010674 Birth Control Pace-Setting Program, Is Under Inquiry for illegal money laundering

By ROY REED

NEW ORLEANS, Jan. 5-A family planning program here that has been hailed as a pacesetter in the struggle to control, the world's population is under heavy attack from two level's of government.

Federal and state officials are investigating a wide range, of charges against the Louisiana Family Planning Program,: which is administered by Family Health Foundation, a non-1 profit corporation, with public and private money.

The program is helping devise birth control and heath programs in Brazil, Colombia and Mexico and has helped start a system in Illinois similar to the one in Louisiana.

Officials of the program have been accused of misusing millions of the $62-5-million of
Federal, state and private money it has spent since it's founding in 1966. 

They have been accused of trying to buy political support in a number of places from the
White House to the Louisiana Governor's office, using favors, contracts patronage and lavish entertainment. Some have been accused of profiting pe ,a ly from their official connections.

Early Indictments Hinted

investigators say privately  that they expect indictments by a Federal grand jury in the coming weeks. The possibility of state indictments as well as Federal has also been raised.

Dr. Joseph D. Beasley, chairman of Family Health Foundation, has predicted that he will be indicted. He charged that the massive investigation had been inspired by Louisiana's "organized medicine" and its public health bureaucracy, which, he said, felt threatened by the effectiveness of his program.

The state has canceled its $ 1 0-million-a-year contract with Family Planning for birth control services and is providing its financial support on a month-to-month basis. Family Planning's future will be in jeopardy if it does not get a new state contract.

In addition, serious questions have been raised about the effectiveness of the program , which has been studied widely by birth control people for its methods and its claimed success in this heavily Roman Catholic state.

-Investigations Under Way

The state's tabulation and analysis office has challenged the program's claim of having significantly reduced the Louisiana birth rate. A spokesman or that office said that the program's administrators had "lied" and manipulated statistic. He said that Family Planning, had simply attached itself to a descending curve of birth rates that began years before the organization was formed, then took credit for the portion of the curve that occurred after its formation., Family Planning replied that this was not true, that the, birth decrease had become more pronounced during the last two years.

The program is being investigated by the United States Attorney in New Orleans and by auditors from the Department of Health, Education and Welfare, the Department of Housing and Urban Development  and the Agency for International. Development.

On the state level, it is being investigated by the Attorney General and the Commissioner of Health and Rehabilitation Services.

The House Banking Committee, headed by Representative Wright Patman, Democrat of Texas, reportedly is looking into a connection the program has, with a banker who helped form a company that bought a jet airplane from Family Planning, then leased it back to the oranization,

A number of things have made the Louisiana program interesting to students of population control. First, Dr. Beasley held hundreds of quiet meetings during the mid-1960's with Catholic officials and their political friends to assure them that he intended to operate with no fanfare and that he would not counsel abortion.

Next, he and his associates,many of them young and dynamic like himself, gained the
confidence of the poor, black,community, where most of their efforts would be concentrated.
The program now serves more than 100,000 women across the state.  Black people were hired for high positions in the organization helping quiet charges that this was a program of black genocide.

Using sophisticated management techniques - and many high-paid experts-Dr. Beasley expanded the program recently to provide comprehensive medical care for the entire population of selected poverty areas in New Orleans. That alarmed private doctors and they began to work against him, he said.

"Politically, I made a mistake, there, he said in an interview this week.

Dr. Charles C. Mary, the: State Commissioner of Health  and Rehabilitation Services,  said that if any physicians opposed the program it was because Dr. Beasley and his questionable  practices were "giving medicine a black eye."'

Laundered Money Charge

One of  more spectacular charges against family Planning. is that it "laundered" $200,000 of Federal money through several private organizations and companies earlier this year, passed it to the state government and caused it to be used 
here to get $1.8 million more in Federal matching funds from H.E.W. it is illegal to use Federal money to attract more Federal money.

One of the intervening organizations, according to H.E.W. auditors, was Tulane University. Dr. Beasley was dean of public health at the university and a number of Family Planning's  employees are on the Tulane  payroll. Dr. Herbert Longenecker, president of Tulane, has testified before the Grand Jury.  He has denied knowing of any "laundering" scheme,

Dr. Beasley acknowledged  that money  had passed through  the intervening organizations. But  he contended that it was  money obtained from private
sources, not the Government, Besides, he said, some of the money was used to buy consulting services from one of the intervening companies.

Another charge being investigated is that Gov. Edwin W. Edwards accepted a free ride to Las Vegas for a holiday on a jet airplane that is under lease to Family Planning. He says nothing was wrong with that because he accepted the ride from the owner of the plane, not from Family Planning. Mr. Edwards has been one of Family Planning's main defenders during the investigation.

One of the organization's lawyers is Harry Dent, the former counsel to President Nixon. Another is former Senator Joseph Tydings of Maryland.

Dr. Beasley has vigorously those actions. He has said for example that Mr. Dent helped ease the way for the organization in the Washington.

He says Family Planning must bring in about $500 000 a week, in grants or private donations to finance its $20-mjllion budget, and that that calls for constant contact with sources of money.

He justifies the organization's heavy spending for entertaininment-thousands of dollars a year at at Antoine's. the New Orleans restaurant, for example on the same grounds.

State and Federal officials charged with overseeing Family Planning's spending are aroused over the organization's handling of a contract to build a  number of small clinics around the state.

The 37 clinics built like mobile homes specially equipped and designed were to cost $2 million. Family Planning used $1.3 million of Federal funds for them. against regulations that prohibit such construction with Federal money, according to the auditors.

H.E.W. auditors said Family Planning ordered the clinics built without competitive bids. Dr. Beasley says bids were taken, but the bid file that would prove it has been lost.