WASHINGTON — The annual Halloween dinner here of the "Pumpkin Papers Irregulars" brings together a small group of influential conservatives with long memories and strong views.
In 1984, the dinner featured President Reagan's spy chief, William J. Casey; a little-known Marine colonel named Oliver L. North, and a Washington lawyer who would have an impact on intelligence scandals for years: Laurence H. Silberman.
A few months later, Reagan named Silberman to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, and it proved to be a smart move. His dinner companion, North, had hatched the idea to secretly fund anti-Communist guerrillas in Nicaragua, and was convicted for his role in what became known as the Iran-Contra scandal.
Silberman wrote an opinion that voided the charges and effectively ended the prosecution of the Reagan White House.
Now, as the recently named co-chairman of a White House commission to look into intelligence lapses before the Iraq war, Silberman is once again in a position to review the failings of a Republican administration.
His co-chairman on the new commission is former Virginia Sen. Charles S. Robb, a moderate Democrat.
Silberman's past associations, from that private dinner with Washington's most militant cold warriors to his aggressive challenge of President Clinton both in the courtroom and behind the scenes, are raising questions about whether he was an appropriate choice to lead a dispassionate, impartial inquiry.
"He is fiercely partisan, pugnacious and very political," said Herman Schwartz, an outspoken, liberal law professor at American University. "He is an odd choice for a panel that is supposed to be above suspicion on a matter that is very important and potentially very partisan. Picking Silberman verges on the brazen. It's a thumb in the eye to those who were looking for a real investigation."
But if he is despised on the left, he is revered by many on the right. Michael Ledeen, a consultant to Reagan's National Security Council, praised Silberman's keen intellect, knowledge of foreign policy and intelligence issues and his "tough-minded, unsentimental" approach to any topic.
Silberman fit easily with the fervent anti-Communists who make up the "Pumpkin Papers Irregulars." They gather every Halloween to honor Whittaker Chambers, the ex-Communist who exposed the State Department's Alger Hiss in the late 1940s when he revealed stolen files that were hidden in a pumpkin on his Maryland farm.
