At Issue: Integrity

A reporter for The Washington Post was trying to determine exactly when Republican presidential candidate Marion G. (Pat) Robertson had gotten married. Was Robertson married on March 22, 1954, as he had told the Post a few months earlier, or was he married on August 27,1954, as The Wall Street Journal had reported the day before?

In conceding to the Post reporter that the August date was the accurate one, meaning that his first son had been conceived before Robertson and his wife were married, Robertson complained, "I have never had this kind of precision demanded of me before."

Such a statement, coming from a longtime television evangelist now turned politician, raises several interesting questions. First, why must such "precision"--some would call it truth--be demanded of Robertson? Is there some reason, other than his stated desire to protect his family, why Robertson cannot be more open and forthcoming about the details of his life?

Second, if political life has demanded more precision and honesty from Robertson than did his 26 years as a minister of the gospel, what does that say about the moral and ethical standards of powerful television ministries? Must a political candidate be more truthful than an influential televangelist?

Finally, Robertson's wedding date is only the latest of several "details" of his life to be "corrected." Other such details involve his education, his profession, his military record, his finances, his membership on a bank's board of directors, his autobiography, and his family life. Robertson has charged reporters trying to get the facts straight with "nit-picking."

But, when seen together, the numerous cases of exaggeration or "imprecise" wording suggest a pattern of inaccuracy and distortion that raises doubts about Robertson's honesty and integrity. With what other facts or issues has Robertson been "sloppy," to use his word? Can someone who has misled the public on small matters be trusted on issues of greater personal or political consequence?

In Robertson's 1984 book, Answers to 200 of Life's Most Probing Questions, he defined a lie as "a deliberate attempt to deceive by use of any form of untruth. By words, gestures, circumstances, or silence, an attempt may be made to convince another that there is a reality different from what we know to be true." And Robertson adamantly defends his own truthfulness, saying, "I have not lied... about my marriage or anything."

BUT ROBERTSON SEEMS to have a history of distorting the facts or exaggerating the importance of his accomplishments, a history of portraying himself to have done things he did not do and to be things he is not. For example:

- Robertson said he made his campaign announcement in the low-income Brooklyn neighborhood of Bedford-Stuyvesant because his ministry began there, and he wanted to re-emphasize his roots: compassion for the poor. In fact, Robertson and his family stayed at a friend's house in Bedford-Stuyvesant for 12 weeks in 1959.

- Robertson's resume has been revised to reflect the fact that "graduate study, University of London" actually represented his enrollment in an introductory summer class on British art for U.S. students.

- The biography in Robertson's 1986 book, America's Dates With Destiny, says he is a "Yale-educated tax lawyer." While Robertson did graduate from Yale Law School, he failed the New York state bar exam and, therefore, has never practiced any type of law.

- For years Robertson referred to himself as a "Marine combat officer" in the Korean War, but he was never involved in fighting, serving instead as an administrative clerk in a headquarters office. Robertson has filed a libel suit against a former member of Congress who said Robertson had used the influence of his late father, then a U. S. senator, to avoid combat duty.

- In December 1985, Robertson said on NBC's "Meet the Press" that the Christian Broadcasting Network had released a public financial statement, but no such document existed. Robertson ordered his staff to prepare such a statement, and when it was completed in July 1986, he put a 1985 copyright date on it. Several months ago Robertson released a statement that said his 1986 salary from the CBN was $60,000. Later revelations indicated Robertson received far more than that, and after his staff initially refused to disclose his full CBN income, they finally reported in late October that Robertson had earned $202,000 last year.

- Robertson has said many times that he sits on the board of directors of a "multibillion-dollar bank." But officials of the bank deny that claim, saying Robertson is one of 400 people asked to serve only on a local advisory board that has no authority.

- In Robertson's 1972 autobiography, Shout It From the Housetops, he said he did not campaign for his father's re-election because God told him not to. "I yearned to get into the fray and start swinging, but the Lord refused to give me the liberty," Robertson wrote. " 'I have called you to my ministry,' [God] spoke to my heart. 'You cannot tie my eternal purposes to the success of any political candidate...not even
your own father.'" But in the revised version of the book, issued last year, the same passage reads simply, "I yearned to get into the fray and start swinging."

Referring to another discrepancy in the autobiography, Robertson has said the book is "somewhat hyped up. It was a highly stylized work. It's essentially accurate...."

- Robertson, who often speaks against the breakdown of the American family, has portrayed himself as an excellent husband and father. But many people have questioned this image, given a story that Robertson himself has told many times to illustrate how devoted he is to God. It seems that when Robertson's wife, Dede, was eight months pregnant with their second child, Robertson felt called by God to go on retreat in Canada for several weeks. Dede pleaded with her husband to stay, but Robertson did go, leaving his wife alone to care for their toddler son, manage the final days of her pregnancy, and move the family to a new house. Robertson soon received a letter from his wife, begging him to return. But he wrote that she would have to manage on her own.

When Robertson was speaking to The Washington Post reporter about his wedding date and other discrepancies concerning his past, he said, "I would ask a little mercy....There's something in the Bible that says, 'Judge not that ye be not judged.'" But a man who has based his presidential campaign on "integrity" and "moral values" must be more realistic than that. His candidacy for this nation's highest elective office does, in effect, ask the U.S. public to judge him, and to judge him to be better than the other candidates.

THE POINT IS CERTAINLY not when Robertson was married or when his first child was born, though Robertson has attempted to reduce the issue to that. The issue is one of integrity, accountability, and how much one can trust a man who seems to value image and posturing over "precision" about his own life. Instead of complaining about the standards to which he is being held as a politician, Robertson, as a Christian, should hold himself to even higher standards.

In a political environment where two Democratic presidential candidates have been forced from the race by revelations about their own moral lapses, Robertson may be on to something when he says America is ready for a return to basic moral values. But, given Robertson's record of "sloppy" wording and "imprecise" posturing, he doesn't seem to be the one to lead the way.

Vicki Kemper was new editor of Sojourners when this article appeared.