A Journal of Free Voices June 13, 1986

MONDALE'S RIGHT TURN

BY THOMAS FERGUSON AND JOEL ROGERS

Business Buys a Candidate and Sells Out an Election • EDITORIAL Radically Defective

N THIS ISSUE, we are pleased to be able to bring you it-rx0BSERvER an excerpt from the forthcoming book by Thomas Ferguson of UT-Austin and Joel Rogers, Right Turn: The The Texas Observer Publishing Co.. 1986 I Decline of the Democrats and the Future of American Politics. Vol. 78, No. 12 June 13, 1986 The excerpt concentrates on the politics ofthe Mondale camp and the failure of those politics. It is adapted from a wide- Copyright 1986 by Texas Observer Publishing Company. All rights reserved. ranging chapter of the book, covering the 1984 Presidential Material may not be reproduced without permission. campaign. PUBLISHER Ronnie Dugger EDITOR Geoffrey Rips Many of you may have read an adaptation of the first chapter ASSOCIATE EDITOR Dave Denison of Right Turn, which appeared in the May 1986 Atlantic. CALENDAR EDITOR Chula Sims In that work, the authors state: LAYOUT AND DESIGN: Valerie Fowler The very structure of American politics has changed, with the EDITORIAL ASSISTANT: Kathleen Fitzgerald center of gravity of the American party system — including both WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Vera Titunik Democrats and Republicans — shifting to the right. Because the POLITICAL INTELLIGENCE: Dany Loy stakes are so high, it is important to consider closely the basic EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD: Frances Barton, Austin; Elroy Bode, Kerr- assumptions of political debate now shared by the two major ville; Chandler Davidson. Houston; Bob Eckhardt. Washington. D.C.; Sissy parties. Above all, it is vital to know if the central claim made Farenthold, Houston: Ruperto Garcia, Austin; John Kenneth Galbraith, Cam- by revisionist Democrats and Republicans alike — that a majority bridge, Mass.; Lawrence Goodwyn, Durham. N.C.; George Hendrick, Urbana, of the public has reached a stable, well-informed consensus on Ill.; Molly Ivins, Dallas; Larry L. King. Washington, D.C.; Maury Maverick. the desirability of right, or center-right, policies — is true. Jr., San Antonio: Willie Morris. Oxford. Miss.: Kaye Northcott. Austin; James Presley. Texarkana, Tx.: Susan Reid. Austin; A. R. (Babe) Schwartz. Galveston; We do not believe that it is. While there is overwhelming Fred Schmidt. Tehachapi, Cal., Robert Sherrill. Tallahassee. Fla. evidence of a policy realignment, there is little direct evidence CONTRIBUTING WRITERS: Warren Burnett. Jo Clifton. Craig Clifford, Louis that mass public sentiment has turned against the domestic Dubose, John Henry Faulk, Ed Garcia. Bill Helmer. James Harrington, Jack Hop- programs of the New Deal, or even the most important components per, Amy Johnson, Michael King. Dana Loy, Rick Piltz. Susan Raleigh. John of the Great Society, and little evidence of a stable shift to the Schwartz, Michael Ventura, Lawrence Walsh. right in public attitudes on military and foreign policy. CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS: Alan Pogue. Russell Lee. Scott Van Osdol, Alicia Daniel. Ferguson and Rogers go on to state that the drop-off in CONTRIBUTING ARTISTS: Mark Antonuccio, Eric Avery, Tom Ballenger. Democratic preference did not signal a change in public support Jeff Danziger, Beth Epstein. Dan Hubig, Pat Johnson. Kevin Kreneck, Carlos for New Deal social programs. "What changed," they write, Lowry, Miles Mathis. Joe McDermott, Ben Sargent, Dan Thihodeau. "was voter perception of the Democrats as macroeconomic A journal of free voices managers." The failure, they say, is not democratic, or New We trill serve no group or party but will hew hard to the truth as we find Deal Democratic, values but the revisionism of lowered it and the right as we see it. We are dedicated to the whole truth, to human expectations offered by Mondale in 1984. and the Democratic values above all interests, to the rights of humankind us the foundation of democracy; we will take orders from none but our own conscience, and never Leadership Conference today. will we overlook or misrepresent the truth to serve the interests of the power- To no one's surprise, that old expectation-lowering lunch ful or cater to the ignoble in the human spirit. companion of Nancy Reagan's, George Will, then threw Writers are responsible for their own work, but not for anything they have not themselves written, and in publishing them we do not necessarily imply himself into the fray, attacking the Ferguson/Rogers Atlantic that we agree with them because this is a journal of free voices. . piece in his syndicated column of June 2 (appearing in the Dallas Times-Herald, among other places). This churn of the Managing Publisher Cliff Olofson power elite and, according to James Fallows in the New York Subscription Manager Stefan Wanstrom Review of Books, $1 million per year wage earner, declares: Publishing Consultant Frances Barton "If the authors are right, the political system is radically Development Consultant Hanno T. Beck defective. It is producing radically unrepresentative govern- Editorial and Business Office ment." 600 West 28th Street, #105, Austin, Texas 78705 (512) 477-0746 Hallelujah! That is the point of Right Turn and that is the The Texas Observer (ISSN 0040-4519) is published biweekly except for a three-week inter- point the Observer has been trying to make all these years. val between issues in January and July (25 issues per year) by the Texas Observer Publishing As Molly Ivins said at a recent meeting of the Texas Lyceum Co., 600 West 28th Street. #I05. Austin, Texas 78705, (512) 477-0746. Second class postage paid at Austin, Texas. (see below), it is an insult to the people of this state to regard Subscription rates, including 5 118% sales tax: one year S23, two years S42, three years the Texas legislature as a representative body. $59. One year rate for full-time students. S15. Back issues $2 prepaid. Airmail, foreign, group, and bulk rates on request. Microfilm editions available from University Microfilms Intl.. 300 When poll after poll show American citizens overwhelm- N. Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106. ingly favoring the elimination of nuclear arms and opposing Copyright 1986 by Texas Observer Publishing Company. All rights reserved. Material may not be reproduced without permission. U.S. policy in El Salvador, there must be something "radically

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2 JUNE 13, 1986 issues, and well-behaved columnists shape perceptions, there inflationary 1970s, the Texas economy prospered because it is something radically defective with our system. G.R. is resource based. The prices of Texas commodities rose faster than the price of services and manufactured goods. This resulted in a transfer of income and wealth from industrial areas to commodity areas, Weinstein said. In the 1980s, the opposite occurred, when commodity prices fell while Viewpoints manufactured goods did not. Consequently, "there are more people unemployed in Port Arthur today than in the heart of the Depression," said L.G. And Values Moore of the John Gray Institute. On top of that, Harold Gross, of the Enterprising Center, said Texas is facing the expiration of at least 35 collective bargaining agreements in N THIS YEAR of state revenue plunges, oil crises, and the near future. Gramm-Rudman-mandated federal spending cutbacks, It puts people on the defensive. Moore, a former labor I there is one consolation: the Texas legislature will not organizer, said, "Labor leaders today understand that there formally and officially meet. Of at least that we have been has to be a different way of doing business in the state." spared, thanks largely to the fact that this is an election year And Charles Gandy, of the state Office of State and Federal and a legislature that meets in this year of crisis would have Relations — after saying how Gramm-Rudman will have a to do something to raise the expectations of the main part serious inpact on state and local spending on education, of his or her constituency while not lowering their take-home highways, toxics, and unemployment — said that he thought pay. This usually means satisfying the expectations of that "Gramm-Rudman is the best idea so far. Unfortunately it can't part of the constituency that owns the papers and greases the be at a worse time [for the state]." wheels of political enterprise. Ain't it a shame. It goes so much against the grain of Texas A constituency not unlike the Texas Lyceum, which gathered viewpoints and values to have to say you're not happy with in Austin to discuss the future of the state. Meeting on the a program that cuts social spending. But when those cuts take two days preceding Texas Speaker Gib Lewis's special meeting large chunks out of Texas coffers, it's just not possible to of the Texas House on May 30, these movers and shakers sign on. For instance, Steve Stagner, former assistant to Lt. got together to ponder the great imponderables — Texas Gov. Bill Hobby, said that the notion of imposing cuts in without money and taxes — in a conference called, "Economic the state funding of water and sewer plans is unworkable Transformation: The New Texas Revolution of 1986." The Lyceum describes itself as having been founded in 1980 "by a group of young, enterprising men and women from across the state who created a forum to discuss important issues facing the State of Texas. The Lyceum is dedicated to the CONTENTS development, discussion, and propagation of Texas' view- points and values." Apparently, it is up to these young, well-placed, mostly FEATURES white enterprisers to develop the viewpoints of Texas. They are sponsored in their quest by such philosophical entities 2 Radically Defective Geoffrey Rips as Atlantic Richfield, Pennzoil, Intercontinental Bancshares, 3 Viewpoints and Values Geoffrey Rips Tenneco, AT&T, and Exxon. And that ain't all. "It was 5 The End of Insularity Ronnie Dugger important," writes Lyceum president David Gamble, "that a Texas viewpoint, based upon the essential philosophy and 6 Are We There Yet? Dave Denison values of Texans, play a .prominent role in the debate about 9 Mondale's Right Turn Thomas Ferguson the national and international agenda." And so, armed with and Joel Rogers this single and singular Texas viewpoint, the Lyceum takes 12 Biotechnology and the on the world. Transformation of Nature Leila Levinson

OT THAT the Lyceum meeting itself was a one-sided and boosterly affair. There was a lot of bad news DEPARTMENTS N purveyed. The first messenger was Bernard Weinstein 16 Political Intelligence of SMU's Center for Enterprising. (If we are depending on language to save the day, we're in deep trouble when led 22 Social Cause Calendar by organizations called, "The Center for Enterprising" and "IC2 [Institute for Innovation, Creativity, and Capital]".) Books and the Culture: According to Weinstein, for the last ten to fifteen years the Betty Brink Texas economy has been running in a direction opposite to 19 The Suicidal Civilization that of the national economy. During the 1970s that usually 20 Three Mile Island's meant the national economy was down while the Texas Hidden Death Toll Betty Brink economy was thriving. Since 1982, the opposite has been the case. In the last year, for instance, the national unemployment rate has dropped 2.8 percent while the Texas rate has risen Afterword: 26.9 percent. 23 Something to Count On Martha Boethel "We keep pointing to oil and gas," Weinstein explained, "but it's a little more complicated than that. What's really going on out there can be described in one word, and that's Cover Art by Dorothy Ahle `inflation' . . . and its corollary, disinflation." During the THE TEXAS OBSERVER 3

because the state funding has not been adequate in the past, To replace legislative action, however, Lewis announced the need for water quality expenditures is increasing, and now that he is calling upon the House Appropriations Committee state and local governments have to take up the slack created to meet during the rest of the year in order to draw up cuts by federal cuts. in state spending to match dropping revenues and to present those cuts to the House on the first day of the 1987 session. 0 WHAT'S the solution proposed by the enterprising This means that the House committee will be isolated here young men and women of the "New Texas Revolu- in Austin with only the full-time lobbyists as audience. It will tion"? As articulated by venture capitalist Mike be difficult for the public interest to assert as much pressure S as it does during a regular session. It will be difficult for Waterman of the Governor's Science and Technology Committee, the goal is "to make Texas the pre-eminent legislators in the next regular session to buck a process that technological state by the year 2000." As one innovation, essentially removes a major part of the budget-cutting Waterman_ proposed creating magnet programs or a statewide responsibility from the rank-and-file. Beset by the Appropria- school for math and science, as has been developed for high tions. Committee and the Higher Education Committee at the school juniors and seniors in North Carolina. If this does not start of the session, the "essential viewpoints and values" carry an intimation of the Red Guard way of doing business, of Texas as interpreted by the legislature may be an ugly clearly, it is war. sight indeed. Larry Temple, chair of the Select Committee on Higher Sounding like a lone voice crying out in the wilderness, Education, launched a novel trial balloon in suggesting that Houston organizer Robert Rivera, of the Industrial Areas the state promote applied research within the technology Foundation, was the only Lyceum speaker who talked about corporations. "Why not .open it up to the private sector?" what effect all this economic transformation planning could he mused. "I don't know how it will sit with the legislature. have on your average Texan. "You have to understand," he What [the universities] have done in applied research has been said, "that there are faces [attached to the figures presented.].. more limited." Why not bypass the university as medium and This change hi the economy is occurring on the backs of the funnel state funds directly into the high technology corpora- people with the least power. [You have to] put economic tions? There are rumors circulating that the amount of money and job development into the context of improving the quality amassed by MCC, the micro-computer consortium, has fallen of life for people." G.R. far short of expectations and that the Science and Technology Committee was created to re-invigorate such investment in the state. .The Select Committee on Higher Education itself was created by the Science Committee, so it should not be surprising that the Higher Education chairman is worried about these investments, too. Why not use the state to bolster more Goddess Envy directly the sag in the high technology economy?

