Monday, April 8, 1996 | 11:59 a.m.
KEN MCCALL is a Las Vegas SUN columnist. His column runs Mondays and Fridays. He can be reached at 259-4095 or [email protected]
IT'S BECOME fashionable in some circles to believe that the federal government is one colossal conspiracy to enslave a naive nation.
The problem with the Big Brother theory, in my book, is that it assumes a level of competence the federal bureaucracy has never displayed.
Oh sure, in certain critical cases the feds can bring impressive resources to bear on an investigation. One is tempted to cite the Oklahoma bombing and Unabomber examples, except it took monumental stupidity of one suspect in the former and a tip from a family member in the latter to break both of them.
In day-to-day operations, though, the federal bureaucracy I hear about can hardly keep from tripping over its own feet, much less maintain and hide a massive conspiracy.
Consider, if you will, the story of one Al C. Griffin.
It wasn't enough that the Social Security Administration cut off his wife's disability, claiming she was fit to work, about four months before she died of leukemia.
It wasn't enough that when Social Security finally reinstated her eligibility a couple weeks before her death in July they sent her checks to the wrong bank.
It wasn't enough that the bank made mistakes resulting in the freezing of his account and retirement check for weeks.
It wasn't even enough that the federal government declared him dead in September and cut off his retirement checks altogether.
What really ticks Griffin off is that -- despite having mailed 21 death certificates to various agencies -- he's still receiving letters from Social Security warning his wife that she'd better turn up at her disability hearing this Friday or her benefits could be cut off.
"I tell you," says Griffin, "this is the craziest thing I have ever seen in my life."
The retired Navy aircraft mechanic looks older than his 57 years, but dressed in jeans and white T-shirt with rolled up sleeves, he still looks like a Navy man.
Sitting in his battered trailer on Owens Avenue next to the MASH shelter, Griffin frequently shakes his head as he tells his story, his creased face lighting up in a perplexed, rueful grin.
Especially when it comes to the part where he turns up dead.
"I thought it was a joke to begin with, until somebody stopped my Navy retirement checks."
When he called the Navy office in Cleveland to investigate, he was told his record had been purged because he was deceased.
"I says, 'Well, how do I get back alive?'" he recalls with a chuckle.
He was told he could go to any federal installation to prove he was still breathing.
If only it had been that simple.
Griffin went out to Nellis Air Force Base and the folks out there thought it was "real funny."
"The woman who was handling my case just about croaked up. She said, 'Well, you're there ain't you.'"
Eventually a puzzled supervisor filled out some form, but when Griffin faxed it to Cleveland, they said an Air Force form was no good.
"So I beat my head against the wall," Griffin says.
"Then I went out to the Social Security on Sahara and they got very mad because I got very mad. I told the guard out there he was sick and that whole outfit out there was sick and I didn't want nothing to do with them."
Finally, the Marines came to the rescue. Griffin got ahold of a Marine Corps officer in Colorado who told him what to do.
He then called the Navy Reserve office in San Diego and they got together on a three-way conference call to verify Griffin's vital signs.
"It cost me $82 to get back alive," he says holding up the phone bill.
Now if he can only convince Social Security his wife is dead.
Griffin's wife got a letter just two weeks ago notifying her of her April 12 disability hearing.
"That's kind of hard to do," he deadpans.
Griffin's written twice and sent a death certificate to the Carson City office, but the letters just keep on coming. He figures he's gotten close to a dozen, plus a big package since his wife died.
"OK, 11 letters times 35 cents, it ain't a great lot," he says, losing his smile. "But how many other people have died and they're sending them all this stuff."
Then the government goes and announces how they're going to save all this money by cutting bogus disability cases.
Griffin laughs one more time.
"If they keep doing this, they aren't going to save nothing."
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