit, said during his presidency, "We are all Keynesians now." Currie was one of the first.

And then there is the other Nixon-Currie nexus, this one most direct. In 1946 Richard Nixon was elected to Congress as a Commie fighter. In his campaign, he railed against "un-American elements, wittingly or otherwise." He became the only lawyer on the House Un-American Activities Committee. The two prominent witnesses before the Committee were Whittaker Chambers (the accuser of Alger Hiss) and Elizabeth Bentley, who alleged that various people were witting or unwitting Comunnist softies.

Curries was a Bentley target - one of the unwitting types, it wa alleged. having left the Federal Reserve for the White House staff, Currie had warned Roosevelt that the Chiang Kaishek regime was weak and falling into increasing disfavor with the people. In the mind set oof the House Un-American Activities Committe, harboring such views made you at the very least, an unwitting pinko softie.

Currie was hauled before the Committee. He denied Bentley's accusations under oath. He was never charged with any impropriety or perjury or any other violation of law. Nonetheless, he was ruined. "You never live down guilt by association," he mused.

He moved to Colombia, became an economic advisor to the government, and died there a week ago at age 91. In death, as in life, Currie and Nixon were entwined.