OUR PICK for the SENATE Pg

OUR PICK FOR THE SENATE Pg. 2

A JOURNAL OF FREE VOICES DECEMBER 25, 1992 $1.75

MICHAEL ALEXANDER

`SL • • • EDITORIALS After Bentsen omes now the opportunity to replace Senator Constitution and citizens than to the corporate CLloyd Bentsen, and a Governor elected with interests working to reshape, the court. But A JOURNAL OF FREE VOICES the support of progressives offers a list of can- Doggett says he's not interested in an appoint- We will serve no group or party but will hew hard to didates who would be likely to vote very much ment or a campaign for the U.S. Senate. the truth as we find it and the right as we see it. We are like the conservative senator who now moves There are, however, other progressives capa- dedicated to the whole truth, to human values above all on to the Clinton cabinet. ble of running a statewide race. There is none interests, to the rights of human-kind as the foundation of democracy: we will take orders from none but our own Henry Cisneros, who the talk of the town had better than U.S. Rep. John Bryant of Dallas. conscience, and never will we overlook or misrepresent as the Governor's first choice, is yet another Since hewas elected to Congress in 1982, Bryant the truth to serve the interests of powerful or cater business Democrat. Yes, Cisneros can deliver a has represented the interests of consumers and to the ignoble in the human spirit. ' fine speech. On the hot summer day when he took working people. His 1990 vote ratings by the Writers are responsible for their own work, but not for anything they have not themselves written, and in pub- off his coat and addressed the members of the Americans for Democratic Action, the ACLU lishing them we do not necessarily imply that we agree Industrial Areas Foundation gathered on the capi- and the AFL-CIO are only surpassed by Houston with them, because this is a journal Wive voices. tol steps, repeating again and again "Hay dinero Rep. Craig Washington and San Antonio Rep. suficiente para los ninon," many would have fol- Henry B. Gonzalez. Bryant is 45, bright, artic- SINCE 1954 lowed him anywhere. Had he but decided to ulate and squeaky clean. (Gonzalez's age and Publisher: Ronnie Dugger lead. As a mayor, Cisneros imposed on his con- Washington's tangled financial affairs at home Editor: Louis Dubose stituents the highest sales tax in the state to build make both unlikely candidates.) Associate Editor: James Cullen an Alamodome, which, when completed, will Granted, Bryant has never won a statewide Layout and Design: Diana Paciocce, Peter Szymczak Copy Editor: Roxanne Bogucka stand vacant. He also courted the very low-wage race. (Has Cisneros?) But Bryant is well regarded Mexico City Correspondent: Barbara Belejack employers that COPS and the Metro Alliance are in Democratic Party circles; a tireless cam- Editorial Interns: Paula George, Lorri J. Legge now trying to help San Antonions escape through paigner, in 1984, when he had no opponent he Contributing Writers: Bill Adler, Betty Brink, Warren comprehensive job training. invested considerable time and money in elect- Burnett, Brett Campbell, Jo Clifton, Terry FitzPatrick, Gregg Franzwa, James Harrington, Bill Helmer, Ellen Comptroller John Sharp was a enlightened ing Democratic candidates. Hosmer, Steven Kellman, Michael King, Deborah Railroad Commissioner, and as Comptroller has And Bryant is interested in the race, accord- Lutterbeck, Tom McClellan, Bryce Milligan, Debbie served well. Sharp has opened his office to ing to his spokesman Carlton Carl, who said Nathan, Gary Pomerantz, Lawrence Walsh. minorities and has a knack for hiring the best Bryant is not campaigning for the appointment Editorial Advisory Board: David Anderson, Austin; Frances Barton, Austin; Elroy Bode, El Paso; Chandler people in the state. He has run several statewide and that he has not called nor been contacted by Davidson, Houston; Dave Denison, Cambridge, Mass; races and raises money like a Senator. But his Governor Richards. But he would eagerly accept Bob Eckhardt, Washington, D.C.; Sissy Farenthold, voting record as a state representative and sen- the appointment and might even consider enter- Houston; Ruperto Garcia, Austin; John Kenneth Galbraith, ator, by progressive standards, is lamentable ing a race if he weren't appointed. Cambridge, Mass.; Lawrence Goodwyn, Durham, N.C.; George Hendrick, Urbana, Ill.; Molly Ivins, Austin; and he was on Phil drarnm's staff when Gramm, If not John Bryant, what of former Attorney Larry L. King, Washington, D.C.; Maury Maverick, as a Democrat, ran against Lloyd Bentsen in the General Jim Mattox? Mattox also says he's inter- Jr., San Antonio; Willie Morris, Oxford, Miss.; Kaye' Senate primary in 1976. ested and suggests that Richards appoint either Northcott, Austin; James Presley, Texarkana; Susan Reid, Bill Hobby, lately said to be the Governor's herself or him. (Yes, it's an unlikely appoint- Austin; Geoffrey Rips, Austin; A.R. (Babe) Schwartz, Galveston; Fred Schmidt, Fredericksburg. most likely choice is, well, alright. At best a ment after the primary fight.) Mattox has a noblesse oblige liberal, Hobby is another pub- statewide organization, raised $10 million when Poetry Consultant: Thomas B. Whitbread lic servant who is said to have been, in the end, he ran against Richards in the Democratic pri- Contributing Photographers: Bill Albrecht, Vic Hin- educated by the Industrial Areas Foundation, mary and is well-regarded by organized labor, terlang, Alan Pogue. whose leaders escorted Hobby through the colo- blacks and women. His record as a progressive Contributing Artists: Michael Alexander, Eric Avery, nias in the lower Rio Grande Valley where — Congressman and an aggressive Attorney Tom Ballenger, Richard Bartholomew, Jeff Danziger, Beth Epstein, Dan Hubig, Pat Johnson, Kevin Kreneck, face to face with the Third World in the state he General, plus his high name-identification, would Michael Krone, Carlos Lowry, Ben Sargent, Dan had then served for 12 years — he was con- make him a contender in a statewide race. Thibodeau, Gail Woods, Matt Wuerker. verted. Hobby is also to be commended for his And, as we were going to press, a fax arrived advocacy of a state income tax and his "anti- from Houston promoting the candidacy of Managing Publisher: Cliff Olofson crime" legislation, which consisted of educa- Frances "Sissy" Farenthold — who has spent Subscription Manager: Stefan Wanstrom tion, nutritional and job training programs. most of the years since she nearly defeated Executive Assistant: Gail Woods Special Projects Director: Bill Simmons But why is there not a single progressive on Dolph Briscoe in the Democratic Primary in Development Consultant: Frances Barton the Governor's list of candidates? 1972 working with grassroots environmental Asked about the appointment, former and consumer groups in Texas and with Central SUBSCRIPTIONS: One year $32. two years $59, three years $84. Full-time Agriculture Commissioner Jim Hightower said American peace activists in Washington and students $18 per year. Buck issues $3 prepaid. Airmail, foreign, group, and bulk rates on request. Microfilm editions available from University Microfilms he is not interested. Hightower has spent the past at home. Farenthold, a former state represen- Intl., 300 N. Zeeb Road. Ann Arbor, MI 48106. Any current subscriber who finds the price a burden should say so at renewal time; no one need two years putting together and promoting a tative, gubernatorial candidate and college pres- forgo reading the Observer simply because of the cost. nationwide radio program scheduled to go on ident would run a grassroots campaign, with the INDEXES: The Texas Observer is indexed in Access: The S.:widen:m(11y Index to Periodicals; Texas Index and, for the years 1954 through 198 1,The Texas the air in many media markets in February, and support of feminists, environmentalists, minori- Observer Index. THE TEXAS OBSERVER (ISSN (X)40-45 I 9/USPS 541300), entire contents he's not likely to abandon the project now. He ties and organized labor. copyrighted, 0 1992, is published biweekly except l'or a three-week interval said he will consider a Senate race in the future. One conservative Senator is sufficient for a between issues in January and July (25 issues per year) by the Texas Observer Publishing Co.. 307 West 7th Street. Austin. Texas 78701. Telephone: (512) Texas Supreme Court Justice Lloyd Doggett state as diverse as Texas and it seems the gov- 477-0746. Second-class postage paid at Austin, Texas. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to THE TEXAS OBSERVER, would be an ideal candidate. Doggett lost to Phil ernor would broaden her search to include can- 307 West 7th Street, Austin, Texas 78701. Granim in 1984, then went on to win a seat on didates representing constituencies as diverse the Supreme Court, where he has served as a as the electorate that put her in the position to jurist clearly more beholden to the Texas make the appointment to the U.S. Senate.—L.D.

2 • DECEMBER 25, 1992 71 T .FIE TEXAS Hard Cash, Hard Choices kC i ewer you liked the special legislative session on income tax. "It really took a governor with a lot DECEMBER 25, 1992 Ifschool finance, where House Republicans of guts to do it, because the Legislature wouldn't VOLUME 84, No. 25 blocked a constitutional amendment that would do it," Zakarian said. Sound familiar? have redistributed funds to poor school districts, The legislature, in back-to-back special ses- you'll love the regular session, where the 73rd sions, sent two budgets to Weicker. Both bud- FEATURES Legislature will be trying to provide more than gets would have raised and broadened the $40 billion worth of services with $36 billion already-overburdened sales tax. Weicker vetoed Investing in the People worth of revenue. "I think the school finance both budgets. . Eventually, the legislature went By Brett Campbell fight was just a prelude to what you're going along with the income tax. A group estimated to see in every area of state government in the at 45,000 massed at the Capitol and burned regular session," said Rafe Greenlee, who is bail- effigies of Weicker and legislators who sup- DEPARTMENTS ing out as press secretary to Lt. Gov. Bob Bullock ported the tax. "At the time we thought the before the circus comes to town next month. Governor was a dead duck and every legisla- State revenues are expected to run approx tor who voted for the income tax would be Editorials. 2, 3 mately $3 billion less than the $40 billion needed defeated at the next election," Zakarian said, to maintain current services during the next bien- "but, miracle of miracles, most of the legisla- Observations 4 nium. Bullock and Gov. Ann Richards are about tors who supported the tax were re-elected and 9 as progressive as circumstances will permit, but the Democrats, who were identified with the Journal they say they will oppose any tax increases in the income tax, maintained control of the Las Americas coming session. Bullock fired up an exploratory Legislature." The governor's favorability rat- balloon of a state income tax in 1991; only to ing, which had dipped as low as 15 percent, is The Least We Can Do see it shot to ribbons. He repented this past January well above 50 percent now. By Caleb Rossiter 10 when he told business interests he would not The key was Weicker's leadership, Zakarian Voices of La Raza support any tax increase or new taxes, barring said. "The Governor really tried hard. He went By Alison Gardy 12 another court order. "There will be no tax bill on every radio talk show that would have him for you to vote on," he told a group of newly- and he visited every newspaper editorial board Books & the Culture elected legislators recently. "And there will be no and he explained the need for the income tax." tax bill for you to run your campaign against." On the eve of the tax vote, Zakarian said, he had . Bush, Bentsen, Banks With prison spending virtually locked in and the support of the business community, orga- Book review by Lou Dubose 14 state courts threatening to close down public nized labor and nearly every newspaper in the Interview with Pete Brewton 15 schools next summer if an equitable financing state. But Zakarian noted, "It really took the scheme cannot be agreed upon, the likely areas budget falling apart to get people to accept the Hard Battles Won for budget cuts are in "discretionary" areas (those inevitability of an income tax." By James C. Harrington 18 where there is no current, enforceable court order), If Texas lawmakers cannot muster the politi- Jack Myers: An American Poet such as higher education and human services. cal courage to embrace an income tax, they could "I think it's going to be a weird and wicked save some money by cutting back on the and Family Values session," said Jude Filler of the Texas Alliance Legislature's self-generous retirement plan. By Torn McClellan 20 for Human Needs, one of those groups that Despite a constitutional limitation on legisla- perennially tries to budge the state out of the tive salary, legislators are eligible for a lavish Political Intelligence 22 high 40s in human services rankings. lifetime annual pension, which starts at $13,632 "Education is where they're starting from after as little as eight years of service and grows Afterword and they didn't turn in their paper from the to more than $40,000 for a 30-year veteran, after The Real J.R. last semester," Filler noted. She expects leg- the lawmaker leaves the $7,200-a-year, part-time By Molly Ivins 23 islators to spend the first two weeks trying to job. But we have no money for health care. find their way around the new underground Cover illustrations by Michael Alexander Capital Annex, the next two months jockey- Health Care Reform ing for position, and the last two months iron- mental coverage coud be made available by pri- ing out the wrinkles, as usual. "It's just too With four million Texans unable to afford health insurance, the Governor's Texas Health vate insurers. The plan includes cost-contain- much. You can't do it without money," she ment features such as negotiated fees for health said. "The only way out is tax reform. We can't Policy Task•Force, after a 10-month study, recommended in October that the state at least care providers, but people would be free to work with a revenue-neutral tax bill." choose their own doctors, unlike many man- Connecticut is an example for Texans who move to provide medical care for children and pregnant women, at an estimated cost to the aged-care alternatives, such as the insurance believe that an income tax is the best way to set- industry-favored plan that appears to have tle school equity and relieve the overburdened state of $1.5 billion. The task force also voted for insurance reform and agreed that the long- President-elect Bill Clinton's attention. He sales and property taxes. Lowell Weicker, a for- range goal should be a Canada-style single- appears to favor a tax on employee health ben- mer U.S. Senator, defied the conventional wis- efits to pay for greater public participation in dom in 1990 when, as Governor of Connecticut, payer system in which the state would provide basic health care for every resident. health maintenance organizations. Why not uni- he got the legislature to enact an income tax versal health care? to settle a budget crisis in the recession-wracked That is precisely what a Texas progressive coalition, Health Care for All, is proposing: A "We could serve everybody who's uninsured state. "We had a rebellion. He was vilified and with the money we're spending now," said Lisa so. was everybody who backed it, including universal health care plan, adn-iinistered by the state, which would provide medical coverage McGiffert of Consumers Union. "We're advo- this newspaper," said John Zakarian, edito- cating a real comprehensive system, focused on rial-page editor of the Hartford Courant, the for all Texans. It would virtually eliminate basic private insurance coverage, although supple- primary care, rather than waiting until some- state's largest newspaper, which supported the body's near death and putting them on Medicaid,

