Capital Shaken by Congress Aide’s Suicide After Critical News Story

WASHINGTON â€”  Members of Congress and acquaintances expressed confusion and sadness Monday over the circumstances that prompted a Maryland congressman’s aide to leap to his death from a New York hotel window the day a critical story about him appeared in the Washington Post.

In the aftermath of the death of Thomas Pappas, 46, chief aide to Rep. Roy Dyson (D-Md.), some were troubled by the allegations that Pappas recruited young males for Dyson’s staff and then placed “unorthodox� demands upon their personal lives.

Others were dismayed that Pappas decided to take his own life even though friends had assured him that the story did not necessarily spell the end of his career and that he could overcome the allegations.

And some journalists raised questions about the way the newspaper handled a story that explored sensitive details of a little-known aide’s life, but left many of the precise facts uncertain.

Unusual Demands Alleged

In its front page story on Sunday, the Post detailed unusual social demands that Pappas allegedly made of male staff members in Dyson’s office. Those demands allegedly included ordering one new staffer to refrain from dating women during his first year on the job, demanding that aides accompany Pappas to social events at night, and on at least one occasion telling an aide he would be required to perform a striptease at a staff retreat.

At the time the story appeared, Pappas was in New York attending meetings and a play with Dyson.

On Sunday, according to New York police, Pappas scrawled “a sad little poem� on some hotel stationery, stepped off the ledge of his 24th-floor room on Manhattan’s East Side, and leaped to his death.

Dyson, a four-term congressman from the conservative eastern shore of Maryland, issued a short statement offering hope and prayer “that the tragedy of his death will not obscure his wonderful personal qualities and the many contributions he made.�

Drops Out of Sight

The Maryland representative dropped out of sight Monday, missing seven roll calls in the House, and even his Washington office said it did not know where he was.

Colleagues expressed sympathy. “I find it very difficult to be critical of Mr. Pappas at this point,� said Wayne Gilchrest, Dyson’s GOP opponent in the November election.

“It’s a real tragedy that anybody gets to the place where they feel the alternative is to take their life,� said Steny Hoyer, a Maryland congressman representing a nearby district.

However, he said: “All the reports indicate apparently Mr. Pappas apparently did some things that one would speculate from his actions that he felt were very wrong.�

Support for Pappas

Friends had advised Pappas the story was not that damaging. “‘I told him, ‘You’ve done nothing illegal, you’ve done nothing immoral, and therefore I think you can deal with this,’ � Pappas’ friend Michael Ford told the Post. Ford said Pappas nonetheless thought his career was irrevocably harmed.

Most journalists and politicians said the revelations about Pappas’ personal dealings with members of his staff were unusual. The conduct of congressional employees has gone largely unscrutinized, said Stephen Hess, a Brookings Institution scholar and author of “The Washington Reporters,� a study of press coverage of Capitol Hill.

But few thought Pappas’ conduct, that of a $72,200-a-year federal employee paid with public funds, should be off-limits to reporters.

“I think it was a perfectly proper piece of reporting,� said James Houck, managing editor of the Baltimore Sun, which also had been reporting heavily on evidence of alleged financial impropriety by Pappas. “I am really sorry that Pappas felt his problems were so desperate that ending his life was his only solution.�

The Wall Street Journal’s Washington Bureau chief, Al Hunt, said of Pappas’ conduct: “I think we can agree it was clearly unusual behavior.�

Journal Rejected Story

The Journal also had been working on a story about Pappas’ unusual office conduct, Hunt said, but decided more than a week ago not to publish it because it lacked sufficient national significance. The criteria for what is relevant to readers is different for the Washington Post, Hunt said, because the Post is the local paper for Dyson’s constituents.

Washington Post Executive Editor Benjamin C. Bradlee said in an interview that he had no second thoughts about the story. “None at all.�

But even some who defended the legitimacy of scrutinizing Pappas’ conduct raised concerns about the Post’s handling of the story, saying that too many questions about what occurred in Dyson’s office remain unresolved.

“Just what was the Post accusing him of?� asked Craig Whitney, the New York Times Washington Bureau chief. “It was not all that clear from their article.�

‘Sexual Harassment’

Said Hunt: “What hung over the story was a case of sexual harassment, in this case homosexual, but it was unspoken.�

The Post story never broached the subject of homosexuality directly, nor even used the word sexuality. “If you are going to raise the issue (of sexual misconduct) as they did, they should have been explicit about it,� said Jack Nelson, Washington Bureau chief of the Los Angeles Times, but he emphasized he thought the congressional aide’s conduct was a “legitimate� subject for scrutiny.

“It seems to me the Post didn’t quite have its story nailed down, or either didn’t quite have the fortitude to convey to its readers what the story really was,� said Robert Merry, managing editor of Congressional Quarterly.

Bradlee refused to discuss why the story did not treat the implication of sexual misconduct directly. “There was a conscious decision to write it the way we wrote it,� he said.

The Post said it became aware of Pappas’ conduct while pursuing stories that Pappas may have misused $6,650 in Dyson campaign funds, reportedly paid to other aides but in fact paid to Pappas.