most curious events in Bermuda's political history. It is curious mostly because the details have been revealed to the Press by Mr. Pearman himself.

While we should be the last to give up a good news story, it does seem to us that Mr. Pearman would have been wise very early on in the controversy to issue a blanket denial and then remain silent. Instead he chose to go public with a strong denial which also contained all sorts of details of what appears to have been a conversation with Premier Pamela Gordon.

The way Bermuda's Government is structured, Police Commissioner Colin Coxall is duty bound to tell the Governor, as his direct superior and as the person responsible for internal security, anything which his officers discovered which might impact on a Cabinet Minister. The Governor, in turn, is duty bound to tell the Premier of such information concerning one of her closest associates.

Government House, through the Deputy Governor, has denied several times that there was any investigation of Mr. Pearman and we do not believe there was.

Therefore it would seem that anything which came to light did so accidentally in the process of Operation Cleansweep investigations. Mr. Pearman has said that there was an issue of cheques written to people for work around his home which turned up in Operation Cleansweep. Many Bermudians write cheques to people who do small jobs for them and who is to know where they wind up.

But the fact is that no-one is above the law and the Police were bound to check any matters which arose as a result of Operation Cleansweep. Mr. Pearman has come very close in his denials to implying that because he was a Cabinet Minister he should have been left entirely alone. That would have been wrong.

His threats to resign from the UBP and sit in the House as an Independent put totally unnecessary strain on his own marginal government.

The Premier and the Deputy Premier have both come out backing Mr. Pearman.

There are also indications that he has the support of his Cabinet colleagues.

As a politician, we would think that would be enough to satisfy Mr. Pearman.

Yet Mr. Pearman seems to have been intent on placing blame for this incident on the Governor and Police Commissioner Coxall, who seem only to have done what they were duty bound to do. It has been claimed that the Governor wanted Mr. Pearman's resignation but we doubt seriously if the Governor would ever have gone that far, especially since he is an experienced diplomat and does not have the constitutional power to do so.

Now Premier Gordon has said that the Governor received "bad advice'' and was new to Bermuda. That seems to cloud the issue even more because anyone who might have given the Governor advice would not have been new to Bermuda. Aside from the Deputy Governor, the Governor's advisors are the same as the Government's. It is too easy to blame the Governor because he and the Police Commissioner are bound by secrecy on this matter and have, quite correctly, remained silent. Mr. Pearman chose to go public with the issue and he may or may not have made the correct decision. But, having gone public, he cannot blame the publicity on other people.

Both the Deputy Governor and the Acting Premier, Jerome Dill, tried very hard to put an end to the affair by declaring the matter closed. Since there was no investigation of Mr. Pearman, that seems to have been a very sensible stand to take.