THE TEXAS OBSERVER • 3 the way the system works now." push to do away with "dedicated funds," another and conservative Republican Rep. Talmadge The General Accounting Office of Congress bogeyman for legislators. Environmental lob- Heflin of Houston working the House floor estimated that a similar national health care plan byists will push for an increase on air emis- together, seeking reform commitments in the clos- would save $70 billion in administrative costs sions, from the current $5 per ton of industrial ing days of the special session. House Speaker- alone. Which is approximately how much the pollutants to the $30 per ton set in federal guide- apparent Pete Laney, a conservative Democrat insurance companies and health care providers lines. "That federal requirement is sort of our from Hale Center, reportedly has said he will are prepared to spend at the state and national saving grace," said Ken Kramer of the Sierra go along with the will of the House on rules level to scuttle any such single-payer plan. Club. There also is an incentive for industry to reform, but the will of the lobby will be hard to McGiffert and 30 other Texans travelled by support enough of a strengthening of state resist in the weeks preceding the opening of the bus to Little Rock for a rally on the eve of wastewater regulation, with the fees to pay for session. Now is the time for the people to express Clinton's economic town meeting, only to be it, so the state can take over that duplicative chore their demand for an open legislative process. disappointed when the President-elect refused from the. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Maxey said the reformers hope a special com- to speak to them. Approximately 800 people, A counter-proposal for regulatory staff cuts mittee on rules reform, headed by Rep. Ron rallied by the Universal Health Care Action is that the Legislature provide for reimburse- Wilson, D-Houston, will accept the reforms. Network, marched a mile and a half to the state ment of citizen groups and local governments If not, Maxey said, individual House members Capitol, only to see Clinton get in his car and that intervene in environmental regulatory hear- will offer the reforms on the House floor, where drive off. "We really were treated like the oppo- ings. "It's not hard to intervene, but it is very record votes are expected on.issues such as sition," said McGiffert. "We felt for sure if costly," said Rick Lowerre, an Austin envi- opening up the Calendar Committee, which in that many people gathered in Little Rock, Clinton ronmental attorney. "This would, you might say, past sessions has been a secretive graveyard for would at least come and say 'Hi, y'all.' ... It deputize the world." The federal government bills targed by well-connected special-interest really made it clear to us that he's got his plan provides for recovery of costs of intervenors, as lobbyists. Another important initiative is the and it doesn't include consumers." So the work the Texas Public Utility Commission reim- effort to increase the amount of time lawmak- must be done in the New Texas. burses cities that intervene in rate cases. ers have to review bills and amendments to bills before they vote on them. Environment Ethics The people have to use their opportunity to reform the system and then take advantage of The most important good government vote Fiscal conservatism has been the cover for the new rules. "If the people of Texas and the stretching regulatory budgets to make it practi- in the Texas House of Representatives may be public-interest lobbies don't use the system, the the second order of business, after election of cally impossible to enforce environmental reg- [corporate] lobby will retake control," Maxey ulations, and the budget struggle will encourage its new Speaker, when members adopt rules for said. And after Laney gets used to the rules, it a multitude of sinners in the coming session. The the 73rd Legislature. The reform movement may be another decade before the public inter- saving grace is that many environmental pro- already has produced the unlikely spectacle of est gets another shot at them. — J.C. grams are fee-driven, although there may be a liberal Democratic Rep. Glen Maxey of Austin

OBSERVATIONS The Fox and His New Field ILL CLINTON'S APPOINTMENT of the particular interests of Texas, and he has a leading Democratic fundraiser, as his senior B Lloyd Bentsen to be Treasury Secretary exhibited mild interest in the needs of ordi- economic adviser, and Roger Altman, an invest- is a bad sign for the progressivism of the Clinton nary people. Nothing radical, mind: Small steps, ment banker, as Bentsen's deputy. Administration. It was also the first momentous and at the worm's pace. That Clinton has cho- There is also a way of seeing an upside to action by the President-elect and was followed sen this very Bentsen the chief of the Treasury Clinton's selection of Bentsen, although one must at once by commendable appointments; it would means that there will be a strong negative voice adopt, in order to see it, a certain perversity of be premature to draw overall conclusions yet. at the Cabinet table against anything which interpretation. Bentsen, as his own boss, running We who go way back in Texas very well will upset Wall Street to a degree that Bentsen his fiefdom as chairman of the Senate Finance remember Bentsen's service to the reactionary regards as undue. The real special interests— Committee, might have decided to block or mate- cause and the corporate establishment in 1970, real estate, oil, banking, insurance, all those rially modify some or many of the proposals that when, with a campaign of low blows, he knocked interests — are licking their chops, and the Clinton sent him. Bentsen's committee reigns in Ralph Yarborough, the state's greatest pro- Washington lobbyists now know they have a the Senate over taxes, Social Security, welfare, gressive holder of high office in this century, back-door to the White House. trade, health policy, and much of the federal bud- out of the Senate. Clinton admires the late Jack Kennedy, the get. Instead, he will now be Clinton's employee, That is there and will never go away. Lloyd moderately liberal Democratic President, who serving at Clinton's pleasure. Clinton said last Bentsen is the Lloyd Bentsen who was willing named, for his Treasury Secretary, the Republican Friday that Bentsen will be "the principal eco- to do that and did it. Douglas Dillon. Perhaps Clinton is trying to nomic spokesperson after the President for this Bentsen could have gone on to become a ape Kennedy's way of "reassuring the markets," administration," but added, "I will make the clearly conservative senator, but he is shrewd which means in the present context, among other ultimate decisions." Bentsen may have extracted and calculating, and has a bold streak, and he meanings, not so to frighten big businessmen and some agreements from Clinton in advance of became instead an unpredictable one. He has major investors that they drive stock prices so accepting the appointment, but except for these, tracked a zig-zag ridge of his own selection to far down and interest rates so far up that the if there are any, he will be expected to fall in avoid being labelable as either a conservative President finds his policy options hemmed in by behind Clinton's decisions. As an aide to Clinton or a liberal. Anything but a leader for the peo- a renewed and worsening recession. has been quoted as saying, they have been think- ple, he is a leader for the corporate establish- As the New York Times said, Clinton chose ing of enlisting Bentsen's "influence." The ment. But he has been "a loyal Democrat" (a for his economic team "old hands from Washing- Treasury Secretary will be expected to use his phrase which now has the quaint sound of an ton and Wall Street," including Bob Rubin, influence to help attain Clinton's objectives anachronism), in the Senate he has attended to the co-chairman of Goldman, Sachs & Co. and whether he agrees with them or not.

4 • DECEMBER 25, 1992 In addition, Senator Patrick Moynihan of District in San Antonio first went to court over New York will succeed Bentsen as chairman of the issue. My thinking has begun to turn toward Wake up your friends with a Finance. While Pat Moynihan is not Ted a national solution, for this is not a problem Kennedy, he is far more liberal than Bentsen, bounded by any state's borders. Why not abol: gift subscription to the and Moynihan has said that his first priority run- ish local school taxes and enact a national school Texas Observer. ning the committee will be to advance President tax on property, with its proceeds allocated to Clinton's agenda. school districts on an equal per-capita basis? Special Holiday Savings! One member of Clinton's economic team, Local control of the schools would continue, Rep. Leon Panetta, chairman of the White but the funding would be equalized. First gift or your renewal: $32 House budget office, spoke on the day he and I would like to hear about this from readers Each additional gift: $16 Bentsen were appointed of "our failure to invest who give it thought. in our society," and Panetta said Clinton and he "share a common commitment, not only Concerning the Governor Send gift subscriptions to: to long-term deficit reduction, but to making the investments in education and health care Ann Richards is going for the truth about actual and infrastructure and growth that this (Bush) insurance costs with the proposal that an inde- Name Administration has failed to make over the last pendent group will collect and evaluate the few years." It is a relief that Lawrence Summers data which underlie commercial and insurance Address was passed over in favor of a Berkeley rates. As she is quoted in the Dallas Morning .economist for chairman of the Council of News, retorting to industry propaganda that her City State Zip Economic Advisers. If Henry Cisneros is proposal would raise insurance rates: "The real Sign gift announcement appointed as Secretary of Secretary of Housing issue, and the industry knows it, is who controls and Urban Development, he will be tested ulti- the facts about insurance costs and claims." mately there — faced with the nation's home- The Governor's appointees recently forced Name less and our deteriorated housing stocks, he through a decision at the Texas Board of will succeed or fail clearly and he will also Criminal Justice that the state will pay prevail- Address have been removed from the reach of.Ann ing wages to workers who are building new pris- Richards' wand for the Senate seat Bentsen ons, effectively raising their minimum wages. City State Zip is vacating. Robert Reich, spurning the man- Good for the Richards Administration. agerial job as Clinton's new economic secu- Yet Richards stands against considering the Sign gift announcement rity adviser, will advance, potently, the causes points made by the 18,000 or so people who of apprenticeship, job retraining, and better signed the petitions opposing the bullet-train education as Secretary of Labor; Donna E. project, who object to the fact that an appointed Name Shalala, the new Secretary of Health and board awarded the franchise for it (to a private Human Services, succeeded Hillary Clinton as consortium of U.S. and French investors) and- Address chair of the Children's Defense Fund and should who are concerned about effects on property • make a superb champion of immunizing all values. The Governor has been quoted: "There City State Zip American children, expanding the Head Start is no appropriate way in which anyone other program, and combating AIDS more effec- than the High-Speed Rail Authority can inject Sign gift announcement tively; Al Gore's protege, Carol M. Browner, themselves into this issue." How's that again? is the first unabashed environmentalist who Only appointed bureaucrats can have anything will run the Environmental Protection Agency, to do with the public's business? Name which Clinton wants elevated to Cabinet sta- What about the terrible condition of the state's Address tus. Timothy Wirth at Energy and Bruce Babbitt housing? Should not the Administration of at Interior would be good, too, if, as reported "the New Texas" be doing as much as, say, New City State Zip as of this writing, they are appointed to preside York State — and our major cities as much, over those departments. say, as New York City — to house the home- Sign gift announcement We do not yet have nearly enough to go on, less? States are touted as "laboratories" for about Clinton as President, to discern now. social experiments: Where is the Richards study • • • • • whether his choice of Bentsen foretells the com- and plan to provide new low-cost housing and ing of a deeply compromised "neoliberal" improve the housing we have? A study of the Administration or is, rather, Clinton's calcula- Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, released Your Name tion about where the chairman of Senate Finance in November, shows that of the 10 American may be expected to do the most good, and can cities with the worst substandard housing among Address - do the least harm, for Clinton's reform agenda. poor households in the late 1980s. the worst If Clinton has acted on the latter thinking, how- four were all in Texas, San Antonio at 54 per- City State Zip ever, he could well turn out, in the event, to have cent, Fort Worth-Arlington at 38 percent, Dallas outsmarted himself. Give an old fox a vast field at 33 percent, and Houston at 30 percent! (The Shall we enter or extend your own subscription? of play and he is certain to range in it. 6 median for the 44 cities in the study was per- ❑ Yes ❑ No cent. See "Texas Housing Among Worst," else- where in this issue.) The American housing cri- School Funds ❑ Payment enclosed. sis is certainly most distinctively a Texas crisis. Bill me on (date) The failure of the legislature to enact Governor Some Texas cities, like Dallas, are trying to get ❑ Ann Richards' statewide school-tax equaliza- something started. In tandem, perhaps, with tion proposal is not yet final. The legislators whatever Cisneros might come up with if he CI) THE TEXAS in the regular session will try again. But if they takes over HUD, Richards should create a state- fail, too, the courts will do something. and-local Texas task force on low-cost hous- This gross injustice of radically unequal ing and the homeless in Texas, a group com- ewer spending per-pupil in school districts has been posed of citizens who really know and care exposed now for a quarter of a century, since about this. R.D. 307 West 7th, Austin, TX 78701 parents in the Edgewood Independent School

THE TEXAS OBSERVER • 5 Investing in the People

BY BRETT CAMPBELL

N MID-SUMMER, when Bill Clinton and courted so assiduously Al Gore were taking the South by bus, their by the city, provided I caravan stopped in San Antonio and Austin mostly low-wage or and Clinton met with the organizers and thinkers seasonal jobs. of the Texas Industrial Areas Foundation to "On February 18, question them about QUEST (Quality Employ- 1990, I got a phone call ment Through Skills Training). Somehow, from a parishioner Clinton had heard of the job-training program, about the closing of the which like most IAF projects is something of a Levi-Strauss plant," pyramid scheme, in which ideas, requirements, said COPS leader and information flow from the base to the apex. Father Al Jost of On this summer afternoon the flow of infor- St. Joseph's Catholic mation that began in living rooms and kitchens Church. "There was not of working-class San Antonio neighborhoods one street in my parish finally reached the apex. Perhaps what Clinton where I didn't know heard in an unusually long meeting (by the stan- at least one person dards of presidential campaigns) will help inform affected by it. I dis- his own decisions on the economy. covered that people ALAN POGUE Last November, Gov. Ann Richards ear- would be out of work, Gov. Richards at QUEST Inauguration marked $2.5 million in state funds to support and even those who got Project QUEST. Since then, its organizers have jobs would be going from $7.50 an hour to in school. Estela hopes to return to college secured from local employers the guarantee of $4.50 an hour. People started talking about when the family financial crisis passes. But 650 jobs for trainees who complete the pro- what to do about it. From July of '91, we met because she dropped out of school, she has lost gram, hired a director, and begun accepting every Monday to plan our strategy." her scholarship. applications. In September, Richards returned First, they analyzed the economy. They found "I'm angry and frustrated because I'm work- to San Antonio for the QUEST inauguration. that San Antonio lost more than 14,000 jobs in ing five jobs," Jessie Hernandez said. Forced But even before the program's official start, manufacturing, textiles, transportation, con- to drop out of college a few hours short of her QUEST organizers were advancing their job- struction and other industrial occupations dur- nursing degree to care for her children, training agenda. When a legislative subcom- ing the 1980s. At the same time it gained almost Hernandez performs home care for three elderly mittee studying the state's workforce convened 19,000 relatively well-paying jobs in fields that patients, does paperwork for a physical thera- in San Antonio's city council chamber in mid- demanded relatively high skills: from health care pist, and cleans houses on weekends. All the summer, many of those testifying were affili- and education to auto repair and legal research. jobs are part-time; none pays insurance or other ated with Project QUEST. According to county business survey data, low- benefits. Her husband also works. Jessie has The speakers from COPS and Metro Alliance, wage jobs made up 43 percent of the new jobs; been working since second grade, had never the San Antonio components of the statewide medium-wage jobs, 21 percent; and high-wage been out of work until she was laid off from her network of Industrial Areas Foundation grass- jobs grew faster than any others, from 28 per- full-time job at a day-care center last year, and roots organizing groups, described the con- cent to 36 percent of the total. But the latter when asked whether she ever considered going text for Project QUEST: An economy caught opportunities are beyond the reach of many San on welfare, firmly replied "No sir!" But she in a painful transition, not just here in Texas, Antonians who lack the education and training needs help, because with five young children, but across the nation. In San Antonio, these to perform them. she'll never be able to afford to finish her degree macroeconomic phenomena were brought home At the legislative committee hearing, work- requirements in nursing, a field where full- in January 1990 when Levi-Strauss Co., for ers caught up in the seismic shift of the eco- time jobs abound in San Antonio. Without that years one the city's major employers, announced nomic landscape described how their lives had degree or further training, she can't obtain an that it would close one if its last factories here been devastated. Jose Jiminez started work at RN, and without that, "all doors are closed" and move the operation to Costa Rica — a loss the Roegelein meatpacking plant at age 14. in her field, she said. Adding to Hernandez's of 1,000, mostly high-wage, jobs. Many Levi After 20 years, he was earning $7.50 per hour frustration: a friend who started the program employees had only a few years of elemen- plus benefits — enough to support his wife at the same time she did managed to complete tary school education, some spoke poor English and three children. When the plant closed, the it — and now earns $40,000 per year. — but they could earn up to $8 per hour sewing best work the poorly-educated Jim inez could . "I know lots of people in my situation," blue jeans, enough money to run a household find was busing tables for $4.50 an hour, includ- Hernandez said. "I have friends who want to and to get their children through school, so ing tips — with no health or retirement bene- work, who don't want to be on welfare, but they that the next generation could have at least a fits. have to feed their kids." Several of her friends chance at a middle-class lifestyle. At the same Estela Sotelo is her family's great hope. have been huckstered by private job-training time, other major employers also closed or cut Her stellar high school record — all As and Bs companies who charged them thousands of back, and impending defense spending cuts — earned her a scholarship to Trinity dollars for courses but whose certificates turned threaten an economy sustained by five military University. But just after school started last out to be worthless. bases. Even new employers like Sea World, fall, her father, a construction worker, was Metro Alliance and COPS leaders spent six laid off and Estela had to go to work selling months talking to people like those testifying food at the San Antonio airport to help support before the committee hearing, asking about their Brett Campbell is a former editor of the Observer her six younger siblings — two of whom also employment experiences and needs. They found and is afreelance writer based in San Antonio. had to get part-time jobs while they were still that people were working harder and harder for

6 • DECEMBER 25, 1992 lower wages. Worse, they heard that many had Antonio city council shut down the problem- The program meets the interests of all con- tried existing job-training programs, only to plagued East Side Development Corporation, cerned. Businesses will save the costs of search- find that they were worse than useless, leav- which was supposed to create new job oppor- ing for and moving employees from other cities ing them without the skills needed in the chang- tunities in the mostly African-American areas to fill high skill positions here, and the new hires ing economy. Gilbert Gallego is one of them. of the city. It had failed. will have completed exactly the training that He took out a $4,100 loan to pay a private school the employers think necessary for the new jobs. to train him to be a pharmacy technician. He fter hearing from their neighbors about The city gains by reducing the number of un- spent nine months in classes, falling deeper in the need for better jobs, COPS and Metro and under-employed citizens, whose augmented debt — only to learn that his diploma was all AAlliance leaders conducted extensive incomes will boost the city economy. And it but worthless because his instructors weren't ' research on job training, discovering why most won't have to pay for infrastructure to sup- certified. The federal government's training past efforts had failed, and why others had suc- port imported workers. The trainees, of course, strategy, the Job Training Partnership Act (JTPA) ceeded. They found a Texas A&M program benefit by having better jobs that pay more is no better. Margie Castro was one of the many that taught trainees sophisticated manufacturing money, and enhanced skills that are transfer- of Levi's discards who entered the JTPA pro- skills; graduates average $20,000 per year start- able to other jobs. gram to learn a new skill. JTPA placed her with ing salaries. The drawback: Half of all trainees In a departure from existing programs that a company that "trained" the skilled seamstress fail to complete the two-year course, not because try to fit trainees into curriculA that often don't to sew baseball caps. Her salary dropped from they aren't smart enough or willing to work suit their skills or employers' needs, QUEST $8 to $5 an hour, while the company accepted hard enough, but because they can't support their personnel will work with area colleges, employ- a taxpayer-financed federal subsidy for teach- families without an income for that long. ers, and approved job-training providers to ing Castro a skill she had long ago mastered. This was the same story the leaders had heard make sure that curricula meet the needs of both "What we heard," COPS co-chair Virginia hundreds of times in conversations with their employers and trainees. SinCe QUEST controls Ramirez told the lawmakers "was that the job neighbors. Juanita Sanchez, a single mother the vouchers, the staff has the economic lever- training system was not set up to serve the needs with four children, saved for two years to come age to demand changes in curricula. QUEST of our people, but to build the budgets of the up with $600 for training in home health care will also help employers design on-the-job- training providers. Programs financed by stu- work, one of the high-growth fields in San training programs. Father Will Wauters, a Metro dent loans generally left participants with debts, Antonio. But she could only afford to be with- Alliance leader from Santa Fe Episcopal Church, but no jobs. JTPA programs left people with out work for three months — not enough time described the process: "We ask them, 'If you low-paying jobs.... The private training agen- to complete requirements for licensed voca- had two years to form the employee you want,. cies were prospering but our people were not." tional nursing certification. The best job she what would you want him to learn?' Some Bob McPherson, who helped design QUEST could find was in a private home, earning less [employers] have never thought about things when he was a professor at the LBJ School of than minimum wage and working 12 hours a like that before." However, QUEST person- Public Affairs at the University of Texas, day, seven days a week. nel will also make sure that the courses aren't explained to the panel why existing programs As part of their research, COPS and Metro tailored so narrowly as to fit only a single posi- have failed. Most trade and technical school pro- Alliance volunteer leaders met with local tion at a single company; workers must receive grams lack quality standards or comprehen- employers, starting with banker Tom Frost, flexible training that makes them able to adapt sive curricula. Most federally funded programs with whom they had clashed in earlier years, but to a rapidly changing job market. certify participants for no more than two months who had grown to respect the organizations' The day after Governor Richards visited San of training — far short of the time needed to commitment to economic development. While Antonio this summer to inaugurate the job- teach basic literacy and math, much less more some of the 40 business leaders they met with training program, she announced the relocation advanced skills. JTPA encourages job-training initially contended that there were no jobs in San of Southwestern Bell corporate headquarters providers to push as many warm bodies as Antonio, they soon realized that employers here from St. Louis to San Antonio, a move touted quickly as possible through quickie courses were importing workers to fill openings for by the media as the city's salvation. In fact, only that seldom provide trainees with marketable which San Antonians couldn't qualify . A hos- about a hundred local jobs will be created here skills. A recent study found that the median pital needed 300 registered nurses, medical tech- immediately by the move — but they will be stay in a Texas JTPA program is only 14 weeks. nicians, physical therapy assistants and more. relatively high-paying jobs, the kind that Project As a result, nearly three-quarters of all Texas Other'businesses needed computer operators, QUEST is aiming to prepare citizens for. JTPA placements fell into low-wage job cate- chemical technicians, sheet-metal workers, and A few days later, the leaders of Canada, the gories: production/maintenance, clerical and ser- engine operators — high-wage/high skills jobs. United States and Mexico signed the North vices, which includes food service workers and Drawing upon this research, Metro Alliance American Free Trade Agreement not far from janitors. The median starting wage was $4 per and COPS leaders sketched the blueprint for where Richards spoke. Labor groups picketed hour, and 40 percent of those placed lacked Project QUEST. There were two key features. the event. But whether NAFTA is ratified or any employer-provided benefits. JTPA is also First, local businesses themselves would deter- not, it portends the reality of the next century: underfunded, providing services to only 5 per- mine where they needed help, and what sort of American workers will face increasing for- cent of those eligible. Furthermore, getting into training they wanted their employees to have. eign competition and an economy in flux. Father the system can be difficult and confusing, with This contrasted with previous efforts, in which Wauters points out that San Antonio will be a different application forms, intake procedures, some government bureaucracy or job-training key trade center between the U.S. and Mexico and rules scattered among many agencies. agency with a pecuniary interest in the matter in the next century, so job training will be even Texas hasn't bettered the federal govern- tried to figure out where the jobs would be and more essential to make sure the city doesn't ment's sorry record. Seven state agencies admin- what training was necessary to fill them. Second, attract only low-wage jobs. ister 14 separate programs which annually spend the money would go, not to a government agency The coincidence of the NAFTA signing and three quarters of a billion dollars on job train- or job-training provider, but to the trainees in the inauguration of the COPS/Metro job-training and education. But the programs are often the form of vouchers — meaning that the training program here reveals the stark choice the duplicative and do little to improve workers' ing would meet the individual's need for skills, United States faces: A well-trained workforce skills. As Republican Senator-elect Jeff not a bureaucrat's or job trainer's need for that earns high wages and can aspire to a decent Wentworth pointed out at the hearing, the money. Tellingly, this idea came not from some standard of living, or continuing economic Legislature once passed a law guaranteeing stu- expert, but from the ordinary citizens that COPS decline that condemns American working peo- dents who graduate with an 80-percent average and Metro Alliance leaders talked to in neigh- ple to low-wage, dead-end jobs — if they have four years of tuition assistance at state col- borhood meetings. "They remembered that that any jobs at all. Project QUEST might provide leges. But lawmakers never funded the scheme. was how the old GI bill had worked," recalled a solution in San Antonio and a model for the As if to symbolize the failure of current Father Jost, "and since it had been a proven Clinton Administration as it sets out to salvage efforts, just two days after this hearing the San success, why not try the same approach again?" the American economy. ❑ THE TEXAS OBSERVER • 7 A public service message from the American Income Life Insurance Co. — Waco, Texas — Bernard Rapoport, Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer. (Advertisement)

Rein in Government Enforcers Who Abuse Power for Partisan Purposes By Jim Wright

Acting Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger is a respected prominent Democrats. Two attempted prosecutions stand out, one professional and a decent man. He was genuinely embarrassed aimed at Democratic Rep. Floyd Flake of New York, the other at that political appointees of the Bush administration had grievously San Antonio businessman Douglas Jaffe. abused State Department powers in a blatant effort to find dirt with In both cases, the federal trial judge severely lectured Justice which to discredit Gov. Bill Clinton. Department operatives for wasting the court's time and the public's "This building has no business being engaged in partisan politi- money and abusing the judicial system with politically motivated cal efforts," Eagleburger asserted. Earnestly regretful, he offered to prosecutorial attempts based on flimsy or nonexistent evidence. resign. The San Antonio jury on November 7 unanimously acquitted Sherman M. Funk, the department's inspector general, revealed Jaffe and two of his assistants who were charged with making il- the details of the sorry episode. Political operatives had rifled legal campaign contributions to Democratic representatives and eagerly through the passport files of Clinton and his mother, Sen. Lloyd Bentsen. Judge Lucius Bunton blasted the charges as searching for something with which to incriminate or embarrass rinky dink and political. Though innocent, Jaffe is out several hun- them. It was, Funk said, a very heinous activity that cast shame on dred thousand dollars in legal fees. the State Department. In the New York case, the federal prosecutors actually moved Melodramatic? Not if we're serious about political freedom. If to dismiss their own groundless case after putting Rep. Flake there is one fixed star in the firmament of American beliefs, it is this: through a three-year ordeal of publicized investigation and three The powers and resources of government must never be used to weeks of trial. embarrass, harass, intimidate or injure private citizens because of U.S. Judge Eugene H. Nickerson, after asking the jury to leave their political affiliations or activities. the room, told the prosecutors that every single bit of evidence That is what keeps us free. It is the fundamental guarantee en- had disproved their contention. They were trying to prove that shrined in our Constitution. It is what sets the United States apart Flake, long-time minister of the Allen Methodist Church, had written from police states like Nazi Germany and Stalin's Soviet Union where checks against the church account for his personal benefit. punitive government power is used to crush political opposition. Innocent of the spurious embezzlement charge, Floyd Flake suf- But the passport item is only the tip of a massive iceberg. The fered three years of harassment and indignities. Now he somehow real scandal is the pervasive use of public resources by enforce- must find more than a million dollars to pay his legal bills. ment agencies to injure elected officials and private citizens whose Ambitious federal attorneys, with no case, sometimes can only real crime is belonging to the out-of-power political party. destroy a rival politician simply by planting news stories. Texas The most egregious offender has been the Justice Department Agriculture Commissioner Jim Hightower is one example. under Attorneys General Richard Thornburgh and William P. Barr. Hightower's speech to the 1988 Democratic Convention attracted When the full scope of the misuse of prosecutorial power is made national attention. Soon stories began surfacing, leaked by govern- known, it could have volcanic repercussions. ment agents, that Hightower was under federal criminal investigation. A sickening pattern emerges in the repeated use of attempted These surely contributed to his narrow defeat in 1990. There was no prosecutions and highly publicized investigations aimed at destroy- case. Hightower was innocent. But his career was ruined. ing elected Democratic officials politically and some of their back- Dallas businessman and Democratic contributor Tom Gaubert ers financially. has been hounded relentlessly for six years. In 1988 a federal jury in In a brazen and absolutely unprecedented assault on the legisla- Iowa found him innocent of fraud charges brought against him, but tive branch of government, Barr last April appointed a special vindictive government lawyers have harassed Gaubert continually investigator to look at the private bank records of hundreds of until the once wealthy man is now nearly destitute. members of Congress to see if he could find anything to attack The Justice Department has 85,000 employees and an annual legally in their personal transactions. budget of $11 billion, five times as much as when Jimmy Carter The man Barr appointed to carry out this fishing expedition was left office in 1981. If it is determined to do so, it can break not only Malcolm R. Wikley, the only jurist who publicly defended Richard political careers but the financial stability of almost any private Nixon's right to suppress the Watergate tapes. citizen. Almost all Republican members received official letters from Wielding such awesome power, it must be restrained from Wilkey well before the recent election stating that their file search engaging in political vendettas against American citizens. Never had been completed and no wrongdoing found. They were free to again should any president, Democrat or Republican, tolerate the release these letters to the press. abuses that have compounded over the past few years. Is it merely coincidental that many Democratic members did not receive such formal assurances until after the election, and some have not received them yet? This essay by former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Worse than this, however, has been the selective use of Justice Jim Wright is reprinted with permission from the Nov. 29, 1992 edi- Department investigative power and public tax dollars to embarrass tion of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

8 • DECEMBER 25, 1992 JOURNAL

Texas Housing benefit level in the nation — would have less sow," he said. "We've failed to develop a deliv- than one-half of the income needed to afford a ery system for low-income housing." Among Worst two-bedroom apartment at the "fair market" Susan Leigh, executive director of the state rent. The AFDC benefit for a family of three housing agency, acknowledged the problems The four largest metropolitan areas in Texas — would not even rent a typical one-bedroom cited in the survey but she said the state faces Houston, Dallas, San Antonio and Fort Worth- apartment. federal cutbacks in low-income housing assis- Arlington — rank among the worst in the nation • In each of the four Texas metro areas, the tance. Texas received approximately $32 mil- in quality of housing for poor people, a national number of low-income renter households lion during the first five-year funding cycle of housing survey showed. Texas cities stand out exceeded the number of low-rent units by a the main federal low-income housing program, from other large metro areas across the coun- sizeable Margin. In Dallas, there were 2.2 low- while the state housing agency has received try in terms of the very' high proportions of income renters for every low-rent unit. The more than 273 applications seeking more than poor households living in physically deficient ratio of low-income renters to low-income units $114 million through that program, which Leigh housing. was 1.6:1 in San Antonio and 1.4:1 in both said faces a one-third cut at the federal level. The analysis of census data by the Center Houston and Fort Worth-Arlington. — J.C. on Budget and Policy Priorities of housing con- In each area except Houston, there were more ditions in 44 metro areas found that: low-income units than low-income renters in • The four Texas metro areas ranked first the mid-1970s. But by the late 1980s, with the through fourth in the nation in having the high- federal government's virtual abandonment of est rates of physically deficient housing among low-income housing responsibilities, said John Light Gets Reprieve poor homeowners. San Antonio ranked first with Henneberger of the Low-Income Housing 54 percent of low-income homeowners living Information Service in Austin, these surpluses The Hearst Corp. has issued a stay of execution in substandard housing, followed by Fort Worth- had turned into substantial shortages as the for the San Antonio Light until after Christmas Arlington with 38 percent, Dallas with 33 per- numbers of low-income renters increased while while a labor union at the newspaper leads a cent and Houston with 30 percent. The median the numbers of low-rent units declined. search for potential buyers. for the 44 metro areas was 6 percent. The study In Dallas, the number of low-income units Hearst, a closely-held media company, in defined substandard housing as dwellings with decreased by 17,500 units from 1974 to 1989 October announced it had agreed to buy the San problems such as lack of running water, faulty while the number of low-income renters grew Antonio Express-News, and said it planned to heating systems, exposed wiring or basic main- by 27,100, leaving a gap of 43,200 units; the close the Light if no buyer can be found (See tenance problems. gaps were 8,500 in San Antonio and 3,800 in "Hearst to Light: Drop Dead," TO 10/30/92). • Three Texas areas were among the 10 metro Fort Worth-Arlington. In Houston, where there In a December 4 letter to Light employees, Light areas nationally with the highest rates of defi- was a modest shortage of low-rent units in 1976, publisher George Irish said Hearst is continu- cient housing among poor renters. In San Antonio, the number of low-rent units by 1987 had grown ing its "thorough search for a buyer" and has the proportion of poor renters living in defi- by 30,500 but the number of low-income renters extended the potential closing date of the Light cient housing — 39 percent — was second only had grown by 64,500, leaving a gap of 38,400 from December 22 to the period between to New Orleans. Houston followed with 32 per- units. December 30, 1992, and January 12, 1993. cent and Fort Worth-Arlington had 20 percent, The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Keilin & Bloom, a New York investment compared with a median of 15 percent. Development considers housing affordable if banking firm that specializes in helping unions • Three of the 10 metro areas with the great- it consumes no more than 30 percent of income. keep plants open, has asked the newspaper bro- est incidence of overcrowded housing among In Houston, 92 percent of poor renters spend ker representing the Light to extend its deadline poor renters were in Texas. San Antonio ranked at least 30 percent of income on housing; in for offers to February 1, 1993. fourth with 16 percent and Houston and Dallas Dallas, 83 percent; in Fort Worth-Arlington, 79 "The Guild is spearheading the effort to pull were in a five-way tie for sixth with 15 per- percent; in San Antonio, 76 percent. In the typ- together an employee-led bid on the Light," said cent each, compared with a median of 8 percent. ical large metro area, 84 percent of poor renters Tom Honeycutt, president of the Newspaper Overcrowding was particularly high among poor spent this much for housing. Guild local 25, which represents editorial, cler- Hispanic households. The Texas Department of Housing and ical, circulation and pressroom maintenance • Fewer than one-third of the poor renters in Community Affairs estimates that 2.2 million employees at the Light. After the consultant each of the four Texas metro areas received any Texans — almost 13 percent of the population reviewed financial infcirmation on the Light, government housing assistance. Some 15 per- — this year will spend more than 35 percent Honeycutt said, "His report was promising. cent of poor renters in Houston got housing assis- of their income on housing. The state agency The newspaper remains vibrant — the cards tance from any level of government — the low- estimates 21.9 percent of all housing units in appear to have been stacked against it in the est rate of any large metropolitan area in the the state, both rental and owner-occupied, are manner that Hearst tried to dump it — but it has country. In the Dallas and Fort Worth-Arlington in poor condition. not lost market share ... and he recommended areas, 26 percent and 28 percent of poor renters Henneberger said the study shows that hous- that we pursue a bid." received housing assistance. In the typical large ing is not just a Northern problem, and the state "A lot of people have sniffed around at this," metro area nationally, 33 percent of poor renters needs to take .a more aggressive role as the fed- Honeycutt said, but potential investors so far got some kind of assistance. eral government has abdicated its responsibil- have been scared off by the risk of going up • Extremely low cash assistance benefits inten- ity. "We clearly have a leadership problem, both against Hearst, with a new press at the domi- sify these problems, helping to keep afford- at the national ... and at the state level, in pro- nant newspaper in town, the Express-News. able and decent housing out of reach for most viding the hard dollars to relieve this prob- "We feel like, first of all, there has to be a poor households in these Texas metro areas lem," Henneberger said. community interest in saving the Light. Then which receive such aid. In all four of the Texas Larry Swift, an advocate for the homeless we also have to achieve an agreement from metropolitan areas, a family of three receiving with the Texas Development Institute, said the Hearst Corp. that should we find investors they the maximum $184 a month in Aid to Families only surprise he found in the study was that any :- will not engage in predatory practices to put the with Dependent Children — the third-lowest body would be surprised. "You reap what you Light out of business," Honeycutt said.— J.C.

THE TEXAS OBSERVER • 9 LAS AMERICAS The Least We Can Do

BY CALEB ROSSITER

N 1981, the brash and powerful Secretary of State Alexander Haig held up a map of I Central America, pointed to the tiny country of El Salvador and declared: "This is where we are going to draw a line in the sand." Translated, it meant: There will be no more half- stepping in U.S. foreign policy; unlike Vietnam, this one's all or nothing. In 1989, military officers in El Salvador gunned down six Jesuit priests, bringing an end to Haig's dream that El Salvador would somehow, through a long and bloody war in a tiny country most Americans had never heard of, remove forever the stigma called Vietnam. It was an attempt to wipe away old blood by spilling new, and many say that- it was doomed to fail. What happened in the years between Haig's declaration and the murder of the priests is once again in the newspapers, though this time with a note of optimism. By December 31 (in a process that was supposed to begin December 15), El Salvador's notorious army will be defanged, the rebels will disband, and the country will move out from the long and dark shadow of U.S. foreign policy. As is often the case, there's a catch: This Calling the faithful in a Salvadoran village ALAN POGUE will happen only if both the Bush Administration and the Clinton transition team keep the pres- sure on. It seems like the least we can do. during the 1980s for the tenacity with which perhaps the ideal of the United States as artic- By defining El Salvador as a test case, she fought against U.S. policy. toward El ulated in the Constitution, it nevertheless had Secretary Haig sealed its fate. Military victory Salvador. "To this very day," she added, despite a certain resonance for a government obsessed was the only permissible outcome, and it would all the evidence to the contrary, "the Bush with winning the Cold War. For the first time be sought by any means necessary. The army Administration still believes you can buy the in America's history, America involved itself ran the country brutally and mercilessly, hid- good behavior of the Salvadoran army." so heavily in another country that the amount ing behind the democratic facade of an elected With both Salvadoran and U.S. officials of U.S. foreign aid going into a country actu- government. Armed forces, equipped and paid secretly complying with the army's abuses, ally exceeded the recipient country's own total for by U.S. foreign aid, grew from 10,000 to El Salvador's judicial system had a tough time budget. 60,000. Sympathy for the opposition got you bringing cases to court. In the few cases in But absolute power corrupts absolutely, and killed. The vast majority of the 70,000 casu- which judges insisted on following up on mil- the Salvadoran army was so used to getting alties during the 1980s were civilians whose itary crimes, judges were attacked, and some what it wanted from the United States, no mat- only crime was sympathy for the rebels or were killed. By the time the rebels brought ter what it did, that it finally overreached. The lack of sympathy for the army. The leaders the war to a final boil with their urban offen- deaths of the six priests made their way into murdered ranged from religious figures to jour- sive in 1989, no officer had ever been disci- U.S. headlines. The high command tried to nalists, from union officials to human rights plined for human rights abuses under his com- cover up its crime by blaming it on the rebels activists. They were killed openly, spectacu- mand. The only case in which soldiers felt the and when that didn't wash they tried laying the larly, to send the message that nobody was safe sting of the courts involved the murder of four blame on a few rogue "bad apples." Again, from the army. "The corruption of the American churchwomen, a case on whose res- no go. It was these murders which finally caught Salvadoran army was exceeded only by its olution Congress had conditioned $20 mil- the attention of the American people, and the brutality," said Cindy Buhl, the legislative lion of U.S. aid. Impunity led, quite naturally, rest is history. Led by the unlikely combina- coordinator for the Central American Working to corruption, and corruption led to ever more tion of liberal Rep. Joe Moakley, D-Mass., and Group, who became famous in Washington blatant crimes. Top officers set up a kidnap- conservative Rep. John Murtha, D-Penn., ping ring that passed off its work as that of Congress (without support from the administra- the rebels, who had indeed used this tactic of tion) squeezed the military aid pipeline, the Caleb Rossiter, an associate fellow at the seizing wealthy businesspeople for ransom to Salvadoran officers saw the handwriting on the Institute for Policy Studies, directs the Project raise funds in the early years of the war. (Of wall, and peace was suddenly possible. Within on Demilitarization and Democracy. He is writ- course, no amount of ransom could ever hope a year, under the energetic leadership of the ing a hook on U.S. intervention in Vietnam to balance the money pouring in from the U.N. Secretary General's special representa- and El Salvador. United States.) If backing death squads wasn't tive, Alvaro de Soto, the army and the rebels

10 • DECEMBER 25, 1992 agreed to the deal that ended the war. It was both sides remain armed, a situation not likely just the sort of deal that both sides had rejected to work itself out peacefully. El Rescate has earlier in the war, the rebels in 1981, when they also reported that the recent assassinations of thought they might take it all, and the army six people display all the signs of death squads' in 1985, when they too dreamed of victory. The killings. Another ominous sign is high-rank- Jesuits had achieved by their death what they ing officers' recent pledge to resist or forestall had tried vainly to accomplish in their lives. their coming dismissals, though some policy So now peace may finally be on its way, analysts believe they were brought back into and El Salvador is a test case once again. This line when U.N. negotiators jumped into action. time, though, it's a test case for the term used It would be very helpful if President Bush and by Costa Rican president Oscar Arias, who won President-elect Bill Clinton were to step into the Nobel Peace Prize for his work in helping action: El Salvador has been without even the settle the Nicaraguan civil war. That term is presence of the U.S. ambassador for some "demilitarization." In this context, demilita- weeks, and people in El Salvador are bitterly rization means a coup d' etat in reverse. Not a complaining that Bush has forgotten his takeover of the government by the military, but promises to help the peace settlement. The a takeover of the military by the government. end is in sight, though what that end will be It is this that the new peace agreement calls for. remains unclear at the moment. The clock is There are plenty of hurdles to get over. El ticking toward December 31. If it can trade mil- Rescate, a California-based human rights group itarization for demilitarization, El Salvador can which has provided hundreds of pages of doc- discard its dubious status as the country Al Haig umentation to the Ad Hoc Commission, a three- made famous. It can be remembered, instead, member panel established under the peace as the tiny country which survived despite the accords to evaluate El Salvador's army corps, best attempts of a United States government reports that there is still quite a bit of back-and- intent on winning a Cold War of its own mak- forthing over the timeline for disarmament. ing. If it accomplishes this goal, it will be among If groups on either side refuse to abide by the the first countries to ever take itself back from December 31 deadline, the cease-fire might JOE MORRIS the United States. Welcome, then, to the New formally end even though armed forces on Children in Nueva Concepcion World Order. ❑

CLASSIFIEDS

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THE TEXAS OBSERVER • 1 1 Voices of La Raza

BY ALISON GARDY

Mexico City who had stolen his family's land. "That's ing leather jackets, Ray Ban sun glasses and HE 13 HUNGER STRIKERS had come enough," said the assistant. "Next!" walkie-talkies, infiltrated the crowd. They took to Mexico City from far corners of the A woman's voice, barely audible, came forth. pictures of the hunger strikers and wrote down T Republic, some making four-day journeys Someone had been kidnapped. Her husband? their names. Step-by-step, they described into from obscure villages where Spanish is spo- She was from the state of Veracruz. Or was it their walkie-talkies the event they were wit- ken second to a prehispanic tongue. Small- Tabasco?" Senora, could you give us the name nessing. These government "spies" are present boned, thin and quiet, they were ready to risk of your pueblo again?," a journalist asked. But at every protest of any kind in Mexico City. Their starvation to protest the unjust imprisonment of there was no time for that. purpose is not so much to gather information as more than 7,000 Indians, the stealing of their By the fourth striker's account, most of the to intimidate protesters. lands by powerful caciques (regional political journalists had given up asking questions. Then, Dominguez demanded that officials "listen to bosses), and the assassinations of Indians who in the middle of one man's testimony, a shout us and treat us Indians as human beings." have spoken out in defense of their rights. came from the far end of the Zocalo: "iMexica Specifically, he said, the CNPI called for an end The hunger strike was orchestrated by the Tiaui! iMexica Tiaui!" ("Mexico Onward!" in to the political kidnappings of Indians and to the Coordinadora Nacional de Pueblos Indios Nahuatl, language of the Aztecs) and "'Viva theft of their lands. At the mention of land, he (CNPI), or, more precisely, by its leader, Genaro Zapata!" The voice grew louder. A man launched into an anti-Columbus Day speech, Dominguez. In a telephone interview from New appeared on crutches, wearing a cowboy hat, a referring to the paper the New-Age Indian York to Mexico City, before the hunger strike, poncho, huaraches and aviator glasses. It was woman had given him: Dominguez had said the CNPI has existed since Genaro Dominguez. It was noon. "The Indians , ' lands were stolen with the 1972 and represents more .than 500,000 Indians Spanish Conquest. The Spanish have been rob- across the country. Over the years, he said, the hese people have problems, and they don't bing us since 1519. This will be the 500th CNPI has helped liberate hundreds of Indian know how to explain themselves!" anniversary of our being invaded, robbed and political prisoners. T Dominguez shouted to the press, in exploited. We want all statues that are symbolic Dominguez said he travels from village to Spanish. "When we seek help from the fed- of this looting and corruption, that is, of village, listening to campesinos' complaints and eral government, the officials treat us with despo- Christopher Columbus, to be removed. We representing the Indians (he considers himself to tism !" He turned around and shouted at the should not honor symbols of this rape. Columbus be a Mexica or Azteca). He also personally nego- strikers to take a step back. Then he ordered wanted to enslave us. We want statues of the tiates with Mexican President Salinas de Gortari. the journalists to take a step back. "I want them heroes who fought against the Spanish in their On October 2, the day the hunger strike in to learn how to defend themselves!" "Take place. All peoples of the Universe have the Mexico City began, when Dominguez failed to this woman over here," he yelled. With his back right to land, a home, food, education, work and show for the 10 a.m. press conference in the to the strikers, he swung a crutch toward the line. self-determination." &local°, the vast basalt plaza in the heart of cap- "She didn't even know her name when I found The speech was actually longer, most of it ital, one of his assistants took charge. The hunger her, because her husband had beaten her so eloquent repetitions of the main points. Typed strikers had lined up — rather, they had been lined much." A woman in the line began to cry, so we copies of the speech distributed to the press up -- in the middle of the Zocalo, and faced a deduced it was she he was referring to. "We must were signed "The Supreme Council of Indian press corps of at least 50 journalists standing about struggle for women's rights in the cameo, Peoples," which included . Dominguez's name 30 feet away on the other side of a large CNPI because there are none!" He pointed to another among several others.Dominguez talked about banner that had been spread out on the ground. woman with his crutch. "Take Eugenia here. how, in 1988, the government sent a goon squad The banner read: "THIRTEEN CNPI INDI- She's also oppressed. I told her she had to value to attack when the CNPI held its annual anti- ANS—HUNGER STRIKE!—SOLUTION!" herself." Another woman nodded. Columbus Day march. That same year, he said, The assistant, who wore his hair long with a Realizing he was missing something, the CNPI took the flowers placed by the Spanish headband and hobbled on one crutch, was not Dominguez took a step back and violently embassy at the foot of Columbus' statue (which quite sure what to do. He took attendance sev- motioned to a fair-skinned Mexican woman stands in front of the Hilton Crowne Plaza Hotel eral times. He shouted some orders, then more dressed in a style that can only be described as about a quarter mile from the Zocalo) and moved orders reversing the previous orders. The "New-Age Indian" to come to his side. She them about 300 yards away to the foot of the campesinos stood expressionless, patient. Finally, fumbled through a satchel she had been holding statue of Cuauhtemoc, who had fought against at 11 a.m., he introduced the hunger strikers to for him and pulled out some papers. Then he the Spanish conquistadors. the press, rattling off their names, ages and hobbled toward the journalists again. After Dominguez had finished, the New Age weights too quickly for anyone to write down. He gave the press a brief autobiography, Indian woman told the journalists to all move He then gave a brief, unintelligible statement, though it was much longer than that of any of back. She was assisted by an American woman, which was drowned out by a combination of his the hunger strikers. He was from Veracruz, but shy, blonde and in her early 40s, who admitted pacing back and forth and the poor acoustics because there were no universities then in that that she didn't speak a word of Spanish, much of the Z6calo. He told an old man at the end of state he had to come to Mexico City. When he less Nahuatl. The two women brought out conch the line to introduce himself. The man, wrinkled first arrived, he was so poor he could not afford shells, eagle feathers, gladiolas and copal incense as old leather, removed his hat and held it with to go to school. He eventually earned two to perform what they called an "ancient Mexica both hands in front of his chest. In a soft voice, degrees, one in law and the other in public ceremony, a celebration of our true culture." he gave a programmed statement of about two accounting from Mexico's largest university, This ceremony took over an hour. It involved sentences, explaining something about a cacique the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico having everyone in the circle wave their hands (UNAM). In 1968, he was imprisoned in in the air and spin around to face the four direc- Lecumberri, Mexico's most notorious prison, tions. Then the women blew a lot of incense in Alison Gardy is a freelance writer based in for his role as a student activist. the faces of the hunger strikers and, in particu- New York City. As Dominguez spoke, men and women sport- lar, Dominguez. The pale New-Age Indian 12 • DECEMBER 25, 1992 woman even lifted up Dominguez's poncho to but the CNC didn't respect the agreement. There the government won't give us papers." blow incense underneath. The journalists stared was a fight. Six people from the CNC were Before I could finish interviewing the 13 strik- for awhile, then gradually drifted away. killed, and only one was killed from the CNPI, ers, the New-Age Indian assistant chased me When all seemed to calm down, I asked the that was one of my sons. So we were all taken away: "You have no right to be interviewing hunger strikers, who were now sitting on the hot to jail. My husband and my son fled. My other these people! You've been here for hours!" basalt ground of the Zocalo, for interviews. two sons were jailed. One was there for two "I called Genaro Dominguez from New They agreed and one observed that no one had years, and another for three years. He was just York," I explained. asked them. Here is what they said: released. Genaro Dominguez was our lawyer. "I don't care! Leave!" she said. Silverio Herncindez Jimenez—from Cerro He got my sons out of jail. All I want is for the One of the hunger strikers, an older woman, Colorado, near San Pedro Sotiapan, Veracruz: apprehension order to be lifted so that my hus- tried to protest. The other strikers looked down "We arrived on a piece of idle land seven years band and my last living son can return home." at the ground and one campesino, who had ago. In Mexico, according to the law, the land Neonice Ramirez Mendiola—from Ejido accompanied the strikers, spoke out: "It was belongs to he who works 'it. No one said any- Salvador Gonzalo Garcia, near Tierra Blanca, good to get my story off my chest." thing to us for years. But now that we are har- Veracruz: "My father was kidnapped on Ten days later, the CNPI appeared in the Zocalo vesting 32 tons of corn a year, a wealthy man November 19, 1990. On that day, my father again for the anti-celebration of Columbus Day, has said the land is his, and he wants it back. The was going to pay rent on a Ford tractor he had which, in Mexico, is called El Dia de la Raza officials in Veracruz do not listen to us." borrowed, but the leader of the UGOCP [Union or The Day of the Race, in reference to the cre- Luis Ambrosio Santana—from Tilapan, General Obrera Campesina Popular—a gov- ation of the mestizo race from Spaniard and Indian. Guerrero: "People from a neighboring village ernment organization], Margarito Montes, The hunger strike was still going on. The strik- invaded our land and attacked us with sticks. wouldn't give my father credit. Montes had ers had moved to the side of the Zocalo. We've tried to reach an agreement, but the helped us acquire a parcel of land in 1989 at a A curious mix of people had gathered at the authorities are playing us off one another." cost of 10 million pesos [about $4,000]. We Zocalo, the former heart of the Aztec capital of Eustacio Hernandez Sanchez—from San paid, but then we didn't get the land. We had Tenochtitlan. There were political groups, rang- Martin, near San Pedro Sotiapan, Veracruz: to fight for it through the courts. We got the land, ing from the CNPI and other somber protestors "We've been in San Martin, which is 1,800 but the neighboring cattle ranchers said it wasn't to anarchists and punks. These groups, along with hectares, for 30 years, but we don't have papers. legal. Then Montes offered to sell my father dozens of unaffiliated citizens, nearly destroyed Now Antonio Chac6n, a local cacique who came some cows, but he charged a high price and the statue of Christopher Columbus with spray to San Martin in 1985, wants to kick us off our the cows were not fit for our hot climate. We paint, eggs and rotten fruit. The statue was such land. He's threatened us with weapons and has didn't buy them, and Mont& got very angry with a sorry mess that the Spanish Embassy declined had some of us jailed. He's a cattle rancher. He my father. I think that's why he denied him to lay the hbnorary wreath of flowers at its feet. has a big house and lots of land. He's robbed credit on the tractor. My father wanted to ask There were also concheros or dancers dressed our cattle and our corn and bean crops. He gets Montes why he wouldn't give him credit, and in feathers and loin cloths. With their hairless armed people to stand guard while his men har- Mont& told him to come see him on November brown chests and legs, these dancers actually vest and steal our crops. Some of the men are 19th. He went with a friend, but at the door to looked like Indians. Then there was a prolifer- uniformed police. They've hit the women and the UGOCP they said my father should enter ation of New-Age Indian types, 90 percent of children, and kidnapped them. Then they return alone. My father never came out. His friend them fair-skinned and European-looking, some them two weeks later, raped. [His eyes began to asked for him, but they said he had already left. of them white Americans. water.] We got an order for Chacon's apprehen- That night at 11 p.m., some men came to our The New-Age types — with their conch shells, sion two or three years ago, but he still bothers door. They said they were undercover police. gladiolas and incense — so dominated events us every three or four months. It seems there is My mother told them to show us some identi- that several campesino onlookers called for no authority above that man. When we first tried fication. They said that if we didn't open the their removal: to get an order against him, Chao& had some door,, they'd kill us. They forced the door open "Go away! The government sent you!" of us jailed and beaten. We had to pay bail, but and ransacked the house, but the only thing "This is a day for protest, not incense and we could pay only in parts. So every week we they took was my father's briefcase. It had the flowers!" had to make the two-hour journey each way from land papers for everyone in the village. The "Campesinos have come from all over the our village to the town to pay a part of our bail. men told us to shut up and never say anything. country to be here today, and they still don't Eventually, we stopped going and the order is out Then they went to our ranch where we have 100 have a voice!" again for our arrest. Some federal officials, told heads of cattle and killed five. We've gone to One campesino, furious, yelled, "We don't us that Chao& plants poppy and marijuana. our state government and to the National want this day to be an official farce. I don't have They're looking for him, but they never find Commission on Human Rights, but we've got- to dress up as an Indian to be one. I'm an Indian him. I'm glad I'm doing this hunger strike. Faced ten no response. They tell us .to wait. I want to because I am a campesino, because I have prob- with dying from bullets, I'd rather die of hunger." know if my father is alive." lems, and because no one listens to me!" Carmela Arcos Mendez from Ejido Ursula Santa Subaran Cartillero—from Vergo de Amidst the shouting, a woman tapped me on Galvan, near Salto de Agua, Chiapas: [Manuel Pescador, near Bajapan, Veracruz: "Pescador the arm. I recognized her from the day the hunger Mendez translates for her from Tzeltal to has existed since 1950. We have 50 fruit trees— strike began. She had been in charge of photo- Spanish.] "In 1969, President Diaz Ordaz autho- mango, lime, orange—and 4,300 cedar and other copying Dominguez's speeches. "I'm sorry about rized us to expand our ejido [communal farm] kinds Of trees.. But our lands still are not offi- what happened the other day," she said. to include an extra ranch. But a large landowner, cially recognized. We want papers, because "I was surprised," I answered. "The hunger Flabio Cuoctitio Velasco, won't let us have it. we are worried with the new agricultural reform strikers didn't have a chance to talk, but they are The state government supports the landowner. that wed might lose our land. We've come to the ones risking their lives." They tell us to wait and wait. For years they've Mexicd City before. We had a hunger strike She nodded. told us to wait. We've waited 23 years." before. But no one pays any attention to us. "By the way, who are the most important Anonymous—from El Garro, near Villa Isla, So, we'll try again." people in the CNPI?" I asked, careful to use Veracruz: "My husband and my son have been Agustin Sanchez ,Diaz—from Nuevo the plural "people." fleeing since 1988, because there is an appre- Ixtacomitan, near Las Choapas, Veracruz: "We "Genaro, of course," she said, referring to hension order out against them. This happened arrived on virgin land in 1982. We cultivated Dominguez. because, in 1988, the CNC [Central Nacional it, and now the owner appears and has tried to Our conversation was interrupted by a chant • Campesino, a government-run peasant organi- claim the land. But it had been idle before we that overtook the entire crowd. Ironically, it went: zation] wanted to take our land. The CNPI worked it. In 1989, we asked for papers. Someone "El indio callado, jamas sera escuchado." The defended us. An agreement was drawn up in from the government even came out to mea- silent Indian will never be heard. ❑ which the CNC got part and the CNPI got part, sure it. That was when the owner appeared. Now THE TEXAS OBSERVER • 13

•••^!..,P BOOKS & THE CULTURE Bush, Bentsen, Banks ...

BY LOUIS DUBOSE THE MAFIA, CIA & GEORGE BUSH Houston businessmen associated with George and hidden. Members of the business commu- By Pete Brewton Bush, Lloyd Bentsen, and Houston land-and- nity either knowingly or naively collaborated 418 pages. New York: 1992. S.P.I. Books. bank magnate Walter Mischer, Sr. with the CIA and the Mob and the money began $22.95. It is a small constellation of Houston busi- to disappear. There was far more to this scan- nessmen, which revolves around Mischer, that dal, Brewton claims, than the land flips by which ERE IS MY. CHOICE for a Christmas is the focus of Brewton's book. The all-star insiders artificially increased the value of prop- gift for our bibliophiliac President-elect; list overlaps with membership lists of the River erties, split the profits, and then defaulted on the H if Bill Clinton doesn't know this com- Oaks and Houston Country Clubs and the notes, leaving the taxpayers to pick up the tab. ponent of this particular story, he ought to. The Ramada Club (Bentsen resigned from two of That was only part of it. tabloid title and meager promotional budget pro- these white male redoubts before he signed on And the Mafia and the CIA are only a part vided by S.P.I. Books — the small but coura- as the Democrats' vice-presidential candidate of the story told by Pete Brewton. Because the geous New York publishing house that picked in 1988, only to rejoin after the election) and looting of the nation's S&Ls could not have hap- up the book when it became obvious to the author includes: James Baker III, Ben Barnes, Lloyd pened without the timely intervention of some that Simon & Schuster, $100,000 cash advance Bentsen (and sons), William Blakemore, George of the most powerful elected and appointed notwithstanding, was not going to publish on Bush (and sons), U.S. Comptroller of the (with the confirmation of the U.S. Senate) offi- schedule, if at all — are liabilities. As is the sub- Currency Robert Clarke, John Connally, Don cials in the country — some of whom benefited ject matter, the looting of the nations savings Dixon, Thomas Gaubert, Raymond Hill, Morris either directly or through deals done by fam- and loans, a topic that never really caught on and Doug Jaffe, the Kappa Sigma Fraternity ily members. Brewton has ferreted out, for exam- with the reading public and one that many would (and brothers), Charles Keating, Carroll Kelly, ple, accounts of regulatory agency intervention just as soon forget — and pay the $500 mil- Adnan Khashoggi, Walter Mischer, Sr. (and by Bush while he served as Vice President; lion tab. son), Clint Murchison, Victor J. Rogers II, Joe. the inexplicable abandoning of a lawsuit that That's too bad. Because a great deal remains Russo, Kenneth Schnitzer, Robert Strauss and the U.S. government had paid Andrews & Kurth; to be learned about what Brewton describes as many many more. Brewton does not claim that to conduct against a Houston savings and loan "the greatest financial disaster since the Great everyone in what remains of the old Suite 8-F owned by a close friend of James Baker, a part- Depression." And Brewton, a former Houston Houston business fraternity benefited from the ner in Andrews & Kurth, and a bank purchase Post reporter now attending law school at the sacking of the S&Ls. But the city turns up more partnership that involved Robert Clarke, whom University of Texas, brings something new to than its share of suspects, which in part explains Bush would later appoint to the position of an old story, which for Brewton began when the book's success in Houston. (Were it to have U.S. Comptroller of the Currency, and Herman as a Post reporter, he began investigating been purchased only by Houston wheeler deal- K. Beebe, a known (and convicted) organized Mainland Savings in Houston. ers listed in the index, sales would be brisk. But crime figure from Louisiana. Brewton docu- It has been beyond the means of this small it's hard to imagine how anyone doing big busi- ments Lloyd Bentsen's sale of a family-owned publication to undertake paper-trail investiga- ness or government in. Houston could do with- savings and loan to buyers with known ties to tions of the S&Ls, but four years ago I spent a out this book, which overlaps considerably with organized crime and takes Bentsen to task for few hours discussing the S&L collapse with the the city's social register.) keeping the S&L issue out of the presidential CEO of a Texas thrift that no longer exists. What Brewton does contend, however, is that campaign debate in 1988, thus keeping the pub- "Get out a calculator," said the S&L execu- many members of this Houston cabal of busi- lic in the dark until wave after wave of lend- tive, who was soon to be convicted and sen- nessmen realized that the S&L's "were going ing institutions began to collapse — after the tenced to prison, "and divide the money they the way of the dinosaurs" and decided to exploit election. And if this book doesn't result in a can- clairh was stolen, among me and Don Dixon the institutions before they collapsed. But as didate to run against Harris County Judge Jon and Danny Faulkner and everyone else the gov- powerful as these businessmen are, they Lindsay, then politics in Houston is dead. ernment says is responsible for stealing it. How couldn't, on their own, either illegally or quasi- (Lindsay, it turns out, took $10,000, a hunting could we have possibly spent it all?" He went legally, empty the vaults of the nation's thrifts trip, and a flight to a Las Vegas prize fight on to suggest that in my calculations I account and then bill the taxpayers. According to from a man who sacked a South Texas thrift, for all the cars, yachts, airplanes, palatial resi- Brewton; once these businessmen began col- worked for the CIA, and recently turned up dences and trips to Europe, arguing all the while laborating with the CIA — which, with blocked dead in an El Paso motel — after promising to that it just didn't add up. "Not in five lifetimes," subpoenas and investigations and a network turn state's evidence. And that's only a small he said. Those who were then going on trial, of offshore banks, provided both the cover and part of the Lindsay story.) in other words, weren't capable of having spent the mechanisms to move the money — loot- Granted, this book is so dense with facts, all that money. - ing the thrifts became much easier. "perps," dates, places, and figures that it can be Brewton doesn't answer the question where With the CIA came the Mafia — which at difficult to read. But for anyone who would all the money went, though he follows some least since the Watergate break-in, if not John understand where Texas money fits into the of it to such places as the Isle of Jersey Banks, Kennedy's attempts to use mobsters to conduct national scheme of things, and "Who Governs?" offshore accounts frequently used to launder his Caribbean Basin foreign policy — has been in this state, where the capital of dirty capital money; large corporations involved in inflated involved with the CIA. Both institutions pro- must be Harris County, Brewton's book is indis- real estate deals ultimately 'underwritten by vided the experience in setting up shell corpo- pensable. It's also well documented. Buy two. the taxpayer; through CIA accounts into rations and frontmen (cutouts to the CIA, mous- One for yourself and one for a Friend of Bill. Panamanian banks and on to Swiss banks; and taches to the Mafia), and the networks of Read yours and send the other on to the transi- through and into the hands of a small cabal of offshore banks where money could be laundered tion team. ❑ 14 • DECEMBER 25, 1992 NTERVIEW Pete Brewton

Editors' Note: Former Houston Post investigative reporter Pete Brewton was interviewed in his home in west Austin by Texas Observer Editor Louis Dubose and Associate Editor James Cullen on November 24. Brewton, who is attending law school, is not currently working on another book but continues to receive tips and leads on the S&L story he began at the Post. His comments were not edited but were cut for space considerations. His book , The Mafia , the CIA and George Bush, was published, shortly before the presidential election by S .P.I ., a small New York publishing house.

This is almost a book about Walter Mischer. Yeah, it could have been titled Walter Mischer. But who would know that, other than political people in the know in Houston. But Walter Mischer is the main character in the book, no doubt about that. How long had you been working in Houston before you realized how much a player, or how powerful he was? ••• I started reporting in Houston in 1977 and I went over to cover Harris County and the Commissioners Court in 1978.1 was there three years. And while I was covering the Harris County Commissioners Court for the Houston ALAN POGUE Post, the name started popping up. You could Pete Brewton tell by talking to, primarily, aides of commissioners of the county judge, who talked about him about it, about whether he knew Carlos introduced him to Mischer and that Mischer was Walter Mischer and his power and influence and Marcello. He said he'd met him and Marcello dealing with the CIA on a very high level and how he was behind things, pulling strings, influ- had come to see him and had wanted to buy a that Brenneke had flown in to an airstrip in far- encing developers on who to contribute to and couple of motels in Houston. And he didn't West Texas, west of Big Bend, that the CIA was brokering deals and making deals and making sell to him. But it turned out later that Mischer using for guns and drugs trans-shipment. And sure that the developers got taken care of.... did a very complicated real estate deal with a he said he was told that Mischer controlled it. You take him from the streets of Houston, to guy named John Coil, who is a disbarred attor- It was very close to Mischer's land, although Honduras, to the Big Bend and down to and to ney ... who turns out to be working for the it wasn't on Mischer's land. And I checked Belize. Could you tell me a little about that? Marcello family.... I started interviewing a lot that out, and that checked out, like Brenneke had Yeah, you know Mischer, when I began first more cops and doing a lot more research on told me. And so I started looking [at Belize], looking seriously at Walter Mischer right after Mischer and when I started doing the S&L scan- because it had come up in a number of investi- the Hermann Hospital Estates scandal, which dal he popped up again. His bank was dealing gations I was looking at in Florida. We have was in 1985. I covered that for the Houston with Herman K. Beebe. some drug smugglers that were trans-shipping Post. And Mischer had been on the board of the Allied Bank? through Belize, connected to people who were Hermann Hospital Estates. He'd gotten off in Yes. Allied Bank was dealing with Herman looting savings and loans. And I remember when the early '80s and his son had replaced him. But K. Beebe, a Louisiana associate of the Marcello Mary [Flood] and I did our profile on Mischer, when Mary Flood and I investigated the family. And they were financing deals with I had talked to everybody I could about Mischer, Hermann Hospital Estates, we really went back Beebe and involved with S&Ls with Beebe. and one of his business associates told me about. to their history and found Mischer there and his So that was one thing and then the CIA starts how they'd bought, Mischer and his partners son there now. So we started digging a little creeping up in the S&L stories and the first had bought, 700,000 acres in Belize.... 1 had just bit deeper into Walter Mischer and his son and CIA connection happens to be Mischer's for- sort of written it down and forgotten about it we ran across a number of people who told me mer son-in-law. — until we get the CIA-S&L connections; then that Mischer was connected to the Mafia. I talked Corson? I remembered it. And I remembered that Mischer to people in the police department, politicians, Robert Corson. And the first rabbit out of had worked during World War It down in the insiders, and all confirmed it. Mischer has dealt the box and I'm dealing with Walter Mischer Caribbean on a naval base. He had been rejected with the Mafia. Particularly Carlos Marcello, again. And one of my sources, my initial sources from military service but he had worked on the New Orleans Mafia boss. A very powerful on Robert Corson was a guy named Richard engineering projects. So the next time I inter- and influential Mafia don. And so Mary and I Brenneke, who was a Portland, Oregon, arms viewed him, I just asked him whether he'd done decided we were going to do a profile of Walter dealer, a very controversial fellow. I deal with business in Latin America and he volunteered Mischer.... So we interviewed him and I asked at length in the book. Brenneke said that Corson this story about Honduras.

THE TEXAS OBSERVER • 15 His sawmills? into S&Ls, had been following the Garn-St. here we have his wife intervening to help Sunrise, Yes. He said first they were paper mills. The Germain deregulation bill through Congress. which was lending over $50 million who was second time I interviewed him I started pressing Waiting, like an Oklahoma Sooner. Waiting for involved in arms in Iraq.... And Robert Corson him on it, asking about where he got he money, the bell to go off. was using, Robert Corson the CIA contract agent, and he said he had owned just one sawmill. But Vice President, or then-Vice President Bush, was using his [the Houston man shipping arms he originally told me two paper mills. certainly knew what he was doing when he called to Iran and Iraq] plane to make money laun- This was on the eve of the CIA overthrow of in a regulator — in one chapter in your book dering trips to Latin America. the Jacobo-Arbenz government (in Guatemala)? you recount how Bush called a regulator in Now, Corson was a son-in-law at one time He bought in 1952. And then he sold out in and told this woman she had to stop this inves- of Walter Mischer. And I think that what you 1954-55 to Clint Murchison Jr. And Murchison tigation at Sunrise, I think — write about him in your book, about him acquir- Jr., of course, had CIA connections. Docu- Savings, yeah. But we've got some new infor- ing Vision Bank, or Kleberg Savings and Loan, mented, on-the-record CIA connections. The mation on that. The Sunrise CEO has told two is about as good a case as can be made against timing is really very interesting. Because '52 different stories on that. In one story he told deregulation. Because if there was ever anyone is when they started really planning the coup, everybody that he met with Bush, in another who wasn' t a candidate to own a financial insti- the CIA and other groups started planning the story he said he met with Bush's top aides. This tution that was underwritten by the federal coup. And of course in '54 he gets out. After the is information that has come out after the book government, it was Corson. Could you elabo- coup he sells to a guy with connections to the was published. But we've got additional infor- rate on that? CIA. So folding all that in together, you've got mation that shows that after the meeting, with Well, Corson was, I'd say, just a two-bit devel- a really interesting nexus of circumstances, in either Bush or his top aides, that the federal oper. He did strip shopping centers and day-care addition to the statements of Richard Brenneke regulators stopped a very tough regulation action homes. And he was basically being controlled and Will Northrop, in reference to the CIA. by his mother, who is a very strong-willed indi- You mention, I think in your book, that you vidual. They all eventually, of course, got kept running into these walls, which led you to indicted. Corson is now dead. believe that there was CIA involvement. He's dead? CIA and government and very powerful peo- About three weeks ago he was found dead ple. I mean this wasn't — this wasn't a scan- in a motel room in El Paso. The El Paso M.E.'s dal that was basically done by the wheeler- [medical examiner] office is saying it looks dealer types like Don Dixon. That just wasn't like suicide; they found some empty pill bottles it. Because Don Dixon didn't have the power to around his body. But he wasscheduled to go on erect all these barriers. Only someone with con- trial in Houston next week [late November] nections to the government could erect all these and he had, he was turning state's evidence. And barriers — the kind of barriers we were running then he shows up dead under very suspicious into. So when you've got government involve- circumstances. Anyway, back to when he bought ment, you've got a big story. Kleberg County Savings and Loan. He got help Part of your thesis, or a central thesis of the from, he threw Walter Mischer's name around book, is that some people in government recog- a lot with the regulators. He got a letter of rec- nized that the S&Ls were not going to function ommendation from Harris County Judge Jon as they had because of the market and interest Lindsay. His application to buy Kleberg County rates and because of what they were invested in Savings and Loan got approved in record time and decided to take advantage of the situation. by the state and the Feds, when he never had any Right, I think they busted them out. They experience with financial institutions, his mother saw that they couldn't make it. And it is inter- had no experience, none of his employees had esting to note that they were wrong. Because the any experience. And of course, he proceeded to S&Ls that stayed in the traditional home mort- bust it out in a matter of months. Primarily gage lending made it. They made it through. through a $200 million Florida land deal. That Now we've got real low inflation and they're was just an unbelievable thing. Somebody was doing wonders if they've got home mortgage working behind the scenes to push it through. loans. It was like a business cycle and the indus- You mention that this is a bipartisan scandal. try and Congress over-reacted and said, 'Let's BILL LEISSNER But there doesn't seem to be as much involve- just let them do anything they want to.' Once Lloyd Bentsen ment by Bentsen except as a seller, or perhaps they did that, the crooks knew they could come his intervening. Am I reading that correctly? in and take advantage of it. against Sunrise and replaced it with a very weak There's not as much direct involvement by How much do you suspect that people set one. And the government, a congressional com- Lloyd Bentsen as there is by George Bush. But out to sack these institutions had to do with mittee, found that this action cost the taxpay- there was some. And it's not just Bentsen's shaping public policy to their advantage? , ers hundreds of millions of dollars in additional former ownership of S&Ls that end up in the Well that's a good question and a big ques- losses. The question then becomes 'Why Sunrise hands of crooks. Bentsen, as the vice-presi- tion that I can't answer. You'd haye to go back Savings?' Why did this guy go to Bush's office dential nominee, went to the Democratic cam- to Fernand St. Germain, Jake Garn and Ronald to try to get the regulators off? You look at the paign headquarters and told them not to bring Reagan and George Bush. Did they know that people who were looting Sunrise and you've got up the S&Ls scandal. So the American public they were setting the stage for S&Ls to get mobsters, CIA people. You find a Houston guy didn't know about a severe problem until after looted? I don't know. I don't think we'll ever ... who at that time was involved in trans-ship- the election. Silverado Savings was not shut know the answer to that. They could deny it and ping arms to Iran and Iraq. And one of the top down until after the '88 election. But Bentsen hoW would you prove otherwise. All we do regulators involved in this meeting in Bush's is also part of this circle of Houston business- know is that they were looted and that the leg- office was Anne Fairbanks, whose husband, men that George Bush is a part of and Walter islation and the action of government allowed Richard Fairbanks, was a State Department Mischer is at the center of. Bentsen and Mischer it. When we start tying people in to looting employee at that time in charge of Operation are very close.... Jim Bath is a CIA agent who them, they connect back to the very people who Staunch, to keep arms out of Iran. And he was did business with Lloyd Bentsen's son and were deregulating the S&Ls. That's a good indi- pushing for Iraq at that time, In fact, he quit in George Bush's son, they were doing deals with cation.... But we do know that mobster Mario 1985 and went to work for Iraq as one of their the CIA and borrowing money from savings and Renda, who was responsible for the failure of top lawyers and lobbyists in Washington and loans. And Bath, was selling some investments a number of S&Ls by brokering hot deposits worked for them until they invaded Kuwait. But to Bentsen's trust. You start looking at all these

16 • DECEMBER 25, 1992 players and you find connections back either be able to prove that he owned any stock. And No, I've given up hope on our government. to Bush or to Bentsen or to both.... Lloyd Bentsen that's not a bad assumption. because these I don't think Congress or the Justice Department was an original stockholder with his brother or records are hard to get. But I had gotten them will do anything else. They want the American his father [in Jefferson Savings and Loan in from a private investigator who had been inves- public to forget about this. Pay the $500 bil- McAllen]. They controlled it. And later Bentsen tigating Cartaya for the FBI. In his investigation lion and let's go on to somewhere else. sold his stock back to his father and then bought of Cartaya, he'd come across the original share- But you suggest that this money, that some Brazosport Savings and turned it into Continental holder and their stock ownership of Jefferson of this money, can be traced and recovered. Savings, which was financed by Louisiana mob- Savings. And there Lloyd Bentsen was with his Absolutely. Absolutely. I think they're trying ster Herman K. Beebe. signature notarized. So after DeVore — I just to get some from the officers and directors. Is that Jefferson Savings the one that George let DeVore hang himself. I didn't say 'Hey, They're going after law firms and accounting Bush's son was involved with? I've got this document that says Lloyd Bentsen firms. That's good if these people were culpa- No, one of the people, the Bentsen family sold owned this stock and I need some reaction to it.' ble. That's not where the bulk of the money went. that S&L to Guillermo Hernandez-Cartaya who I said, 'Did Bentsen ever own this stock?' and They are not trying to track the money and get was a CIA asset, a Cuban asset. Cartaya started he said 'I'll get back to you.' He called back and it back. Instead they're trying to sue these offi- looting it immediately. And the Feds came down said he never did. I asked, 'Are you sure?' And cers and directors and get it from them. and they were prosecuting them and the CIA met he said, 'He doesn't recall.' And I said, 'Well, James Baker'.'s law firm is involved in sup- with the prosecutors to try to get them to back off I've got this document.' DeVore said, 'I'll get pressing what appears to be an important inves- Cartaya. When I asked Bentsen about that he said back to you,' and 30 minutes later Bentsen called, tigation. it didn't happen or he would have known about himself, from the Canary Islands. He said, 'Oh, Yes, an investigation of one of Baker's close it. Well, the prosecutor the CIA agent talked to yes. I did. But I got out of it.' friends. Close, long-time friends. Raymond told me about it, that the CIA came to him and [Harris County Judge] Jon Lindsay, as you Hill. At the same time that Baker's telling the said don't prosecute. Now, they went ahead and write, was not a member of the Club. And you Senate that everything's alright with the S&Ls. proSecuted Cartaya for that particular fraud inci- now describe him as the most powerful Baker had to know that Andrews & Kurth, his dent but a year later he was indicted again on Republican in Harris County, or one of the most old law firm, was investigating his old buddy another fraud incident, along with his: partner powerful Republicans in Harris County. Raymond Hill and Hill's S&L, Mainland Camilio Padreda. That was absolutely dropped I said he was. But you've got Mosbacher Savings. He had to know. And if he knew, did and I don't know whether the CIA had any influ- and Bush back home now. But I think Lindsay he do anything? ence in that, but it certainly looks that way. Padreda just got corrupted by the political process, by That investigation was suppressed? later shows up in Miami doing business with the way we do politics in this country. People They never filed the lawsuit. Andrews & Kurth Jeb Bush, the President's other son. buy politicians with campaign contributions and was hired with the specific purpose of filing a So ultimqtely the answer to that question is 'they expect favors in return. And Lindsay just lawsuit to recover the lost assets of Mainland. `yes.' got to where he liked the money. They drew one up and listed all this wrongdo- Well, when you start peeling these layers An interesting contribution is the $10,000 ing, including criminal wrongdoing. I mean back and.you come back to the same people. from Corson. And now it ends up that the County falsification of government records. Criminal And Bentsen may have got some Mafia money Judge took a ride to Las Vegas in the airplane wrongdoing. And they never filed it. when he sold Brazosport savings to Carroll of this guy who turns up dead in an El Paso motel You saw the paperwork on the suit. Kelly and his associates. Because Herman K. room. Right? Yes. An attorney from Andrews & Kurth Beebe was financing Carroll Kelly. Yes. They were very close for a while and sent it to me in an unmarked envelope. When I Is it fair to hold the seller responsible for who when I first questioned Lindsay about it, he, went to the U.S. Attorney's office to show it the buyer is? he denied it. He tried to deny it and separate him- to them, the only question the U.S. Attorney, Well, when you're dealing with criminals. self from Corson and would not acknowledge Henry Oncken, asked me was where'd I get These people ultimately looted this S&L and all these connections. But finally, I got him to this. He was part of the suppression. were doing business with mobsters. And if acknowledge, that yeah, he had received the Is Bill Clinton compromised? Bentsen decides to say 'I didn't know anything biggest campaign contribution of his career, trips That's a good question. I don't know. I know about it,' well, fine. But he sells a savings and to Las Vegas, went hunting with him in Mexico, he appears to be close to Lloyd Bentsen. And loan to somebody he didn't know anything went to parties at his house. They were close for Lloyd Bentsen is apparently one of the leading about? What does that say about judgment. He's a while and it was money. Money was the glue. candidates for the Secretary of the Treasury. either got to plead ignorance or culpability. Lindsay writes him the letter of recommenda- [The interview was conducted before Bentsen's Even if he pleads ignorance, that's not very tion that was used to buy the S&L. selection was announced.] Now there's no indi- admirable. Are there any heroes here? You mention Art cation that Clinton knows about Bentsen's con- To the general public this incident might not Leiser. nections to people like Walter Mischer and Joe mean much, but to a journalist reading about Yeah, there are some heroes. The myth here Russo and Jim Bath. But if he doesn't, he ought you calling [Bentsen Press Secretary] Jack is that the federal regulators didn't do their job. to know. The way Mischer and his buddies oper- DeVore with a question about [Jefferson] The ones out in the field, out in the trenches ate is that they've always got a ticket on the late Savings and Loan ... about Bentsen's involve- did do their job. They knew what was going on. train. And you can bet that they're trying to ment as an owner, and then DeVore' s response, Like Art Leiser discovered all these 'daisy get close to Bill Clinton. Either directly or indi- then your reply, then the Senator's phone call chains' with Herman Beebe in the middle in rectly. That's the way they operate and they to you—from some island off the coast of Spain 1983 and reported it. It's at the top level of the wouldn't sit around and say, 'Too bad George — the short time between you calling DeVore regulatory bodies, where they intersect with Bush was defeated. I guess we're going to be on and Lloyd Bentsen calling you, that might not politicians, that's where it went wrong. People the losing side for four years.' mean anything to people who don't deal with like Leiser did their job. So, yeah, Leiser is a Did you ever get into the Stephens family [of Congressmen and particularly Senators, but I hero. And there are a number of prosecutors who Arkansas, major supporters of Bill Clinton] ? think it says a lot to journalists. did a good job in their own field. Like Joe Cage No, but the Wall Street Journal did a great I think it was incredible. I was really shocked in Louisiana, who prosecuted Beebe. The pros- story ... about Stephens. About how he was that Lloyd Bentsen, I knew I'd hit a really live ecutor in Brooklyn who went after Renda. Lloyd one of the biggest donors to Bush and to Clinton. wire, when Bentsen called me back. I don't Monroe, the Organized Crime Strike Force pros- These people cover their bets. It's a big myth, know whether Bentsen lied to DeVore and said ecutor in Kansas City, who was investigatitg that big businessmen ally themselves with one `I never owned any stock in that S&L' or whether Renda and Farhad Azima and got stymied by party. They do both sides so they can have an DeVore lied to me and said Bentsen never owned the CIA. Rebecca Sirris really stayed after them. in, regardless. What that means is that we really the stock. But one of them wasn't telling the Do you foresee any investigation by, say, don't have democracy. Our two-party system truth. And, I guess they figured that I wouldn't the House Banking Committee? doesn't work anymore. ❑ THE TEXAS OBSERVER • 17 Hard Battles Won

BY JAMES C. HARRINGTON

A SEASON FOR JUSTICE: accused of drunken driving. Dees lost the case, his daughter had placed above his pillow the The Life and Times of but learned firsthand that justice could depend angel that was to go on top of the family Civil Rights Lawyer Morris Dees. on race. The book is dedicated to his father. Christmas tree. by Morris Dees with Steve Fiffer. Dees discusses his education in a system Dees also recounts two poignant events that 368 pp. New York: of segregated schools that in his day in the prepared him for the Clarence Darrow "awak- Touchstone Books/ A Simon and Schuster South extended from kindergarten through the ening." In 1961, as a private practitioner, Dees Trade Paperback. $12. University of Alabama Law School, where had represented a local racist accused of beat- he graduated in 1960. There was also his edu- ing a television reporter who was filming a VERY ONCE IN A WHILE we stand cation as an entrepreneur, which began with crowd of 1,000 whites beating Freedom Riders face to face with an event powerful delivering newspapers and selling watermel- in Montgomery. As Dees left the courtroom, E enough to transform our lives. Most of ons, compost and peaches, and lead through one of the Freedom Riders confronted him us are not up to the moral challenge but, for the "Bama Birthday Cake" business, and sell- and asked: "Don't you think that black peo- the few who are, their lives change so dra- ing recipe books through the mail — which ple have rights?" matically that they become heroes for the rest taught Dees to write sales copy, design offers Dees was also moved by the September 1963 of us — heroes with an immense capacity for and send mailouts at opportune times. It was bombing of the 16th Avenue Baptist Church, changing society. for his success as an direct-mail entrepreneur which killed four girls attending Sunday Morris Dees is one of those heroes. Dees that the Jaycees named Dees one of America's School. At the Pike Road Baptist Church, Dees accepted the challenge and has enormously 10 outstanding young men. His direct mail and asked his own congregation to help the black contributed to the cause of justice. His book, entrepreneurial skills also placed Dees in a congregation. His request "hit their frozen A Season for Justice, written with Steve Fiffer, position to supervise George McGovern's hearts and fell to the floor." His coreligion- not only chronicles Dees' personal odyssey but direct-mail solicitations, raise funds for Jimmy ists wouldn't even pray for the girls, Dees also discusses the role he has played in under- Carter's first White House run (he supported wrote, causing him to leave the Baptist Church. mining racism in America. Teddy Kennedy .the second time around Dees, who has devoted his life to fighting A Season for Justice speaks eloquently from because of Carter's stand on the death penalty), and extirpating the Ku Klux Klan, has faced the heart. It is an extraordinary saga of dedi- and, more importantly, in 1971 to found and two death sentences, transmitted nationwide cation and risk to personal safety, a gripping then support the Southern Poverty Law Center. on Aryan Nations Net, the KKK computer narrative that leads effortlessly from cover to Fellow recipe-book salesman and law part- bulletin board, which also regularly posted his cover through vignettes, photos, personal ner Millard Fuller went on to organize Habitat expected whereabouts. The names of two other reflections and case histories sprinkled with for Humanity. men were also circulated on the Klan's death dramatic trial and deposition excerpts. There are also reflections on eloping as a list: Norman Lear, the television producer and The event that changed Dees' life and shook senior in high school and on subsequent mar- progressive cause activist and funder, and Alan him from a complacent career as an riages, and interesting anecdotes showing Dees' Berg, a Denver talk-show host assassinated entrepreneur who successfully dabbled in law, feisty, albeit soft-spoken, personality and clever in 1984. occurred in February 1986 at the Cincinnati ability to bluff, in both business and law, in a Time magazine once named Dees the "sec- airport, where Dees, on his way to Chicago way that would make any self-respecting poker ond most-hated man in Alabama." The first to sell a lucrative publishing enterprise to the player envious. Dees didn't even shirk from was United States District Judge Frank Times-Mirror Corp., was grounded by a snow- holding a shotgun to intimidate a Klansman. Johnson, an Eisenhower appointee who issued storm. most of the orders desegregating Alabama In the airport in Cincinnati, Dees came across Season for Justice begins with two and protecting the rights of the state's African a paperback copy of Clarence Darrow's auto- flashbacks. The first is Dees' awak- Americans, many times in cases brought by biography, The Story of My Life. By dawn he Aening to racism. In July 1947, as a 10- Dees or the Southern Poverty Law Center. was finished reading the book. So inspired was year-old, he helped Billy Lucas, an African Not only was the personal risk grave, but he by Darrow's having given up a prosper- American, harvest and deliver the season's first the Center's office was burned in 1983, after ous law practice representing the railroads to bale of cotton, which meant a front-page pho- the organization initiated its Klanwatch pro- become an advocate of the powerless and work- tograph in the Montgomery Advertiser and a gram. In the book Dees tells of his sudcess- ing people organized against the giant busi- high bid for the honor of delivering the first ful effort to bring the arsonists to justice. The ness oligarchies, that Dees abandoned his busi- bale. But Lucas had beaten out one of the area's new Center is now Montgomery's premier ness and legal career and entered the battle for big planters, who proceeded to rant about Dees' tourist attraction. civil rights. father letting Dees and eight field hands from The list of cases taken to court by Dees and In A Season for Justice Dees, a 56-year- the family's Mount Meigs farm help a black. the Center are impressive and important. They old native Alabaman and grandson of a Morris Dees watched as an uncle said noth- include: Requiring, in 1969, that Auburn Klansman, describes the basic sense of fair- ing in his father's defense. University allow the Rev. William Sloane ness that guided his parents, who, while no pro- The second scene is Christmas 1984, when Coffin to speak on campus in opposition to the ponents of integration, were far ahead of their Dees and his 14-year-old daughter Ellie were Vietnam war; ending discrimination at the time. Dees learned something about racism trimming the tree, and suddenly had to take Montgomery YMCA; reinstating a teacher early in his career when he defended one of his refuge in the pantry of their house, armed, fired for using Kurt Vonnegut's Welcome to father's workers who had been wrongly Aile two security guards armed with machine Monkey House in class; attacking regulations guns searched the grounds outside the house that gave servicemen more benefits than ser- for intruders bent on doing Dees harm. When vicewomen; suing the Montgomery Advertiser James C. Harrington is Legal Director of the the "all clear" was sounded some hours later for refusing to print a photograph of an African- Texas Civil Rights Project in Austin. and Dees finally went to bed, he found that American couple in the Sunday society sec-

18 • DECEMBER 25, 1992 tion rather than on Thursday's "Negro news" in the Klan and dismantling its paramilitary spoke to the jury during closing argument of page (the suit was lost, but the paper changed operation, the Texas Emergency Reserve. After the civil suit. Bringing tears to everyone's its policy); redistricting the Alabama legisla- Louis Beam, who earlier came up with the eyes, he admitted his guilt and asked that the ture and changing the discriminatory selection name "Demon Dees," showed up with a "cam- full punishment be exacted against him and the of Montgomery County grand juries. era crew" to interview Dees in 1984, the Center KKK. Then, turning to Ms. Donald, who was Other cases that captured the attention of the had to organize a security team and some- rocking in her chair, he begged forgiveness. nation included the defense of the "Tarboro times provided personal guards for Dees. Ms. Donald stopped rocking, looked at him, Three," who were unjustly sentenced to death Later, Dees, participating in a federal crim- and said softly, "I forgive you." for raping a white woman. After they had spent inal weapons prosecution as kind of a special The jury returned a $7-million verdict that 21 months within 30 feet of the gas chamber, counsel, also helped bring down the White bankrupted the United Klans of America. Its their death sentences were reversed and the Patriot Party, another KKK paramilitary group. one piece of realty was sold and Ms. Donald three men entered nolo contendere pleas to The group, which was assisted in its training bought a house, only to die a year later, grief- assault charges (their sentences were equal program by active U.S. Marines, had sought stricken over the murder of her son. to time already served) rather than face another to carve a white supremacist state out of North After the trial, Dees called his daughter Ellie; jury trial. Dees, an opponent of capital pun- and South Carolina, to be guided by the Bible "We won, sweetheart," he told her. She replied, ishment, uses the Tarboro Three case to raise and The Turner Diaries. While trying the case "I heard. I'm really proud of you. I under- the question of innocent people on death row: Dees and his staff had to slip in and out of stand why you do what you do, Daddy." How many are there as "victims of inadequate the Wake County Courthouse in Raleigh, Dees' story is also the story of many coura- legal representation? How many have died?" between depositions, to avoid a possible geous and valiant plaintiffs who saw wrong Another of Dees' celebrated cases involved ambush. and tried to right it — with moral valor and 20-year-old Joan Little, charged with killing, Through all, though, Dees could be kind and personal risk greater than anyone can imagine. with an ice pick, a 62-year-old jailer who was charming to his enemies. He convinced some It is also the story of other progressive lawyers trying to rape her. Little fled but was captured. to testify against others by appealing to the who helped co-counsel cases, like David Berg Dees' account of the trial is riveting, relating Bible and to their sense that things had gone and Philip Zelikov of Houston, or provided how a hostile prosecutor and judge tried to elim- too far. He also skillfully exploited intra-Klan office space, as did former North Carolina inate him from the defense team by filing a spu- rivalries. governor and U.S. Senator Terry Sanford, and rious perjury subornation charge against him The most poignant chapter in Dees' his- many more, including the intrepid and heroic during the trial (a maneuver similar to one tory of the struggle against the KKK, and the staff of the Center who sometimes had to wear used against Darrow). The tactic removed Dees story that ends the book, involves the 1981 bulletproof vests. from the courtroom. His associates, however, slaying of Michael Donald. To prove the orga- At the beginning of his book, Dees quotes remained. Dees counseled from nearby quar- nization's strength, and that it was still alive Clarence Darrow. The quote can be applied to ters and the jury acquitted Little. in Alabama, Klan members beat and hanged Dees equally well: "I have lived my life and However, the cases of greatest import, and McDonald, leaving him dead, with his throat I fought my battles, not against the weak and also the most harrowing, were those in which slit in three places. One of the killers, on the the poor — but against power, injustice, against Dees went after the KKK. Dees became the testimony of a fellow murderer, was convicted oppression." nemesis of the Klan, which, in its campaign of in 1983 by a jury of 11 whites and one African ❑ terror between 1954 (Brown v. Board of American and assessed the death penalty by Education) and 1965 (the Voting Rights Act); the judge. was responsible for 70 bombings in Georgia Not content to allow the matter to end with and Alabama (including the 16th Avenue ANDERSON COMPANY the conviction, Beulah Mae Donald, Michael's COFFEE Baptist Church in Montgomery); 30 burnings mother, and Dees filed a $10-million civil TEA SPICES of African-American churches in Mississippi; suit against the United Klans of America, Inc., TWO JEFFERSON SQUARE the castration of an African American in in 1984. Ms. Donald was a woman of incal- AUSTIN, TEXAS 78731 Birmingham; 10 racial murders in Alabama; culable bravery, who insisted that her son's 512 453-1533 and the slayings of Michael Schwerner, James coffin remain open during the funeral so the Send me your list. Chaney and Andrew Goodman in Mississippi, world could see what the Klan had done. Name Viola Liuzzo and the Rev. James Reeb in At the trial, Dees skillfully wove together Selma, and Lemuel Penn, a black army colonel, the strands that connected various events of Street near Athens, Ga. That is what is documented, KKK violence with the murder of Michael City Zip but it's only a glance into KKK horror. No one Donald. The murderer, who had testified at the knows, for example, who killed the nine criminal trial, testified against the Klan and African-American men whose remains were dredged up during the effort to locate the bodies of Schwerner, Chaney and Goodman. The battle with the KKK became particularly critical for Dees, as the "new" Klan (led by the likes of David Duke and Bill Wilkinson) branched out into more modern activity, such as paramilitary training camps. One particularly dangerous case in 1981 involved suing the Klan and Louis Beam, PEOPLE Grand Dragon of the Texas Knights of the Make a world of difference ! KKK on behalf of the Vietnamese shrimpers We're proud of our employees and their contributions to your near Seabrook, where the KKK was terroriz- ing Vietnamese in an attempt to prevent them success and ours. Call us for quality printing, binding, mailing from fishing in Galveston Bay. and data processing services. Get to know the people at Futura. As irony would have it, the Houston federal judge assigned to the case was Gabrielle P.O. Box 17427 Austin, TX 78760-7427 McDonald, an African American who as a FUTUM lawyer had handled civil rights cases. COMMUNICATIONS, INC. 389-1500 Eventually, McDonald issued orders reining

THE TEXAS OBSERVER • 19 Jack Myers: An American Poet and Family Values

BY TOM MCCLELLAN

never fixed, per se, only rendered memorable ACK MYERS' first book of poetry, Black "I write for myself. I write to myself. When in a discovered form." Sun Abraxas (1970), displays a young man I was a student at Iowa, I used to write for/to the in search of a mode. He explores the lyri- best students I knew, and there were a whole J slew of them there who became established. But For example, Myers uses internal and slant cism of Yeats, the symbolism of Eliot (with the rhyme in "The Commonwheel" (1977) with a mystic's heart-cry turn given the latter by Merton), even then I was writing for/to myself. Now, one of the last pleasures in life is to amuse myself, flat-footed anti-lyricism that affirms the valid- and gives all an occasional existential Pounding ity of ordinary life as the matter of poetry: in the context of savvy occultism. A sample to see if I can instruct, deepen, merely under- from "The Astrological Garden" should do: stand what I think and feel, and a lot of times I just have fun telling the joke of life to myself." I live like the wrong answer because the fire gasses mentioned me among neighbors with heart attacks and cancer. They damn me, slam their doors I have entered the sun's palace One joke, it turns out — or one punchline and collect pride from bitter labors. not the walls of memory or womb — is the ordinary trinity of me, myself, and I, but a target in my daddy's blood which Myers explores in "Do You Know What "Contributor's Note" (1986) reviews Myers' I Mean," (1984): whose eyes lay siege to the vertical city ten-year odyssey through bohemian life with an rising in its tide of business and For the sake of argument epic list that drives into sudden comic truth: transgressions let's say there are three of me: In the old days I couldn't possibly make a those 1920's insects dancing into history the one with the bummed-out body, mistake: all gaiety and spangles between wars the one who senses things are going badly, the cold, the hunger, the twisted night- and when my moon dissolved in Aries and the bright one who can't cope. people, the useless jobs in back rooms, that blood spot lit cigars all over town. That's me! • basements, laboratories, Don't get me wrong. It's a family. high-rise cubicles, dizzying ledges, open I forgot to mention hints of Ginsberg's sea, lonely cab, prophetic tone and Lowell's traditionalism and Dear God, looking in the mouth of kegs of nails, the no doubt sources I haven't heard of. But there I don't believe in you, human brain, is something of the disarming chutzpah in that but #2 is feeling bad today. shark guts, mock ups; from a ten-Story last line that is pure Jack Myers, now as well He thinks you're out there and you're great. scaffold as then. There is the sense of belonging, to a But he can't tell the difference between to my tent on Bolinas Mesa, I look back cosmos, to a history, to a family reaching from something small out of broken back and bridgework at the the stars to Lynn, Massachusetts, to blood-and- tearing apart the sound of something large incredibly open bone humanity. in the distance face in my high school yearbook which Because he is aware of his macrocosmic self, moving far off. quotes me as saying, Myers says that he is "put off by critics who "Do your best." point to autobiographically-based poems as So this is for my brother, #2, being limited, self-absorbed, and invalid: standing here like we're in church. And in "Answers (for Miko Ito)" (1981) "My own sense is that it doesn't matter what Sometimes when we're quiet like this Myers uses an oriental intensity that recalls way one reaches epiphany ["What you depart I think we're all the family we've got. Pound's "In a Station of the Metro" to capture from is not the way," sayeth Pound]. Writing a peculiar bird, unmindfulness: from the self to the Other, from the personal Among the family of poets, the young man to the universal, is just as valid and effective who had followed Yeats and Eliot in search of Today the roses in the silver vase have as writing from the Other. A sock is a sock a mythology to sustain his work attended the opened their widest: whether it's inside out or not. In my case, how University of Iowa, studied under Richard Hugo red and white faces blown back in a still rye lived my life has a lot to do with my work. and Galway Kinnell, and so was admitted to the room. Yes, it does matter that I lobster fished, that I fraternity of Ezra Pound. The task of the poet in this context becomes like that of a surfer; wide- Even cut they have the strength to surrender. was divorced, that my kids don't live with me, Their petals lie scattered like the silks of a that I teach at a university, etc. All these things eyed and riding in the curl of the eternal now. As for form, Myers writes: courtesan. show up in the poems and it's the nature of I sit here tearing one after another, my these experiences which form the form and "Form, according to Coleridge and Levertov, is supposed to be derived from content; Creeley thoughts content, emotive thrust, and vision of the poems. caught off-guard by my hands. I like a lot of different kinds of poetry across the says that form is a revelation of content. For me, a postmodernist, the two are inextricably spectrum, but for myself, I have to go with Deliberate. tension between form and content what brought me here, me. Anyway, that's what entwined and I don't care. Unlike Levertov, I don't believe there's some sort of Platonic ulti- which creates ironies is not necessarily a trade- . makes poetry original, the filter of the self, and mark of Myers' work, but it is characteristic if it's any good, it'll hit the universal." mate form for each and every poem; I believe any poem can go in a number of valuable and of his most deliberately poetic poems, when Myers confesses to a fearless self-centricity: he seems to be writing for or to other writers. productive directions (What did you do today? The Family What could. you have done?). So a poem is From his first post-Iowa book, Freelance writer Tom McClellan lives in Dallas War (1977) to his most recent, Blindsided (to

20 • DECEMBER 25, 1992 appear in May, 1993), Myers has written poems It took one small breath to lift her corners or about his sons. Possibly his most impassioned, body into death, four to lay her down. shake out their hair in a flourish, or, "Advice to my Sons: Go On," appears in I'm Now I need ten men to reach the dead smartly Amazed that You're Still Singing (1981). The through God. You must be old enough crossing their legs beneath that haunted sustained tone conveys both a refusal to weep to help me make the sun go down to her. look and a refusal to stint on love: Stand here. This is faith in emptiness... of being wanted, point their toe along an exact You've just learned to read ' And "Like Trees in the Desert" finds indi- and someday when you look up thread of sexual tension, saying no without vidual suffering in racial experience, and through ever saying it. from a game where possibilities are racial experience universal experience, in that tagged out one by one until the pain-born wit of the Jew belongs to any Do they think they can fool us dogs... you're the only one left standing, who refuse to hate: We who spend our every waking moment you'll want to find out who you are As if they were planting a garden of flesh pretending not to and then you might read this. notice? Go on. with rules and sticks and hands and boots they used to beat us hard in Hebrew school. We know about this, ladies, and in this I always counted every step it takes dim-lit world to get from here to there. I never lost track. I remember nothing of my childhood except of artifice and ruin, if it came down to it, its streets each of us in his inmost heart knows We all do crazy things like that. It doesn't and the way sharp stones jutted out, which that if given the chance, he would have matter means made a beautiful what the ritual is; it's a way of getting out I must've been looking down a lot. