Path: bloom-picayune.mit.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!americast.com!americast.com!americast-post Newsgroups: americast.twt.news From: americast-post@AmeriCast.Com Organization: American Cybercasting Approved: americast-post@AmeriCast.com Subject: AID boss ending turbulent tenure Date: Thu, 19 Nov 92 15:23:03 EST Message-ID: \SE A;WORLD \HD AID boss ending turbulent tenure \BY Warren Strobel \CR THE WASHINGTON TIMES Ronald Roskens, whose tenure as administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development was marred by conflict-of-interest charges and strained relations with Capitol Hill, announced his resignation yesterday. AID, which administers more than $7 billion annually in U.S. foreign aid, said Mr. Roskens will leave about Dec. 1 to become president of Action International, a private foreign policy group. He has run the agency since March 1990. Mr. Roskens' travel practices came under scrutiny last year when AID's inspector general, retired Gen. Herbert Beckington, questioned $10,000 in honorariums and travel reimbursements that he accepted from private groups for himself and his wife, Lois. White House Counsel C. Boyden Gray cleared the former University of Nebraska president of wrongdoing and said he inadvertently violated "applicable standards of conduct" twice. Mr. Roskens repaid a $3,000 honorarium and $580 in travel expenses he received for a May 1990 speech at Metropolitan Community College in Omaha, Neb. A subsequent investigation by Congress' General Accounting Office discovered that private groups had paid the AID administrator's $1,100 hotel bills on two trips in 1990. One of the groups, Agricultural Cooperative Development International, was a major AID contractor. Mr. Roskens, who repaid the $1,100, had submitted expense claims for the hotel bills. Last month, Rep. John Conyers, Michigan Democrat and chairman of the House Government Operations Committee, called on President Bush to fire Mr. Roskens, who he said "abused his public office for private gain." A report by the committee staff has not been made public. "It's good to wipe the slate clean in one agency which had decayed badly under the current leadership," Mr. Conyers said. "The incoming administration now has the door open to consider the right policy and new directions AID should be guided toward." AID has struggled to find a new role now that foreign aid is no longer a Cold War weapon and enjoys less public support. The Bush administration largely bypassed the agency when it devised a package of assistance for the former Soviet republics. The agency's deputy administrator, Mark Edelman, left the government Friday. This article is copyright 1992 The Washington Times. Redistribution to other sites is not permitted except by arrangement with American Cybercasting Corporation. For more information, send-email to usa@AmeriCast.COM