S O MUCH for democracy. On the day following the ATCHING THE Texas National Guard repeatedly Lyceum, Speaker Gib Lewis convened the Texas House fail in attempts to place the Goddess of Liberty so that it would receive an assessment of the state's W statue atop the state capitol, associate editor Dave budget crisis. Lewis, Hobby, and White do not want to have Denison said, "You have to wonder about the security of to call a special session to deal with the crisis before the our borders if the Sandinistas invade Harlingen." Of course, November elections, so this was a Lewis attempt to show he added, it wouldn't be the first time Liberty was impaled that the legislature, while not acting, was informing itself. by our state capitol. ❑

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4 JUNE 13, 1986 OBSERVATIONS • Who could foresee in 1981 that, the next year, the state would nevertheless elect to statewide office three Democrats of varying hues of liberalism and one The End of Insularity populist Democrat who is fully worthy of progressive populism's origins a century earlier in the Texas hill country? By Ronnie Dugger Who in 1979 could foresee that the ensuing year Ronald Reagan would sweep the state with 65 percent and Austin workers, revolutions, tourists, terror- carry many other Republicans into The editor recently wrote about the ists, domestic monopolies, the interna- office? Who could foresee last year that symposium at the Johnson Library in tional oil cartel, wars in Lebanon or the multipurposed breakdown of the Austin on Texas in transition, and the Angola or Nicaragua, or missiles in international oil cartel would devastate New Yorker, in its `!Talk of the Town" Russia. Texans, we are Americans. our regional economy and carelessly and (which town?) section, paid some atten- Americans, we are human beings. That indifferently jeopardize the Democratic tion to my remarks from the floor during is the real transition that is happening, governor's re-election? Yet there are that event. Perhaps the text of what I and should be. among us today a small clan of swamis said, which was written, may be of But this is hard for us to accept, and who tell us Texas is basically conserva- interest to our readers. even more difficult for us to enjoy, tive, and thus in effect permanently because the essence of our idea of Republican, as if the members of this S A TEXAN I relish our reten- ourself — of Texas as a culture — is clan had the crystal ball monopoly. tion of our pride, our history, independence; but the meaning of The future shape of Texas politics A and our specialness as a state interdependence for this key self-idea of depends on the world. It depends on and a place, and I believe in the work ours is penetration, or, to be exact, our what happens to George Bush, or Jack of addressing and trying to reduce our being penetrated. Penetrated by national Kemp, or Bob Dole, or Mario Cuomo, social and political difficulties. The most commerce, penetrated by news we don't or Lee Iacocca, or who else, in the 1988 significant effect of present events upon want to be, much less to know about, presidential election, which in turn may us, however, is the disappearance of our penetrated by foreign people's prob- well depend on whether the American separateness, the end of our insularity. people awaken to the fact that President When our political forebears took Reagan is deliberately sabotaging and Texas away from the Mexicans, there How could we expect our torpedoing this generation's best chance for a halt to the suicidal nuclear arms were no telephones or cars. When politics to be separate any- Lyndon Johnson brought electricity to race. Or it may depend on whether the the hill country, there were no televi- more, when every day of our national economy is up or down. Or it may depend, as the 1980 election did, sions or atomic bombs. When we started Texas lives is blown apart the Texas Observer, there was no on what some tyrant like Khaddafi or integration, no civil rights movement, by the wild winds of the world? Khomeini or Hassad is doing to kid- no real environmental movement, no napped Americans. Or it may depend_ real feminist movement, no real peace on Reagan's war, by then, in Nicaragua, lems, penetrated by fear of enemy and the second American civil convul- movement. And now we are all vulnera- missiles that can dig deep into us and ble to instant death, delivered through sion in two decades. It is much less explode us. likely to depend on whether we get the our spreading Texas sky by our fellow I would say that the overarching human beings in the oceans and in the Alamo flag back from Mexico, than on challenge to us, in this transition, is to whether the Sandinista government turns Soviet Union, as the Soviets are vulnera- try to bring into being among each other ble to instant death we might launch out to be Leninist, or not. How could a new kind of independence, not the we expect our politics to be separate from our ocean-ranging submarines or independence of the truculent macho our missile silos deep in the American anymore, when every day of our Texas provincial that most of our leading lives is blown apart by the wild winds earth. There is much that is serious, politicians exploit, but the independence valuable, and worthwhile, but there can of the world? of the modern realist, an independence A couple of the panelists today seem also be something almost quaint, our that extends to both genders, that is talking about "Texas in transition," to me to have been soliciting obeisance human and in the whole world, never to the Texas, and the Western, myths. when the overriding question for any of nostalgicly jingoistic. us, Texans or Polynesians, is whether One of these, and the central one, after there will be anything to transition to. Among the virtues of the first order, all, is what Diana Hobby called "the If we could simply choose what in this new kind of independence, should masculine myth of heroic violence." transition to be in, I would choose that be humility. Certainly humility is the Historians of Texas who celebrate that — (while preserving and celebrating our virtue most required if we undertake to very myth, like T.H. Fehrenbach, must uniqueness as a state and working foresee, or try to foresee, for example, answer for the effects of celebration in together on our present chances and the future shape of Texas politics. the future, as we must, also, if we do problems) — we stop thinking of Who could foresee in 1977 that the not challenge it when we meet together. ourselves as if our Texas borders in any next year Bill Clements would take the But, then, another of the virtues of way protect us from television, refu- statehouse away from the Democrats, the first order, in this new kind of Texas gees, hungry and unemployed Mexican who had owned it since Reconstruction? consciousness, this Texas-in-the-world THE TEXAS OBSERVER 5 consciousness, should be, I think, a new from fellowfeeling as well as strength, in Texas of the new order — provided kind of calmness — not the shoot-'em- from community as well as from it is understood to be a virtue of women where-they-stand Texas Ranger kind of individualism. as well as of men. That is courage, and calm, but a cooling of the legendary the will to act, to see and know the real Texas temper, a steadiness, an honesty And there is at least one of the old present no matter how fast it changes, of mind in the whole and the true and Texas virtues that still holds its high and to go into it fighting, without fear. the real world, a calmness that rises place in these virtues of the first order, a former "anti-war hippie" who now keeps his copies of the Texas Observer Are We There Yet? hidden in a cardboard box in his office. He is a rotund man who sometimes clarifies that his name is spelled R-o- Republicans Say Texas is Finally a Two-Party State y-a-1 — "just like Royal pudding." About his political change of loyalty, he says, "I was always against big By Dave Denison government, and still am." Like the national Republican Party, Austin at the top of the ballot. The previous Masset is trying to get Republicans to N THE NIGHT Bill Clements off-year primaries in 1982 and 1978 concentrate their resources only on was running away with the brought out 262,865 and 158,403 vot- certain races — the ones they think are 0 Republican nomination for gov- ers, respectively. In contrast to all this, sure bets. Masset distributes a booklet ernor last month, a small but perhaps the Democratic primary turnout this year to all his county leaders, entitled representative crowd gathered at the was 1,093,887, the lowest total since "Targeting Winnable Districts," which Stephen F. Austin hotel to toast his 1946. explains the mathematical formula for victory. There was a knot of young Publicly, Democrats have accentuated determining (based on past Republican Republicans, looking stuffy before their the positive. Their totals were, after all, vote totals) whether there are enough time, and there were a few politicians still twice as high as the Republicans'. Republicans in a given district or who used to be Democrats, getting "Having spent $10 million to get that precinct to make a run worthwhile. acquainted with a new crowd of party kind of turnout is not terribly impres- "Even if you have a 'yellow-dog' activists. Among the young, the white, sive," says Bob Slagle, the Democratic Democratic county there are probably and the recently converted, one could Party state chair. "I don't think it means districts for county offices that are see the face of the new Republican Party very much except they finally had a heavily Republican, just waiting to be in Texas. contested primary where a bunch of won by the first solid Republican Royal Masset, the political director people spent a lot of money." Slagle candidate who files!" according to the 'of the state Republican Party, hovered claims that primary voting patterns vary booklet. in front of the television sets, attentive with the season and don't mean as much Another booklet by Masset tells how not so much to the returns showing as many political writers seem to think. to recruit incumbent Democrats as Clements leading Kent Hance of Lub- Democrats may have stayed away from Republicans in areas that are believed bock and Rep. Tom Loeffler of Hunt, the primary because it lacked drama — to have gone Republican. Have impor- but to the number of people voting in they knew White would be the nominee. tant community leaders ("especially the Republican primary, which by the Republicans, on the other hand, had a people with fundraising ability") convey end of the evening would go beyond strongly contested race and it served the message that "leaving the Demo- anything that had ever happened in a them well — just as the 1972 Democratic cratic Party will not cause him to lose Republican primary here. Masset, who primary race between Dolph Briscoe and community respect and political sup- himself used to be a Democrat, was Sissy Farenthold brought out a massive port," the booklet suggests. The pitch prepared to see something exciting for turnout of over two million voters. might go something like this, " 'Jack, the Republicans. "One big factor is that But to Royal Masset, the half million I'm hearing a move afoot to get you we've got a lot more candidates state- Republican voters this year is a sure sign to become a Republican. I'm going to wide," he said. "In the past, we've been of a turning tide. He charts the steady support you no matter what. We need strictly top-of-the-ballot." The party had progress of the party from the years you on that Commissioners Court. No fielded 584 candidates in the 1984 when the Republican primary would one I know gives a hoot what Party label primary; this year they had 1026 on the bring in four percent of what the you carry. But your district is becoming ballot, he said. Democratic primary would, to the years overwhelmingly Republican. Jack, you The May 3rd vote totals have been when they achieved 20 or even 30 can't be beaten as a Republican. You'll touted by the Republicans as proof that percent of the Democratic vote, to this have all their votes and those of your the Reagan revolution has become a year, when it shot up to 49.7 percent. Democratic fans. But if you stay as a permanent realignment of Texas voters. It is Masset's job to plot the strategy Democrat, with all the liberal baggage The 543,172 votes cast this year in the that some Republicans began talking of the national Party, you might find governor's primary were more than the about in the early 1970s — how to yourself prematurely retired.' " 526,769 who voted in the heavily expand the reach of the party into all (Masset's booklets are not always contested Reagan-Bush contest in 1980. levels of state government. consistent, but that's politics. Although What seemed even more surprising was Masset is a long-time political opera- "Jack" is told that no one gives a hoot that it happened in 1986, an "off year" tive, who got his first taste of politics about party label, the "Targeting" with no Presidential or U.S. Senate race working on the Eugene McCarthy booklet says, "Although people like to campaign in 1968. He is a native New say they are independent and vote for Research assistance by Kathleen Fitz- Yorker who keeps a framed color the man — they don't. Most people do gerald. photograph of the Alamo on his wall; have strong Party preferences.")

6 JUNE 13, 1986 In the Republicans' eyes, the prime names of the state's eight million of the most politically active men in payoff for all their political organizing registered voters on computer. Texas." Lucas heads Lucas Petroleum, would be to gain control of the Texas The Democratic Party, by contrast, Inc. with offices in Dallas and Houston. House of Representatives. Party chair has a smaller staff (seven full-time "We don't do any lobbying;" Webb George Strake hopes the task can be employees) and a smaller budget. Slagle said, "we just give money — and we accomplished by 1990, in time for estimates the state party budget at give a lot of it." legislative redistricting, at which time between $700,000 and $800,000 this HOUPAC gave money last year to Republicans presumably could help year. Democratic Party executive direc- Texas Representatives Joe Barton, Beau redraw political boundaries in their tor Ed Martin says he expects the party Bolter, Larry Combest, Mac Sweeney, favor. "I think we have an outstanding to spend over a million dollars on Dick Armey — all Republicans — and chance of getting at or near a majority," organizational work in the coming year to Edd Hargett who unsuccessfully ran Strake said last year, "and once we do but that he doesn't expect to outspend for the East Texas seat against Democrat that and we get some control over the Republicans. "They've got more Jim Chapman last summer. HOUPAC redistricting, then this will be a Republi- money; there's no doubt about it," he has given to 15 Congressional candi- can state in my opinion." Republicans says. dates outside of Texas this year, mostly currently have 55 members out of 150 Republican Party leaders stress the to Republicans such as Jeremiah Denton in the House. Masset lists a dozen races "grassroots" fundraising that fills the of Alabama and Don Nickles of Okla- this fall that the party will be emphasiz- party's coffers. Milligan says that of the homa. The HOUPAC board of directors ing, but he says realistically he only $1.1 million raised so far this year 95 reads like a Who's Who of Texas hopes for a gain of two to four seats. percent of the donations are less than wealth, with such prominent Republi- Gaining in legislative races is $40. But much of the seed money that cans (and some Democrats) as Albert "incredibly difficult in an off-year," he comes into the party to allow the direct Alkek, the reclusive Bandera County says. "Even though the tide is still mail and "telemarketing" campaigns rancher, Jack Rains, the Houston archi- rising, it's not that big a wave." State still comes from the wealthy business- tectural executive, oilmen Harry Lucas, Democratic leader Bob Slagle says it is men who have traditionally funded George Mitchell, Michael Halbouty, more likely that the Democrats will end Republicans in Texas. Royal Masset Rob Mosbacher, and Houston develo- up picking up a few seats. Masset points pers Walter Mischer and Bob Perry, to out that Republicans could achieve name a few. "effective control" of the House with "Once we get some control Oil prices are already beginning a only 69 or 70 seats (given the number of conservative Democrats) and that a over redistricting, steady rise again, and independent gain of eight to ten seats in 1988 would this will be a Republican oilmen like Eddie Chiles are strong put them close to their goal. enough in their ideological commitment state in my opinion." to the Republicans that frustration with The critical factor in these and in the the Reagan's inaction on the oil crisis upcoming Congressional races will be, —George Strake doesn't promise to change their align- as always, how much money goes to ment. fertilize the political soil. The ten Republican incumbents in the 27-mem- estimates that Eddie Chiles, the Fort And, as the upcoming campaign of ber Texas Congressional delegation are Worth industrialist, gave $50,000 to the Bill Clements for governor will undoubt- already flush with Political Action state party in 1984. edly show, there is still a good deal of Committee money — Rep. Mac Swee- Chiles now claims that because of big league Republican money in the ney, the first-term Republican from hard times for his oil field supply state. Halfway through the recent pri- Wharton, who is facing a strong Demo- company he has had to curtail his mary, Clements had already raised at cratic challenge this year, was among political contributions. "Certainly, I least $125,000 from various executives the top ten House members in total won't be able to put anywhere near as connected with Texas banks. Lamar and fundraising in 1985, according to a much money into politics in general this Ray Hunt, the Dallas oil multi-million- Common Cause study. year as I have in past years," he told aires, threw in for $5,000 each. Bob recently. "I Perry, the wealthy Houston homebuilder Republicans have traditionally the Congressional Quarterly just don't have it to give." Rep. Tom (and the treasurer of the Clements outspent Democrats on Congressional Loeffler said in May that the decline in campaign) contributed $10,000. Other races, but they now appear to have major donors included Robert Dedman gained advantages on a state level as the oil industry hurt his bid for the gubernatorial nomination. Concern of Dallas, Roy Guffey, the independent well. "One of the most encouraging oilman, and Michael Halbouty, the oil aspects of the success of the party is about oil prices, he said, "was every- where. It was obvious in raising money and gas executive from Houston. that in the past the party was supported — that was extremely difficult, and I by a relatively small group of large Interviews with state party officials had to spend a lot of time doing it," contributors and now the base has grown suggest that among the "key players" San Angelo Standard Times. exponentially in terms of small contribu- he told the in Republican fundraising are Rob tors," says Rob Mosbacher, the Houston Obviously, oilmen are not walking the Mosbacher, Bob Perry, Eddie Chiles, oilman who was until this year the streets and waiting in soup lines. One Trammel Crow (the Dallas developer), finance chair of the state GOP. The state of the major PACs of the Texas oil Bum Bright (owner of BrightBanc and party has a $2.5 million budget for 1986, community is HOUPAC, based in the Dallas Cowboys), Michael Hal- according to finance director Mike Houston, which reported having bouty, Al Fay (former national Republi- Milligan, who says the amount repre- $104,240 on hand at the beginning of can committeeman from Houston), T. sents the amount of money that will the year. The fund was started as an Boone Pickens (head of Mesa Petro- come into the party's state and federal independent oilman's PAC, according to leum), and Harry Lucas, Jr.. Then there accounts. Milligan says the party has 15 its director Jack Webb, largely through are the miscellaneous multi-millionaires full-time staffers, 70 volunteers who the efforts of Harry Lucas, Jr., whom thrown in here and there: Albert Alkek, work the phone banks, and all of the Webb described to the Observer as "one listed by Forbes as one of the 400 richest THE TEXAS OBSERVER 7 people in America, gave $100,000 to the Loeffler campaign in April.

F THE WEALTHY contribu- tors, such as Lucas and Chiles, O Masset says, "Ten years ago, they were the party. It's amazing how it's shifted." So who makes up the "new" Republican party? According to the Texas Poll, con- ducted quarterly by the Public Policy Resources Laboratory at Texas A&M, 26 percent of Texans now identify themselves as Republicans. (32 percent are Democrats and 36 percent are independents). A recent poll taken just after the May primaries found almost identical readings, according to James Dyer of Texas A&M. A Texas Poll last fall found that 91 percent of state Republicans are white (compared to 55 percent of the Democratic party), that nearly half of the GOP members earned more than $30,000 a year (compared to 25 percent of the Democrats), and that more Republicans than Democrats in the state are under the age of 44. In a paper delivered to the Southwest Social Science Quarterly last year, Dyer and co-authors David B. Hill (of the Republican polling outfit Lance Tarrance and Associates) and Arnold Vedlitz (of Texas A&M) assert, "The Republican Party is composed dispro- portionately of those who are college educated, newcomers, Anglos, large In the Valley's two most populous metropolitan area residents, higher sity, Republican primary turnout went counties (Cameron and Hidalgo). Dem- income, and under thirty." They also up from 4,395 in 1984 to 5,142 this ocrats outpolled Republicans 54,171 to found that "Democrats in the highest year. But 19,563 voters turned out for the Democratic primary. The one area 6,772 this spring. In Duval county, income categories are showing the 4,379 voters went Democratic and 30 greatest shift to the Republican Party." of the state that saw an exceptional turnaround was in Lubbock County, went Republican. In Jim Hogg county The authors found that, of lifetime Kent Hance didn't get a single vote. And Texans, Democrats held a 41 percent where the Republican turnout shot up from 6,458 in 1984 to 22,304, as West there were still 22 counties that didn't to 27 percent edge over Republicans, even hold a Republican primary this but of those living in the state ten years Texans turned out in support of their year. or less, Republicans held a 39 percent native son Kent Hance. to 24 percent lead. Voting patterns in the recent primary Bob Slagle of the Democratic Party Dallas and Houston continue to be by show as well the weaknesses and says the Republicans have a long way far the most important Republican potential weaknesses of the Republican to go in Texas. "They say this is a two- strongholds. Together, Dallas and Har- Party. As more "Bible Belt" activists party state, and in certain races it is," ris counties accounted for 31 percent of join the party, the spectre of Demo- he says, mentioning the presidential, the Republican primary vote this year cratic-style factionalism grows. Already senatorial, and gubernatorial races. "But (although this was down from the 37 militant fundamentalists have ended up they didn't even bother to find a serious percent share the two counties had in at odds with traditional Republicans in candidate for a whole bunch of statewide 1984). This year, 20 of the state's 254 Tarrant County as Christians tried to offices. If you really feel that you're at counties accounted for 73 percent of the gain control of the GOP 10th Senatorial parity with the other party, then you'd Republican primary vote. Only 28 Convention May 17. One miffed Repub- target all the state races," Slagle says. percent of the state's voters are said to lican leader was moved to tell the Fort be living in town or rural settings, Worth Star-Telegram, "They can call Royal Masset, of course, sees it according to Texas A&M researchers, themselves Christians, but in my book differently. He says Texas is "probably but those areas are still strongly Demo- they're not." The Republicans may also the most Republican state if you look cratic. find even less success with their attempts at values." Once the historical institu- Royal Masset's claims that the Repub- to recruit Democratic politicians, in the tional lock on politics is broken, he licans are showing their greatest growth wake of Democratic defector Hance's expects this "viscerally Republican in the "Bible Belt" areas may be dismal showing in his new party. state" to find itself with a new identity. statistically true, but those areas are not And there are still many parts of the "We see no problem as far as Texas where the big stakes are. In McClennan state where Republicans are not making becoming Republican in the next five County, home of Waco's Baylor Univer- inroads, most notably in South Texas. years, - he says. ❑

