WHEN I first came to Washington, fresh from academe, I was assigned by National Journal to write a story about a conference committee that was deadlocked over the use of Highway Trust Fund money for mass transit. The $23-billion authorization bill was the most significant piece of legislation likely to come out of the House Public Works Subcommittee on Transportation that year (1973), so I decided to interview its chairman, the late John Klucyznski, from Chicago.