Here is a chronology of major developments in the story involving Attorney General Edwin Meese's wife, Ursula, and the Bender real estate transaction. Aug. 8, 1984: Congress approves a Reagan administration plan to move some Justice Department workers from the Chester Arthur Building and to give up 37 percent of its space when the lease expires in March 1986. March 1, 1985: Howard Bender, a Washington real estate developer, heads a partnership which completes purchase of the Chester Arthur Building for $37.5 million, nearly twice the assessed value and three times its purchase price about five years earlier. June 6, 1985: The administration notifies Congress the Justice Department intends to stay in the Chester Arthur Building, instead of moving out some employees. June 1985: Officials of the Justice Department's Immigration and Naturalization Service, the major tenant in the building, forward complaints to the General Services Administration _ the government's housekeeper _ that the building's air system is causing illness among workers. Fall 1985: Officials at WWDC, a rock-and-roll radio station owned by the Bender family, offer Attorney General Edwin Meese's wife, Ursula, a position as a public affairs commentator. She declines the offer. Sept. 26, 1985: Assistant immigration commissioner James Kennedy formally requests an environmental inspection of the air system at Chester Arthur. October 1985: The Bender Foundation, a family-owned philanthropy, makes known that it is willing to donate money to pay Ursula Meese as a development director of the Multiple Sclerosis Society, where she has been a volunteer. Howard Bender's wife, Sondra, is president of the foundation and serves on the MS society board. Jan. 1, 1986: Mrs. Meese begins a $40,000-a-year job, under the Bender Foundation's three-year grant. July 2, 1986: Environmental inspectors report ``many offices in the Chester Arthur Building which exhibited high complaint rates and above-average sick leave occurences contained viable aero-allergens in concentrations which could easily produce these effects.'' May 14, 1987: The GSA signs a $50 million, 10-year lease for Justice Department workers to stay in the Chester Arthur Building after the Bender partnership promises to clean the air system. The rent jumps more than three-fold. May 27, 1987: The partnership headed by Howard Bender sells the Chester Arthur Building for $60.1 million cash _ a $22.7 million profit over two years _ to an Illinois-based partnership.