8 JUNE 13, 1986 chairman Harry Jacobs, William Hambrecht (whose Hambrecht & Quist dominated new issues in high tech), Mondale's Right Turn Irving Rothschild of Bear Stearns, and Peter Solomon of Lehman Brothers. Other business figures with a clear interest in arms control — such as Orion By Thomas Ferguson Picture's Arthur Krim (a veteran mem- and Joel Rogers ber of the advisory committee for the embattled Arms Control and Disarma- ment Agency) and grain dealer Dwayne T THE TIME the Democrats long been associated with the Demo- 0. Andreas (chair of the U.S.-U.S.S.R. unveiled their industrial policy cratic Party, including Roger Altman of Trade Council) — also contributed. So statement [in early 1983] almost Lehman Brothers, and Mondale's close did several members of the Rockefeller A family; leading Democratic members of everyone expected that either Walter friend. Herbert Allen. San Francisco Mondale or Edward Kennedy would real estate magnate (and Coalition for the Trilateral Commission (including represent the party in the next election. a Democratic Majority member) Walter Owen and international lawyer Richard When Kennedy announced his with- Shorenstein, Mel Swig (the chair of Gardner); several top executives in communications, including Capital Cit- drawal from the race, the torch fell Fairmont Hotels), and a number of other effortlessly into Mondale's grasp. It was prominent real estate members of the ies chair Thomas S. Murphy (a business widely assumed — and the impression Forbes 400 "richest Americans" were partner of Robert Strauss); executives was assiduously cultivated by the Mon- also early members of the Mondale of other capital intensive internationally oriented businesses (including at least dale camp — that the agenda worked bandwagon. one from Control Data, from whose out by the Democratic business groups For more than a year, Altman, Allen, board Mondale was then prudently and the Democratic National Committee and others in this group had been retiring); and Mondale's long-time (DNC) commanded support from the working to "educate" Mondale on their vast majority of the party and that, friend John G. McMillian (on the board business-oriented views on taxes, social of whose Northwest Energy sat James accordingly, the former vice president spending. and other issues. Under their would sweep easily to the nomination. Schlesinger, another Democrat with ties guidance (and in some cases patronage, to both investment banking and the For a while during 1983, this scenario since Mondale was working for several defense industry). Harold Brown, did indeed seem to be coming true. of them), the candidate had begun a Carter's former Secretary of Defense From its command post in the Washing- loudly proclaimed effort to fashion a and now a director of CBS, the ton office of Winston & Strawn, a "new" more centrist, business-oriented Washington Post, and other multination- leading international law firm headquar- public image. als, also advised Mondale informally. tered in Chicago, the Mondale campaign Over the course of 1983, many other appeared to perfectly embody the coali- While these businessmen prepped Mondale, a small army of policy liberal internationalist business figures tion Democratic business leaders were who had previously backed Democrats seeking to build. At its informal center analysts occupying the multinational (or, in 1980, Anderson) began to was a group of veteran Democratic middle of the Democratic Party advised support the campaign, including Stan- businessmen with glittering multina- the campaign, including Sol Linowitz, dard Shares' Irving Harris; Salomon tional credentials, including. C. Peter investment banker David Aaron Brothers' head John Gutfreund; Bear McColough of Xerox (prominent Dem- (previously with Carter's National Secu- rity Council), Trilateralist Henry Owen Stearns chair Maurice Greenberg; Mor- ocratic fundraiser, member of both the gan Stanley managing partner Richard Business Council and the Business (another former Democatic official), and Walter Slocombe (also formerly of the Fisher; Lehman Brothers chair Lewis Roundtable, and a director of many Glucksman; Goldman Sachs partner concerns); Irving Shapiro (just retired as State Department and a member of the Atlantic Council of the U.S. and the Robert Rubin (who eventually raised CEO of DuPont and co-chair of the more than $1.8 million for the candi- Business Roundtable, but still active on Trilateral Commission). C. Fred Berg- sten, a strong free trade advocate and date); Brookings trustee James the boards of such concerns as I.B.M., Wolfensohn; and, of course, Felix DuPont, Bechtel, and Boeing); Michael former Treasury official, whose new Rohatyn. Blumenthal (former Carter Treasury Institute for International Economics in Secretary, head of Burroughs, and Washington, D.C., had received a $4 director of such companies as Equitable million grant from the German Marshall N THE LATTER half of 1983, Life and Bankers Trust); and several Fund, advised the campaign on trade and however, the aura of Mondale's members of the Dayton family (long- monetary policies. I invincibility began to tarnish, for time friends of the candidate, whose The Mondale campaign also raised the coalition it was based upon was huge Minneapolis based retailing con- funds from all the natural opponents of proving desperately unstable. The basic cern included on its board Bruce K. Reagan policies: real estate magnates, problem was twofold. First, after three MacLaury, president of the Brookings including both Fred and Donald Trump; years of Republican rule, the organized Institution). Joining them were several insurance executives, including Aetna mass base of the campaign was literally prominent investment bankers who had Life's John Filer and Connecticut Gen- disappearing. From the beginning, the eral head Robert D. Kilpatrick; liberal raison d'etre of Mondale's effort had Adapted from Right Turn: The Decline internationalists with strong ties to been to find a compromise that both of the Democrats and the Future of Europe, including Thomas J. Watson, (parts of) big business and organized American Politics. © 1986 by Thomas Jr., and the head of the German labor could support. That had been a Ferguson and Joel Rogers. Reprinted by Marshall Fund; and many investment guiding thought behind the party's permission of Hill & Wang, a division hankers, including Goldman Sachs head industrial policy proposals, and it was of Farrar, Straus & Giroux, Inc. John L. Weinberg, Prudential-Bache also the reason Mondale kept courting THE TEXAS OBSERVER 9 the support of the AFL-CIO, whose Cuomo and others making memorable agitation about the deficit appeared to precedent shattering pre-primary en- speeches, it was considerably more be a golden opportunity. Here was a dorsement he secured in October of radical in its tone than the actual ticket, chance for Mondale, at one stroke, to 1983. Reeling from imports, high and brought Mondale a final lift in the shed the charges of "special interest" unemployment, and the new assaults by polls to a virtual dead heat with Reagan. domination. By presenting a tough fiscal Reagan appointees at the NLRB and The tone of the convention and a few program and calling dramatically for a Labor Department, however, labor was incidents in the Mondale campaign itself tax rise, he could throw Reagan on the losing its organizational effectiveness, briefly alarmed some of Mondale's defensive and demonstrate his ability to even among its own confused and business backers, who complained to the make tough decisions. He could secure frightened members. Many candidate that "there has been some support from major parts of the business Democratically oriented community or- unfortunate choosing of words" in community and obtain more favorable ganizations, meanwhile, were demoral- describing the Democratic Party's resid- press notices. ized and running out of money. ual obligations to working people and In June, agitation within the business Second, the economic recovery the poor. But they need not have community over deficits crested. Led by changed the calculus of interests among worried. As calls to revive the spirit of a 'bipartisan group of former Treasury Democratic business groups, particu- the New Deal still echoed in the Secretaries, more than 100 business larly among the new arrivals that the convention center, he made the final organizations descended on Washington Democratic Business Council (DBC) blundering concession to business that to lobby for budget cuts. As the business and the recession had pulled into the turned an uphill struggle into a political groups lobbied, Mondale discussed the party. In particular, with labor so charge of the light brigade. problem with influential Democrats, and transparently in decline, many corporate Desperate for money and a few made a tentative decision to make a figures were beginning to wonder why favorable press notices, he had made a major public statement. , Investment they should deal with labor and the poor fatal bargain. By the early summer of banker Harry Jacobs, Jr., chair of at all, and not explicitly seek to 1984, virtually all sectors of the business Prudential-Bache, told the press that rearrange the party's mass base. Free community were up in arms over the "Democrats, as a matter of business traders who were willing to nod at size of the deficits projected by the policy, need 'to take a strong and limited protectionist initiatives at the Reagan administration for the next aggressive position on curbing deficits," bottom of a recession now began to several years. Though virtually all parts and that "as a businessman, that's a question the need to compromise. of the business community were in- contribution I can make to the Demo- Military contractors that had flocked volved in this agitation, the protests cratic platform." In July, two invest- into the DBC were tempted to gamble came most intensely from parts of the ment bankers who were later publicly on getting a bigger share of the -budget. business community that were already identified as sources of Mondale's new As the military producers gained close to Mondale and the Democrats — "thinking on the need to reduce budget strength, the more ardent supporters of investment bankers and insurance com- deficits" — Robert Rubin of Goldman the freeze, cutbacks in military spend- pany executives.* Sachs and Roger Altman of Lehman ing, and arms control sought to press To the Mondale campaign — whose Brothers — traveled to his Minnesota their own concerns more vigorously. economic advisers consisted almost home to discuss the tax plan. At the And with Mondale holding down most wholly of investment bankers, such as convention, Mondale announced he of organized labor, other candidates Robert Hormats of Goldman Sachs, or would raise taxes, if elected. would be tempted to forge alternatives economists with close ties to finance to the old Democratic coalition. . . . (including at least one who had actually To the immense relief of Reagan strategists (who later confessed their In late January [1984] Mondale had worked for the Committee for a Respon- anxiety that Mondale would steal the tax opened negotiations with various groups sible Budget, funded in part by the favoring the freeze, and apparently some reform issue from them), Mondale also American Council of Life Insurance and turned aside pleas from many leading freeze supporters expressed their will- closely associated with the Committee ingness to support him (others, how- for Economic Development) — the Democrats for a sweeping endorsement of tax reform. In this, Mondale was at ever, including Helen Caldicott, de- *Why investment bankers and insurance execu- clined). As John Glenn folded, however, least practicing the virtue of consistency. tives? Basically because, under Reagan, budget Because the "fair tax" and other reform Mondale moved further to the right. deficits had soared and were projected to rise Though he preserved links with the proposals in the air threatened the even more over the next five years. No one in special treatment of capital gains that freeze and arms control movements, he the business community liked these deficits, but was so important to investment bankers, conveniently forgot his earlier various parts of the business community faced misgivings over the Grenada invasion. quite different situations as they sorted out their and the unique advantages enjoyed by Coming out in favor of a tough stand interests in the campaign. For example, weapons real estate, neither of these key Demo- on Latin America, he called for a producers (for whom budget deficits show up cratic business constituencies had any "quarantine" of Nicaragua, and talked as an entry in the profits column) and labor enthusiasm for the reform issue. In up the "communist threat." While he intensive manufacturers (whose supply of low- abandoning it, Mondale merely con- did so, the hardest of the hardline wage labor would be affected by cuts in social firmed the alliance with Democratic Democrats — including at length even spending) had powerful incentives to stay with business elites that his promise to raise James Schlesinger — gathered round Reagan with the expectation that massive cuts taxes had already signaled. him. So did many of Glenn's financial in social spending would follow the Presidential But the costs were high. Though backers, including the Stephens brothers re-election. Investments bankers and insurance Mondale appears to have thought he executives, however, work in industries depend- of Arkansas and publishing executive might gain the whole world, all in fact Robert Farmer. . . . ent on investor confidence in long-term bonds. he had done was sell his own soul, and Because perennially growing deficits erode such that of his party. confidence, those executives were markedly more HE CONVENTION itself pro- likely to contribute to Democrats in 1983 and The investment bankers and insurance ceeded smoothly. With Jackson, 1984. For more details, see Chapter 5 and the company executives in the campaign T New York governor Mario statistical appendix to Right Turn. were, of course, gratified. Even if 10 JUNE 13, 1986 Mondale lost, their preeminent issue himself with the Olympics, wrapped his briefly seemed to come alive: would be massively publicized, and the campaign in the flag, and scored it with This election is not about jelly beans and party would be committed in advance country music. pen pals. It is about toxic dumps that give to major efforts at deficit reduction after The White House also sat by while cancer to our children. This election is the election. No one else, however, saw conservative groups operating not about country music and birthday much reason to cheer. Less directly "independently" of the campaign raised cakes. It is about old people who can't concerned than the financiers (and. for pay for medicine. This election is not and spent some $10 million dollars for about the Olympic torch. It is about the those on the outside, sometimes skepti- the President's reelection on their own. civil-rights laws that opened athletics to cal that Mondale really meant what he Last, but hardly least, all the .powers women and minorities who won those said), most industrialists preferred to of incumbency were working for Reagan gold medals. . . . This election is not wait for a second Reagan administration at the end of the campaign. The huge about slogans, like "standing tall." It is to chop social spending to the bone. Nor political business cycle was hitting its about specifics. like the nuclear freeze were industries hurt by the high ex- peak, with spectacular increases in — because if those weapons go off, no one will be left standing at all. change rate of the dollar moved by personal income in the second quarter Mondale's claims that lower deficits of 1984. Still suffering from criticism But Mondale still did not have a jobs would lead to lower interest rates. of parts of his weapons program, the program to offer, and when the cam- Aware, as one multinational Democrat President pushed ahead with his huge paign even made noises about redistribu- admitted, that if Mondale won, "labor Strategic Defense ("Star Wars") Initia- tion from the rich, his business support- would have a stronger voice, - these tive, announced at the very end of the ers sharply complained (at one point firms were hardly enthusiastic at the recession. With at least $26 billion in drawing from Mondale the reply "Oh prospect of conceding in wages what appropriations over its first five years, my goodness, I'm so sorry. There's they might gain on lower interest and and almost infinite amounts promised nothing wrong with wanting to be rich. exchange rates. And for all his talk, even I want to be rich."). Returning again Mondale's commitment to lowering and again to the deficit issue, the interest rates was doubted by many; Though Mondale appears to Mondale campaign turned aside propos- after all, he never made a major issue als from veteran mediaman Tony of the Fed's tight-money policies. have thought he might gain Schwartz and others for a series of hard- Poor and middle class Americans also the whole world, all in fact hitting attacks on the Republicans. Once were unimpressed. Could even Jesse he had done was sell his own again, the business candidate had almost Jackson rouse a crowd of the unem- nothing concrete to offer voters, other ployed to march, sing, and demonstrate soul, and that of his party. than higher taxes. in favor of higher taxes? Without any The Democrats also declined to push job program at all? Many dispirited down the road, the Star Wars program hard on efforts to register new voters. organizers of the foundation-sponsored (even more than the rest of the Reagan Many non-partisan groups, to be sure, "get out the vote" drives soon realized military buildup) represented a lucrative ran registration efforts aimed at likely that the answer was probably no. . . . alternative to the Democrats' industrial Democratic voters. There were more policy proposals. It subsidized than a hundred of them, supported by ARASSED BY media attacks on "sunrise" sectors and high-tech con- about $5 million in foundation and other Ferraro's tangled finances, cerns feeling pressure from the Japa- funding in 1983-84. In addition to H Mondale's campaign [by late nese, without forcing them either to canvassing and other traditional registra- August] sank lower and lower in the compete directly or make a general tion techniques, several groups at- polls. With most of the business commu- compromise on trade. Continuing its tempted strategies of "wholesale" regis- nity behind him, more than two thirds piecemeal approach to the trade issue, tration, signing people up at social- of the press formally endorsing him (to in September the White House issued service waiting rooms, welfare centers, a historic low of 9 percent for Mondale), its long-awaited plan for the American surplus food distribution lines, and the and campaign contributions breaking all steel industry. Here it broke with its like. One organization, Human SERVE records, Reagan had an easy time. professed free trade "principles," and (Service Employees Registration and Certain to capture a heavy majority pledged to roll back steel imports, and Voter Education), attempted to persuade of upper income groups, all the Presi- gave its negotiators until December to social service agencies, both private and dent had to do was to split off a minority work out market sharing agreements public, to offer registration as a regular of the working class vote. Unless the with the Europeans and Japanese. In service. . . . poor voted in unprecedentedly large contrast to plans put forward by some Throughout all this, the national numbers, he would win by a landslide. Democrats and earlier adjustment Democratic establishment sat on the The Reagan campaign, accordingly, schemes implemented under Carter, sidelines. There was still talk of voter dusted off the old tried and true formulas however, it did not ask the industry for mobilization, but it was mostly just talk. for consternating blue collar voters. commitments on reinvestment or em- After months of Democratic stalling on Aware, thanks to its highly sophisticated ployee retraining. In short, Reagan was the issue, Mondale's own field director, polling operation, that most affluent offering something to almost everyone Mike Ford, urged him desperately to American men and women would not except workers and the poor. spend the money needed (on Ford's vote against their economic interests In the final weeks of the campaign, estimate, $12 million) to register 5-6 merely because the President endorsed Mondale accused Reagan of having a million black, Hispanic, and union some eccentric views on social issues, secret plan to raise taxes after the voters. But this was not to be. Despite the White House stepped up its appeals election. Until Reagan's announcement various pledges to spend $5, $10, or $13 to conservative religious groups. The of an upcoming summit with the Soviets, million on a national effort, the Demo- President praised Jerry Falwell, cam- he flogged away at the arms control and crats wound up spending only about $2 paigned at Catholic shrines, appeared on nuclear terror issues. In a memorable million, most of which was expended stage with Catholic bishops, and de- speech at George Washington Univer- late in the campaign on "get out the nounced abortion. He also associated sity, he stepped up his rhetoric and vote" drives. Of that, about half went THE TEXAS OBSERVER 11 to state officials, many of whom had nated as a percentage of the eligible that his company paid only a 0.2 percent been hostile to the original registration electorate. So much for the "reaching tax rate on profits over 1981-84, Grace efforts; the other half apparently went down" effort that Samuel Huntington would later explain that "we are not to a variety of groups, mostly black led, and other revisionist Democrats labeled concerned about the deficit," rather, with former Jackson staffer Ernest a "proven failure" immediately after the "we are concerned about the level of Green (who had been taken on by the election. spending:" Mondale campaign to appease Jackson) dispensing the monies. By the time the On election day, an electorate that money was distributed, Ford had left the EANWHILE, as the Demo- knew nothing of this voted. There were campaign. crats temporized on this and no surprises. Faced with a choice other issues, top aides to the between someone who at least talked Nor did the DNC supply much non- President (as well as a special team of about growth, and delivered one of the material support. When organizers en- reporters working for the Washington greatest political business cycles, and countered resistance from local and state Post and Newsweek who had been in someone whose only firm promise was Democratic officials, and asked the on the secret) kept silent about a to raise taxes, the half the electorate that DNC to use its clout to stop it, they potentially explosive campaign story — made it to the polls opted decisively for were turned aside. And it was only late that there really was a secret tax plan. growth. Blacks, Jews, and the very in September, less than a month before Officially laid plans to further cut the poorest Americans voted for Mondale. most registration rolls closed for the budget of the EPA (leading soon after Everyone else, in percentages that rose season, that Manatt was even moved to the election to the resignation of William directly with income, voted overwhelm- write to major Democratic executives at Ruckelshaus, the Weyerhauser VP to ingly for Ronald Reagan. 1:1 the state and local level to urge their whom Reagan had recently gien the post cooperation in voter registration efforts. after a major scandal) were also not Thomas Ferguson is an associate profes- The end result was a rough draw discussed. While Reagan assured audi- between the non-partisan sor of government at UT-Austin and ences that the U.S. would simply grow author of the forthcoming Critical Democratically oriented groups and the out of $200 billion annual budget GOP and its "independents." Both Realignment:- The Fall of the House of deficits, J. Peter Grace and other top Morgan and the Origins of the New could take credit for about 3.5 million business supporters prepared a massive of the approximately 7 million new Deal. Joel Rogers is an associate anti-deficit ad campaign to begin on professor of law at the University of people registered through group activity. election. night. Asked later about the Turnout wept up absolutely, but stag- Miami. He is co-author, with Joshua cynicism of this move, especially given Cohen, of On Democracy (1983). currently considering deregulating bio- technology, the incident raises important Biotechnology and the issues at a crucial juncture. Since this new technology is capable of transform- ing the world in surprising ways, the Transformation of Nature social, ethical, and environmental impli- cations of genetic engineering ought to By Leila Levinson be given full public consideration.

Austin ENETIC ENGINEERING is the seek approval for the field test because manipulation of the genetic N APRIL 29, 1986, The New neither he nor his colleague, Dr. Stewart structures of plants, animals, York Times carried a story McConnell, considered the vaccine to G and microbes. Biotechnology is the 0 which seemed routine enough be a genetically engineered organism. general term for the industry which has, on its face but which held critical Both scientists have interests in the thus far, produced synthetic insulin, implications for scientists, farmers, and, vaccine's profitability. McConnell left interferon (a protein that regulates the ultimately, for us all. The subject of the Texas A&M to become vice president body's immune response), a growth story was genetic engineering. The key of Novagene, the biotechnology firm hormone, "super" cows capable of actors: two Texas scientists — one at that patented the virus vaccine. Kit is producing 25 percent more milk, herbi- Baylor School of Medicine, the other chairman of the firm's scientific advi- cide-resistant crops, embryo transfers in at Texas A&M. The news: two years sory board, a position for which he is livestock, and microchemicals which ago the scientists had inoculated pigs in financially compensated. Novagene re- "turn on" genes of crops for better Lometa, in Central Texas, with a ceives 50 percent of the royalties , from nitrogen fixation or to produce a desired genetically altered virus — the first the patent, half of which it splits with size. release of a genetically engineered Baylor. organism into the environment. This The birthdate of this revolutionary The position taken by Kit and technology is officially set in 1953. That historic release violated federal and McConnell is considered a minority , university guidelines because it occurred year, James Watson and Francis Crick view among leading scientists. Dr. discovered that the structure of the DNA without the knowledge and required Neville Clarke, director of the Texas approval of a federal agency. molecule, the source of genetic informa- Agricultural Experiment Station at tion, is a double helix. Within five years, When questioned at a Congressional Texas A&M, told the Times, "I think scientists had found a way to split the subcommittee hearing on April 29, Dr. most knowledgeable people would agree two strands of the molecule down the Saul Kit of Baylor stated that he did not that this is a recombinant [genetically middle; the molecule duplicated itself by manipulated] product, and we are con- recombining. with a second complemen- Leila Levinson is a writer and re- cerned that in this case rules were tary strand. Recombinant DNA products searcher for the Texas Center for Rural violated." became a reality in 1971, when Paul Studies in Austin. Because the federal government is Berg of Stanford University split the 12 JUNE 13, 1986 DNA of two different viruses and recombined their genetic material to create a totally new product. The Gene Designers splitting of the DNA molecule and the recombination of genetic material from INCE 1980, when the Supreme Court held that a genetically different molecules was as important to engineered organism could be patented, American and foreign the future of genetic engineering as the S companies have been investing in biotechnology, particularly splitting of the atom was to nuclear agrigenetics, with a fervor. By 1982, 30 major American technology. Genetic engineers began corporations were seriously involved; the number had risen to over testing the possibility of manipulating 100 by 1984. the components of DNA in order to Foremost among these corporations are the chemical companies. control the hereditary process. Lubrizol bought Agrigenetics, a biotechnology firm, for $110 million It was also in 1971 that scientists first in 1984. Monsanto is heavily invested in Genentech, with which considered the potential hazards of the it has a joint development agreement to produce growth hormones research. Stanford's Berg announced for food animals. Monsanto also owns DeKalb's hybrid wheat plans to insert a virus that caused tumors program and Hartz's Seed Company. Dow Chemical is spending in • animals into E. coli, a bacteria at least $40 million annually on crop . and livestock applications of common to people. A fellow scientist, biotechnology. Chevron has spent $35 million on a research center Robert Pollack, pointed out that if the devoted to plant and pest related biotech research. DuPont has E. coli were to escape the laboratory, invested over $200 million in the last five years in agricultural biotech it might infect people. While at first this research.. risk seemed enormously remote to Berg, Why this intensive investment in agricultural biotechnology? A after six months of consideration, he spokesman for W.R. Grace, the nation's fifth largest chemical chose not to pursue his plans. The company, said Grace wants to be ready to meet the future "because possible danger of the experiment the heyday of hydrocarbon chemical in fields like herbicides and seemed to outweigh its benefits. insecticides" might be 'coming to an end. (Grace is conducting the The work of others continued, how- field tests on genetically altered tobacco plants.) Another ever, and in 1973, genetic manipulation consideration might be that the world's population is expected to became possible when two scientists increase by 50 percent over the next 20 years. Food production found a way to transfer genes into the — already a big business — promises to become even bigger. By DNA of a bacteria that would multiply, the year 2000, experts estimate the agrigenetics market will be worth each of the million offspring possessing between $50 to $100 billion. and reproducing the foreign genetic Today, seven percent of the country's farms produce 56 percent characteristic. The controversy over the of its food. Considering the consolidation of economic power that safety of these procedures ,intensified, has been occurring throughout our food-producing system, gaining and public fears escalated. What would control of genetic power is a serious game with very high stakes. happen if these new organisms got into L.I.,, the environment? Though most scientists dismissed the probability of contamina- guidelines, they face loss of their grant the process until it gets more data from tion, few could deny that the possibility money. The NIH guidelines are not the company. The one field test being existed and that they could not predict binding on private entities that do not conducted involves genetically altered the consequences. receive federal funds. tobacco. Scientists found themselves in a NIH suspects that McConnell and Kit quandary. They had no formal organiza- have violated the requirement that HE CONTROVERSY over ge- tion to mediate differing viewpoints and scientists have the NIH committee netic engineering is based on determine the need for regulation. The determine the safety of an environmental T both environmental and ethical government had never before regulated release before the scientists field test a concerns. Thert is no way of knowing scientific research in this way because new recombinant DNA product. While with certainty how a genetically altered the value of freedom of inquiry had the private sector does not have to follow organism will act in the environment. always outweighed any publicly per- NIH guidelines but only applies to EPA Will it duplicate, mutate, infect people, ceived need for regulation. But now that for permits, the publicly funded . work animals, or crops and take on virulent scientists disagreed among themselves of McConnell and Kit does require NIH power? Will it interact with other about the safety of the research proce- approval. Following such approval, the organisms and over generations dures, there was a growing consensus Environmental Protection Agency imperceptibly become a carcinogen? that regulation might be inevitable. (EPA) issues a permit for a field test. Will it upset the precarious ecological In 1974, some of the country's most EPA has issued four such permits so balance as have, for example, fire ants, prominent biologists called for a morato- far,, but three have run into problems. gypsy moths, and kudzu vines? As has rium on recombinant DNA research. It revoked one upon finding that the happened with nuclear and petrochemi- For the next four years they intensely biotech firm involved had secretly tested cal technologies, genetic engineers have debated how to regulate genetic engi- the gene-altered bacteria on trees on top been obsessed with exploring the appli- neering. The result was the creation of on the firm's building. A permit to test cations of biotechnology before develop- the Recombinant DNA Molecule Pro- bacteria that inhibits frost is meeting ing a solid understanding of the potential gram Advisory Committee by the Na- public outcry: permission to use a site impact of the technology on health and tional Institute of Health (NIH). The at Tulelake, California, for the test has environment. committee was charged with establish- so far been refused. The third permit Beyond the environmental conse- ing detailed, precise. guidelines that NIH is for Monsanto to test corn seed that quences of genetic engineering, scien- and other agencies could use in granting excretes a corn worm poison. After tists have paid little attention to the research money. If scientists violate the issuing a permit, the EPA has stalled ethical issues it raises. The technology THE TEXAS OBSERVER 13

does not merely add new ingredients to for abandoning genetic engineering very volvement favors the use of biotechnol- the world; it can enable people to seriously. While biotech corporations, ogy for serving select interests, rather redesign the basic forms of life. Jeremy seeing genetic engineering's commercial than to benefit humanity as a whole. Rifkin of the Foundation On Economic potential, pursue technology, Jack The new herbicide-resistant crops Trends is among those who believe we Doyle of the Environmental Policy illustrate how profit, rather than public should completely abandon the technol- Institute in Washington, D.C., empha- welfare, can inform the choices made ogy. Rifkin sees genetic engineering as sizes that there are potential benefits in in genetic engineering: Varieties of the means of turning the natural world genetic engineering but that realization wheat, corn, and sorghum can now into mere economic products to serve of those benefits will require govern- withstand potent chemicals that kill speed and efficiency. In doing so, he ment and public action. weeds in the fields. This allows an writes (Declaration of a Heretic, We have to ask, Doyle says, what increased use of herbicides, and the past Routledge & Kegan Paul, Boston, responsibilities scientists should have couple of years have seen a dramatic 1985), decisions are made about life that and how their relationships with industry increase in their sales. The companies presuppose our judgment and foresight might affect the public's interest in the manufacturing the herbicides are the to be infallible: research. To what ends will we develop companies developing the resistant What the public has not yet grasped, this technology? Whom will it , serve? crops. Royal Dutch/Shell advertises the is that the new genetic technologies allow At both the state and national level, we two together. us to combine genetic material across The corporate foothold in agriculture natural boundaries, turning all of life into was solidified when corporations were manipulable chemical materials. This Profit, not public given the power to own seeds, plants, radical new form of biological manipula- and livestock through patents. The Plant tion changes both our concept of nature welfare, often informs Variety Protection Act (PVPA) of 1970 and our relationship to it. We begin to view life from the perspective of a the choices made in and its 1981 amendment allowed the chemist. The species or organism no patenting of most new varieties of longer commands our respect or at- biotechnology. plants. This led to an increase in private tion .. . sector breeding and corporate We become the creater and designer. acquisitions of seed companies. In 1980, have the possibility of directing the the U.S. Supreme Court held that Should we allow cultural biases of a technology to produce benefits for us organisms created through genetic ma- particular moment in human history to all. nipulation could be patented, a landmark dictate basic changes in the biological Doyle's book, Altered Harvest (New decision for biotechnology. These gov- blueprint? Should efficiency, profit, and York: Viking, 1985), discusses how national security determine which traits ernment actions created high stakes for should be transferred between species? genetic engineering is transforming biotechnology because, as Doyle states, agrieulture, particularly through corpo- "whoever holds the genes will wield Few people take Rifkin's proposals rate involvement. This corporate in- extraordinary power." ❑

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A Public Service Message from the American Income Life Insurance Co.—Waco, Texas—Bernard Rapoport, Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer

HOMER RAINEY

As one who has been involved in hundreds of campaigns, I think that I am a pretty reliable witness to the assessment that follows: Never, never have I been involved in a campaign in which so many who were involved wanted absolutely nothing for themselves except the positive knowledge that the election of Homer Rainey would be the one chance in their lifetime to elect an individual who himself had no lust for power but only a commitment to serving with selflessness and total integrity. It was without any question the purest campaign in which I was ever involved. I think those who were the workers in this campaign really felt that this was one that could change the world. I am not so sure we were wrong in that conclusion. The following assessment by Molly Ivins, excerpted from her column in the Dec. 22, 1985, Dallas Times Herald, says it best. —Bernard Rapoport

Homer Rainey has died after a long and political biases. distinguished career in education. Older Texans, The firing of Rainey was the political baptism of of course, will recall the name at once, on account an entire generation of Texans: many of them have of perhaps the greatest honor Homer Rainey ever since split the blanket on other issues, but they received was being fired as president of the fought together for Dr. Rainey and I've yet to meet University of Texas by that astonishing body of a one of them. who is not proud of it to this good nincompoops, the Board of Regents of 1944. day. Rainey's sin, as the regents saw it, was to accuse Rainey ran for governor in 1946, and it -took a them of having tried on no fewer than 16 occasions runoff to beat him in one of those rare prairie-fire to limit academic freedom. They were, of course, Texas elections that spark passions for decades._ guilty, guilty, guilty. The board had fired three Just to give you some idea of the appeal of the economics professors for speaking in favor of man, Homer Rainey was not only a nationally known minimum-wage laws at a rally against work educator, he was also a Baptist minister and had stoppages in war plants: they had banned several been a minor league baseball player. books from the campus (including John Dos In the pantheon of great governors we might have Passos' classic "U.S.A."), and they had refused had if the state just had a little more sense, he to finance research projects because of their will always rank high.

BERNARD RAPOPORT American Income Life Insurance Company Chairman of the Board and Aid EXECUTIVE OFFICES: P.O. BOX 208, WACO, TEXAS 78703, 817.772-3050 Chief Executive Officer THE TEXAS OBSERVER 15 • POLITICAL INTELLIGENCE • Latin America since 1978, although reductions suggested by the EPA. No-Lose Strategy representatives of the state's Military Dicofol manufacturers will be re- Department claim the troops are used quired to pay $325,000 to a program only for training in noncombat areas. designed to save the peregrine, but 1/ Kent Hance was "the biggest GOP "Noncombat areas" and "training" farmworkers whose jobs require close trophy in the South" in 1985, writes are loose terms in military talk, and contact with the pesticide will receive Paul Taylor in the Washington Post, but California Democrats, charging that the only warnings of the chemical's dangers Hance's wipeout in this year's Texas Guard's involvement will lead to ex- and will be required to wear protective gubernatorial primary had a silver panded U.S. military action in the gloves when handling it. lining. "One Texas Democratic strate- region, protested the use of 30 Califor- gist," not named, is quoted as having More than 50 pesticides now on the nia Guardsmen to guard road-building market contain dicofol, which is sold told the Post: "The Republicans won equipment in Honduras. that one either way. If it worked out under the trade names Acarin, Kelthane, for Hance as a Republican, fine. If not, All this seemed a surprise to Califor- and Mitigan. A new EPA order concern- well, they've destroyed the career of an nia Gov. George Deukmejian, a political ing reduced levels of DDT was issued attractive conservative Democrat." ally of the Reagan administration. The in late May and is subject to public governor, who serves as commander of comment for 30 days; the Environmen- V One politico who doesn't think the state's National Guard, claimed he tal Defense Fund may sue to block it. Hance's career has been destroyed is "was never made personally aware" of Rob Mosbacher, the Houston oilman the Guard's role in Central America and A Sleeper who raised money for the ill-fated Hance said his approval. of foreign assignments in the future "depends on the nature of campaign. Mosbacher recently told the 1/' A U.S. Senate subcommittee reports Observer he expects to see Hance "lay each mission." that the farm economic crisis and low for another three or four years" and Meanwhile, Gov. Mark White is reduced federal and state aid are creating then perhaps make another run for preparing his own Guard troops for new levels of stress in rural areas. The Governor in 1990. While not saying for more war games, but they aren't going crisis could seriously and permanently certain whether he has discussed the to Honduras this time. It's the "drug undermine the fiscal foundations of matter with Hance, Mosbacher said, "I war" now, and. White has asked Con- many rural communities, the subcom- don't think he was so discouraged by gress to fork over $35 million initially mittee said. While this may not be news this outcome that he feels he's not got and $5 million in annual operating costs to some, Sen. David F. Durenberger, another campaign in him." He said he to fund Texas National Guard aircraft, R-Minn. and chairman of the intergov- expects Hance to be stuck on the radar, and personnel, who will help the ernmental relations subcommittee that "mashed potato circuit" for a, while. Department of Public Safety catch low- prepared the report, called the problem flying airplanes bringing drugs across "awesome . . . a real sleeper." $/' And with all the talk about the future our southern border. campaign plans of New York Governor 1/ Nearly one-fifth of the nursing Mario Cuomo, are Texas Democrats homes in Texas don't meet federal nervous about a Cuomo run for the The Return of DDT health and safety standards, according Presidency in 1988? State Democratic to a U.S. Senate report published by the chairman Bob Slagle says, "It's too Althdugh the suspected carcinogen Special Committee on Aging. The report early to concern oneself with it." But DDT was banned in the U.S. in 1972, said many of the state's nursing homes Slagle said he resents talk that Texans its sale has continued as an ingredient resemble 19th-centdry asylums, where would balk at an Italian candidate. in the pesticide dicofol. Nearly three patients suffer from mental and physical "Hey, we've got an Italian Land million pounds of dicofol are used each abuse, a shortage of doctors and nurses, Commissioner [Garry Mauro]. Nobody year in this country, primarily in Texas, and squalid conditions. Of the 239 thought his name was Garry Moore," California, Arizona, and Florida. Be- skilled nursing homes in Texas, 40 Slagle said. "Cuomo has an asset in that cause pesticide use is not tracked in homes, or 17 percent, did not meet at he can speak with passion," Slagle Texas, Agriculture Department officials least one of the federally regulated continued,. "which is important." But don't know how much dicofol Texas critical minimum standards. The study Cuomo will have to "talk about the growers use., cited the federal government's failure to things that are of concern to the average The EPA approved use of dicofol in identify offenders and take action as part middle-class Texan." And at this point, 1972, just six days after DDT was of the problem. "the average Texan doesn't really know banned, but did not begin to study who Mario Cuomo is, or what he dicofol until nine years later. Environ- 1/ Economic losses, civil unrest, and thinks," Slagle said. mentalists and farm labor activists say political pressure from anti-apartheid I/ Texas hasn't been the only state to DDT's continued use will harm people activists in this country have caused send National Guard troops to Central and wildlife, and, although concentra- U.S. companies to pull out of South America: for nearly a decade, members tion levels were beginning to decrease, Africa at a much faster rate than in of the California National Guard have the chemical still appears in human previous years. A comprehensive survey flown .provisions to U.S. embassies in tissue samples and mother's milk. DDT completed by the Investor Responsibility Central and South America and have is suspected of causing stillbirths and Research Center, Inc., shows that in transported military supplies to Hondu- spontaneous abortions in humans, .and 1984 seven U.S. companies left South ras. At a recent California legislative of nearly wiping out the peregrine Africa, while 38 companies withdrew hearing, National Guard officials testi- falcon. Federal biologists admit that the in 1985. The survey also found that 26 fied that the Guard has been active in bird may not survive the phased-in DDT of the 105 largest U.S. banks have

16 JUNE 13, 1986

established formal policies banning any It helps me sharpen my ideas, in a way receive any funding reductions in these new loans to South African borrowers. I wouldn't have had to earlier." programs. Fifty-five of those 105 banks refuse to Sen. Lloyd Bentsen and 23 other make loans to the South African govern- Texas Abuse lawmakers have asked that the law be ment, compared to 26 banks in 1984. changed so that all states share equally v Texas will lose more than its propor- in the mandated spending cuts. ❑ Getting To Know You tionate share of funding of two federal programs if the Gramm-Rudman act is V Ten Texas legislators and a handful carried out as planned. Almost $9 complete personal and business insurance of high-powered lobbyists recently trav- million will be sliced from the state's ALICE ANDERSON AGENCY eled to North Palm Beach, Florida, for Low Income Energy Assistance Pro- 808-A East 46th a few days of dog racing and golf. While gram and the Alcohol, Drug Abuse, and P.O. Box 4666, Austin 78765 some of the lawmakers were quick to Mental Health Grants in fiscal 1986, (512) 459-6577 point out that they, paid their own while some states are not scheduled to expenses on the trip, others admitted that the lobbyists footed the bill. The group 1886 — 1986 stayed at the Sheraton PGA resort and ANDERSON & COMPANY1 COFFEE spent one night being wined and dined TEA SPICES at the dog racing track. Lobbyist hosts TWO JEFFERSON SQUARE included Nick Kralj and Dean Cobb, AUSTIN, TEXAS MU who in the past have lobbied for pari- 512 453-1533 mutuel betting; Jerry "Nub" Send me your list. JARP N INN) Donaldson, lobbying for the insurance industry's tort reform; and Neal Name "Buddy" Jones, former chief of staff Street for House Speaker Gib Lewis and COME STAY & CELEBRATE lobbyist for Unicare, Inc., a Florida- City Zip OUR 100th YEAR based nursing home chain planning to open facilities in Texas. Legislators on the trip, many of whom .\,t1 and Associates 1117 West 5th Street claimed they went along to become I I: "better acquainted with colleagues," E Austin, Texas 78703 REALTOR (512) 749-5555 include Reps. Mike Millsap, D-Fort Representing all types of properties In Austin and Central Texas P.O. Box 8 Worth; Clint Hackney, D-Houston; Interesting .& unusual property a specialty. Ashley Smith, R-Houston; Bill Messer, CO 477-3651 Port Aransas, TX 78373 D-Belton (who now doubles as a tort ICU itIMIMIMAIW reform lobbyist); and Sens. Bob McFar- land, R-Arlington; Bob Glasgow, D- Stephenville; Chet Edwards, D-Duncan- ville; Roy Blake, D-Nacogdoches; Kent Caperton, D-Bryan; and J.E. "Buster" Brown, R-Lake Jackson. Brooks chairs the Senate committee responsible for nursing home oversight. Caperton, Edwards, and McFarland serve on a special committee investigating the Congressman John Bryant got his MANDATE insurance crisis. before the election.

The Mall of Ideas P.O. Box 140342 • Dallas, Texas 75214 • (214) 823-6803

1/ The New York Times appears to have perceived, through its reporter Peter Applebome, a revival of campus activ- ism at the University of Texas at Austin. "Many Causes Move a Texas Campus," the piece was entitled. These run from DON'T DUMP ON TEXAS a new conservative student paper to anti- apartheid rallies to the prevention of Bumper Manifesto nuclear war. Dr. Les Kurtz, professor send $3.00 to of sociology, is quoted, about UT- Austin: "In a way, it's what the League Against Nuclear Disposal in Texas university should be. My classes are 13931 N. Central Expressway Suite 318 extremely lively, and when you go out Dallas,TX 75243 (214) 557-1270 to the West Mall, where many of the political groups on campus have set up tables, you can find almost everything.

THE TEXAS' OBSERVER 17 PLANNING MEETING TO FOUND THE NEW TIM CELEBRATE THE FOURTH OF JULY WEEKEND IN CHICAGO BY. BECOMING A FOUNDER OF THE NEW PATRIOTIC MAJORITY Our objective is to build a new, non-partisan movement based on the restoration of the ideals and aspirations of the American Revolution, the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights. We believe that patriotism begins with the quest for peace, jobs; justice and a clean environment. The democratic process requires greater involvement by all Americans in the political process. We believe that "government of the people, by the people and for the people" is today in danger, and must not "perish from this earth." The flag, our land and our liberty can be protected only by a new patriotic majority. We believe that those who pretend loyalty to the flag while they feed on the misfortunes of the nation are neither patriotic, moral nor a majority. NATIONAL PATRIOTIC CONFERENCE' AGENDA POLITICAL CONFERENCE Sat. July 5 1 p.m. Workshops 3 p.m. "HOW AMERICA CELEBRATES JULY 5th and 6th THE 100th ANNIVERSARY OF THE STATUE OF LIBERTY.

7 . p.m. Panel "THE NEW PATRIOTISM IN AMERICA." Sun. July 6 12 noon to 4 p.m. Workshops LOYOLA UNIVERSITY "HOW TO FOUND THE PATRIOTIC CAMPUS, CHICAGO MAJORITY." SPONSORS/ENDORSERS (Partial List) U.S. Representatives Ronald Dellums (CA). Lane Evans (IL), Charles Hayes (IL), Mike Lowry (WA), Parren Mitchell (MD). Bruce Morrison (CT), Richard L. Trumka, Pres. United Mine Workers, Rev. Willie Taplin Barrow, PUSH; Prof. Noam Chomsky, MIT.; Msgr. John Egan, Dir. Human Relations, Archdiocese of Chicago; Corky Jones, Pres. American Agriculture Movement; Allen H. Kaplan, Natl. V.P., A.F.G.E.; Maggie Kuhn, Gray Panthers; Rabbi Robert J. Marx, Cong. Hakafa; Fr. Carlos A. Plazas, Pres. St. Augustine College; Dr. Wm. Price, Dir., World Peacemakers/Citizens of Faith; Sr. Donna Quinn, Natl Coalition of American Nuns; Rev. Paul H. Sherry, Dir. Community Renewal Society; Studs Terkel, author; Sr. Margaret Traxler, Institute of Women Today; C. Dolores Tucker, former Sec'y of State (PA); Sr. Marjorie Tuite, Dir., Ecumencial Action, Church Women United and Coordinator, Natl. Assembly of Religious Women; Quentin D. Young, M.D., Physicians for Social Responsibility. (*Organizations for identification only.) REGISTRATION FORM PATRIOTIC MAJORITY, Suite 3A, 1300 W. BELMONT CHICAGO, IL 60657 (312)528-1212

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18 JUNE 13, 1986 BOOKS AND THE CULTURE • losing research grants and jobs. Mancuso's findings were the first embarrassment to the AEC, which had The Suicidal hired him to refute claims that workers in AEC facilities were being exposed to dangerous levels of radiation. Man- Civilization cuso found instead that nuclear workers at Hanford, Washington, suffered five By Betty Brink percent to seven percent excess radiation cancer deaths at exposure levels as much as 30 times below that which had been S THE SHADOWS of Cherno- Nobel laureates such as Linus Pauling considered safe by the AEC. When byl continue to.. lengthen, and Andrei Sakharov to those of the Mancuso refused to suppress his own A Killing Our Own: The Disaster victims themselves or their survivors, data, the AEC tried, failed, and finally of America's Experience with Atomic whose courageous stories are docu- cut off his research funds. Radiation,, should be required 'reading mented in this book, many for the first John Gofman and Arthur Tamplin for every nuclear power or-power-to- time. suffered the same fate when Gofman be in the world. Not just . for those was director of the AEC's radiation leaders who have knowingly taken us OW DID WE get from Hiro- health program, assisted by Tamplin. into this long and lethal nuclear night- They found that radioactive "leakage" mare, but for the people, too, in the hope shima to Three-Mile-Island, and now to Chernobyl? It's all from normally operating nuclear power that, as Albert Einstein wrote in 1947, H plants, a problem considered "an informed citizenry will act for life here, for this is not just a book about radiation and its victims. It is a history "nonexistent" by the industry, could "in and not death." fact kill large numbers of people" and This book brings together in one KILLING OUR OWN: The would, in time, cause "an excess of volume the history and disaster of this Disaster of America's Experi- 32,000 cases of fatal cancer plus Atomic Age — from its beginnings when leukemia per year . . . occurring year the first bombs were exploded over ence with Atomic Radiation after year." Both resigned after suffer- Hiroshima and Nagasaki, ending a long By Harvey Wasserman and ing budget cuts, harassment, and censor- and brutal war and causing jubilation Norman Solomon ship. across the country (but causing, also, There were others. Alice Stewart, more than one Los Angeles scientist to with Robert Alvarez & Eleanor Karl Z. Morgan, Rosalie Bertell, Irwin walk "cold sober into the dark of that Walters Bross; and Ernest Sternglass were health August night and retch,") to the age's Delta/Delacorte, New York, 1982 scientists who, in other times, would deadly legacy at Three-Mile-Island — 368 pages, $12.95 have been considered the cream of the the most tragic product. until Chernobyl crop. When their findings showed that of the stupidity of using a nuclear bomb of the politics of the Cold War, the arms humans, animals, and the environment to boil. water. race with the Soviet Union, the selling were being irreparably damaged by the As frightening as the book's of the "peaceful atom" to a reluctant effects of radiation from the entire revelations are, fright quickly turns to industry (seduced through massive sub- nuclear fuel cycle, i.e., dangerous levelg anger as you realize that most, if not sidies, $39 billion worth through 1980) of plutonium, strontium-90, cesium- all, of the information in Killing Our with the help of an unquestioning mass 137, iodine-131, cobalt, and radon, Own, compiled after years of investiga- media and the approval, by default, of among the most lethal, they were forced tive research and interviews with radia- an uninformed public. It is the story of out of the industry. tion victims or their survivors, has been the muzzling and character assassination Their stories and their findings are known or been available for decades to of prominent anti-bomb scientists of the documented in Killing Our Own and are our own political leaders and other 1950s, when there was still time to chilling because they focus on the most proponents of nuclear power. They have change direction, and the suppression of susceptible in our society — 'our chil- chosen to cover up the message — a early independent research showing the dren, those already born and those in cover-up well documented in this book real health hazards to which Americans utero. Sternglass, who later documented — that radiation from our 40-year were being exposed by nuclear fallout infant deaths following the accident at commitment to all things nuclear is —suppression by the Atomic Energy Three-Mile-Island, said in 1969 that killing us. Commission (AEC) and later the Nu- "some 375,000 American infants had Not only have they covered up the clear Regulatory Commission, as well died as a result of the atomic bomb message, the political, scientific, and as the U.S. Public Health Service. testing." corporate proponents of nuclear power When the AEC's own research began And we learn that eleven years have also tried to silence the to confirm 'independent data, then those earlier, in 1958, Linus Pauling had messengers, whose names range from findings, too, were suppressed and the predicted that 140,000 people would die researchers forced out. While the AEC from each and every bomb testa He Betty Brink writes on nuclear matters was able to keep much of its data secret wrote that a single fallout product, for the Observer. Killing Our Own can for years, scientists such as Drs. Thomas radioactive carbon-14, could cause be ordered by writing: Harvey Mancuso, John Gofman, and Arthur "425,000 neonatal and embryonic Wasserman, Box 23310, Columbus, Tamplin did manage to publish damag- deaths, 170,000 stillbirths and childhood Ohio 43223. The price is $12.95. ing information, which resulted in their deaths and result in another 55,000 THE TEXAS OBSERVER 19 children born with gross physical or 445 since we went "underground" in ings, followed by 300,000 other service mental defects." 1963. men and women "routinely assigned" Andrei Sakharov that year added his to nuclear weapons tests, to the islanders own prediction that carbon-14 would kill S IMPORTANT as the statistics of the Pacific whose paradises were millions of people over time, saying that are, and this book is filled with turned into hell-holes, to the workers already "the total number of victims is A them, the heart of Killing Our at Rocky Flats and the people down- approaching one million persons." And Own lies in the stories of the victims wind, to the children and adults of St. even earlier, in 1950, Hans Bethe, themselves, told eloquently and compas- George, Utah, downwind from the another Nobel prize recipient, had sionately by the authors. Nevada test sites, to the victims of warned publicly that carbon-14 would The innocents — from the first atomic Three-Mile-island— all have one thing "poison the air for 5,000 years and veterans, those Marines and Seabees in common: they have all been exposed could make life impossible." There have who were sent into Nagasaki and to killing amounts of radiation through been over 700 nuclear tests since 1945. Hiroshima six weeks after the bomb- government deception.

Three Mile Island's Hidden Death Toll

B EFOR.E THE accident at Met- to 19.3 in 1979. But even before the newborns and, if not treated in time, ropolitan Edison's Three- accident, according to MacLeod, the will cause retardation. A "cluster" Mile-Island (TMI) nuclear state health department reported a of such cases was found in Lancaster power plant near Harrisburg, Penn- progressive increase in neonatal and County immediately downwind from sylvariia,.in March of 1979, Jane Lee infant mortality rates during the six the plant and was twelve times higher and br. Ernest Sternglass had noth- months following start-up irregulari- than expected in the nine months ing obvious in common. She was a ties at TMI-2, that is, three months following the accident. dairy farmer and a widow in Etters, before the accident as well as the Neonatal death rates, which focus Pennsylvania, five miles from Three three months following the accident. on the first month of a child's life, Mile Island, and he was a medical were even higher in Harrisburg, radiologist teaching at the University Sternglass found, where "infants one of Pittsburgh and researching the month old or leSs died at a rate of health - effects of radiation from 29.7 per 1,000 live births following nuclear power plants and from weap- the accident." The previous year ons-testing fallout. there had. been only 7.6 per 1,000, Today they are both researchers and the year before the statistical rate and sometime colleagues, studying had been zero. Sternglass says the the short- and long-term effects on linkage to TMI is "clear" because humans, animals, and the environ- the doses of iodine-131 released to ment of radiation released during the pregnant women in the path of the first few days and weeks of the partial plume "were clearly capable of meltdown of the Number 2 reactor causing rises in infant mortality." at TMI (after temperatures inside the But getting statistics or help of any core reached 5,100 degrees Farenheit kind from the state health department and came close to a complete "The high rates have returned to proved so futile to Lee and her meltdown) . normal," MacLeod told the Ameri- neighbors, who had been concerned Their findings and those of others, can Public Health Association's an- about radiation leaking from the plant such as Dr. Gordon MacLeod, nual meeting in Dallas in 1983, "and even before the accident, that she and former director of the Pennsylvania have never been satisfactorily ex- several friends began their own Health Department, are devastating. plained." . health study within the counties (MacLeod had been director for only But Sternglass and Lee believe surrounding the plant. twelve day's when the accident oc- there is an explanation. They are They have found not only a "leap" curred. He was fired eight months convinced that large amounts of in infant deaths but also in childhood later after publicly criticizing the state radioactive iodine-131 were released cancers and leukemia. Lee says, for for not evacuating pregnant women into the atmosphere along. with example, that, in the eight years prior and children immediately as he had strontium, cesium, noble gases, plu- to the accident, Lancaster County had recommended.) tonium, and 40 other transuranics. a total of 66 childhood cancers; in Near TMI, infant deaths were 11.7 Iodine ingested by pregnant women the year following the accident, she per 1000 live births in 1977, drop- can cross the placenta and cause death found over 38 cases of cancer and ping to 9.8 in 1978, and then soaring or depressed thyroid function in leukemia. "And they are by far not

20 JUNE 13, 1986 And they have all suffered and died But they also have another thing in we continue to try to talk and write about in disproportionate numbers to their common: what Dr. Benjamin Spock it in rational and civil tongues. There fellow citizens from radiation-induced called in his introduction "a stone wall is nothing rational, there is nothing civil illnesses: leukemia, multiple myeloma, of governmental denial." about nuclear holocaust, whether it Hodgkins disease, bone marrow disease, The criminals are named in this book comes in one blinding, earth-ending stillbirths, children born with mental and as well as the heroes. "Criminal" is not flash or poisons us a little more slowly physical disorders, hyperthyroidism; too strong a word to use to 'describe a over the next several hundred years. and they have • suffered from many whole generation of men who knowingly Killing Our Own will make you even different kinds of cancers: lung, kidney, and deliberately took us down this road, more aware of the urgency we face. It breast, bone, muscle, and thyroid. Some which could end in the complete annihi- is another tool, an invaluable tool, for stories had to be told by surviving lation of humanity. It seems that even Einstein's "informed citizenry," who spouses or parents; some victims have those of us who oppose everything must act and act quickly' if the fate of died since the book was published. nuclear are a part of the madness when the earth is not to be forever sealed.

the total number," she told me in Dallas, following her appearance in April on the Phil Donahue Show with Harvey Wasserman and Juanita Ellis from Dallas. Through telephone calls and door- to-door surveys, Lee and her neigh- bors have found the increases in cancer that the health department could not find. In a small town called Goldsboro, with a population of less than 700 people, they found 27 cancers which had developed since the accident. And in one small town the women found three deaths due to muscle cancer in families all living within a one-half block area. It is a

"very rare type of cancer," Lee was a) told by a medical biologist, and one that is similar to Kaposi's sarcoma, found in AIDS victims, an indication 0 of a weakened immune system, a known result of radiation poisoning. The citizen researchers have "I suspected radiation from the believes the substance is converting found, in interviewing over 100 beginning, but of course we have the natural minerals in the soil to families, all of whom complained of never been able to prove it. But I chloride salt, and the food grown on having smelled or tasted iodine in the still began to log the problems. And the farms is coming up without the hours following the accident (many then farmers from the area began to natural and necessary nutrients, caus- before they knew there had been an come to me, and we found that we ing the animal's muscles to be starved accident), that there has been a five- were all having the same difficulties: for nutrients. fold increase in cancer mortalities stillbirths, deformed animals, eggs among those families, which would not hatching, deformed ducklings, "The NRC never gave us any help. They wouldn't even come out for two not have been expected in that calves born without eyes and with years. The state agriculture depart- population. soft bones, heifers unable to conceive or dilate to give birth. ment tried to blame the problems on Lee also found others who com- the farmers, men and women who plained of metallic and iodine tastes "Farmers were showing me 400 had been farming successfully for and smells during the first days of pound steers who couldn't get up, over 50 years, and the health depart- the accident and said they suffered animals dragging themselves around ment ignored us." froM skin rashes, nausea, vomiting, by their hindquarters, mimicking diarrhea, eye and mucous membrane white muscle disease, which occurs That is why Jane Lee and her burns, and blistering, all symptoms because of a lack of nutrients in the neighbors began to conduct their own of radiation poisoning. food. survey after the accident, and she has carried their story to every forum she Jane Lee got involved because she "All this time we had been seeing can find — from the NRC Citizen's had reason not to believe the experts. a white substance falling on the fields Advisory Panel to national television. "That dairy farm has been in my and in the water that had not been brother-in-law's family for over 200 there before the plant opened, and Her message is simple: "We must years," she told me, "and after the it would disappear, mysteriously, lay to rest the propaganda that has plant opened we began to see, bizarre when the plant was shut down. We been put out by the pro-nuclear changes in the animals and so did our still don't know what it is, but our industry that no one died at TMI. neighbors. long-time vet, Dr. Robert Weber, "That is a blatant lie," she says.B.B.

THE TEXAS OBSERVER 21 • SOCIAL CAUSE CALENDAR • CAPA IN AUSTIN 20 and the morning of June 21 with fees Robert Capa: A Retrospective, 1932-1954, OBSERVANCES. ranging from $20-50. For more information will be on view at the Lyndon Baines Johnson contact Texas Nuclear Freeze Campaign, June 14, 1855 — Robert M. - Fighting Library and Museum from June 7 through 1507A South Ervay, Dallas, TX (214) 426- Bob" LaFollette born. August 10. The exhibit is sponsored by the 5347, June 16, 1873 — Susan B. Anthony International Center of Photography. More BACK TO THE PRAIRIE than half of the 160 images to be displayed arrested for voting. have never been exhibited before. Forty June 17, 1972 — Watergate break-in. The Native Prairies Association of Texas will host the Tenth North American Prairie vintage prints of Capa's finest photographs June 18, 1954 — Guatemalan govern- Conference at the Texas Women's Univer- of the Spanish Civil War will be included ment overthrown in CIA-sponsored coup. sity campus in Denton June 22-26. along with a sampling of the work Capa did June 19, 1865 — Proclamation issued This is the first of the biennial conferences for Life magazine in the 1930s and 1940s, declaring all Negro slaves in Texas free. pictures of Parisian children, and portraits to be held in Texas and will, be focused on Ethel and Julius of Pablo Picasso, Ernest Hemingway, and June 19; 1953 — the state's diminished prairies and the Paul Robeson among others. Rosenberg executed. attempts being made to restore and preserve June 25, 1938 — Congress grants them. The theme of the conference is "The The LBJ Library and Museum is at 2313 workers protection in - Fair Labor Stan- Prairie: Roots of Our Culture, Foundation Red River Street, Austin, TX 78705. For dards Act. of Our Economy" and will include speakers, more information, call Gary Yarrington at June 26, 1947 — Department of symposia, workshops, and field trips. And, (512) 482-5137 or Annette Sadler at 482- of course, a Texas-style barbecue. Invited 5279. Defense created. June 27, 1905 — IWW (Wobblies) speakers include Garrison Keillor of the "Prairie Home Companion" radio show, founded. ART IN FORT WORTH Texas Agricultural Commissioner Jim High- People of the Forest: Photographs of the tower and Texas Land Commissioner Garry Maya by Gertrude Blom will run through 8. The series includes examples of cel, Mauro. June 22 at the Amon Carter Museum in Fort picturebook and clay animation, classic For more information contact Arnold Worth. Ms. Blom has lived among the Maya films, and children's stories. The films are Davis at (817) 292-5588; David Riskind, people in Chiapas, Mexico, for over 40 on Friday mornings at 9 a.m., 10:15 a.m.. Texas Parks and Wildlife, (512) 479-4897; years, and this exhibition consists of 65 black and 11:30 a.m. at Laguna Gloria Art Geoffrey Stanford, Greenhills Environmen- and white photographs. Museum, 3809 West 35th Street. Austin. tX tal Center, (214) 296-1955; David Diamond, 78763. For more information call Molly Also at the Amon Carter Museum will Texas Natural Heritage Program,-(512) 475- Collins at (512) 458-8191. be Contemporary Texas: A Photographic 0660; Fred Smeins, Texas A&M Range Portrait, 150 photographs documenting FREEZE' CAMPAIGN Sciences Dept., (409) 296-1955. Texas in the 1980s running from June 28 The third annual Texas Nuclear Freeze through August 24; the first major show Campaign conference and business meeting PANTEX PILGRIMAGE devoted solely to the watercolors of Winslow will be held in Fort Worth June 20-22. There It is time for the yearly pilgrimage to Homer, Winslow Homer's Watercolors, will will be workshops, seminars, skills training. Pantex, the plant near Amarillo which makes continue through July 27. and the business meeting with revision of all the nuclear warheads in the U.S. arsenal. by-laws and election of the new board on This year's peace vigil will be held .there CHILDREN'S FILMS Sunday, June 22. Most activities and August 8 through August 10 and will The Children's Summer Film Series will accommodations will be at the Catholic include workshops, lectures, and civil begin at the Laguna Gloria Art museum on Renewal Center, 4503 Bridge, Fort Worth. disobedience. June 13 and will continue through August Check-in and registration will be on June As in past years there will be bike-for- peace pilgrimages to the vigil from cities in Oklahoma. New Mexico. and Texas. For more information contact Ed Kale, 503 S. Center, Arlington, TX 76010, (817) 275- 6073; Jimi Clark, 5602 Rutherglenn, Hous- ton, TX 77096, (713) 729-3756; Kathleen Stockwell, 907 Holly Bluff, Austin, Tx 78753, (512) 834-8950.

NOTICE TO ALL PERSONS HAVING CLAIMS AGAINST THE ESTATE OF HARRY ANNIE HARDMAN, DECEASED

Notice is hereby given that original Letters of Administration with the Will Annexed for the Estate of HARRY ANNIE HARDMAN were issued on Apr11 24, 1986 in Cause No. 1767 pending in the Probate

Court of Goliod County, Texas, tot MAURY MAVERICK, JR. The residence of such Administrator with the Will Annexed is

flexor County, Texas. The post office address Ls:

% Herschel Bernard ISO AMOriC811 Security Life Building 745 East Mulberry San Antonio, Texas 78212

All persons having claims against this Estate which is currently being administered are required to present them within the time and

in the manner prescribed by law. DATED the 28th day of May, 1986.

MAURY MAVERICK, JR.

07,e-6-C Robert Capa, photographer. Cordoba front, Spain, 1936. Falling Loyalist Soldier. Attorney for the Estate © Estate of Robert Capa.

22 JUNE 13, 1986 • AFTERWORD • Something to

Count On Something to Count On I'm home on a Sunday, to celebrate my father's eightieth by Martha Boethel birthday. My brother and his two-carload family arrive as I do, hassled, late, bearing gifts and apologies.

My mother greets us reciting the menu: Chicken and dumplings, baked yams, her new special nine-bean soup, Home loaves of garlic bread, one big can of Kentucky wonders Home is where the heart ("You know, Ruthie, not one of these children will touch sleeps with the rest of the body, where walls anything green!"), and a plate of strawberries. For will open like windows, the seasons dessert she's made banana pudding with real whipped of death and dreams and light are like voices, cream, and my father's favorite, mincemeat pie. She's or pillows. The body curled in bed, the simple thinking of making peaches flambe, but Ruthie, who's stillness of tea in a cup. brought pea salad and two birthday cakes, persuades her to rest. My father tells me the woods are brown: no more yaupon berries or rose hips, My father sits in his recliner, counts heads. Only the snakes asleep in their logs, Burton, the oldest grandchild, is missing: weekends, deer wearing their dingy camouflage. he ushers at the picture show. The youngest, Teddie, Meanwhile, my dead yard turns blue helps my father open his gifts: a Calvin Klein sweater, as the neighbor's dogs shred an old sweater. tins of honey-smelling tobacco, books about Eisenhower. They tug, growl, grow tired, settle onto the new grass to wait for another game. Later I take Teddie to look for the cat. I point behind I settle on the porch steps. bushes and she bencls to look, careful not to muddy her Staring into my tea, I see catfish, white sundress or sandals. As we open the gate to the brown at the brown bottom of the Navidad, back yard, she tells me a dream: She is in her yard, cows chewing in a dirty field, and a single but it's not hers really, with her mommy and daddy, cardinal, red as the candle on my windowsill, only they're not her same ones. They're all sitting skipping from post to branch by a swimming pool. She doesn't know if the pool is to underbrush, then gone. big or little, so she jumps in. It's big; she starts yelling, "Help! Help!" to her daddy. I've taken my mother to the hospital again. Her sister, with cancer, refuses to die "What happened then?" I ask her. at home, wants her hand on the buzzer. She can live or not, still asks no favors "I died," she says, and skips on to find the cat. from God, but the pain and the awesome My father doesn't talk about dying. Five years ago presence have shrunk her; she wrinkles, in the country, walking down the rideaway on a fall cries like her own mother who hung on, afternoon, he told me he was tired, he was ready. Since who called and called for the nurses. then we don't mention it. He's writing again, short And my old father drives to the country, pieces he puts in the paper, a series about the things looks at a tree he once fell out of. that have pissed him off all these years. Like folks who won't share family stories but still look for their I sit on the steps, restless, names in his books. Or the day the railroad people already old in my homelessness. Or claimed took up the tracks. "I miss the sound of those trains, by an old claim. Sometimes I feel he tells us, eating pie. "We lived by them, set our the woods. . . or a water within me, clocks by them. Old Judge Harvey wouldn't break court long-legged seabirds wading among rushes, till he heard the Katy whistle. It was something to count on." a basket or bottle, small fingers clutching, a call. . . sometimes I feel nothing.

No matter. My task seems the same: to move, to be still. To sleep, awaken, hang pictures on the walls till they open, till every wall is a hallway, the long tunnel, every destination darkness — and to love it all. Martha Boethel lives and writes in Austin.

THE TEXAS OBSERVER 23

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24 JUNE 13, 1986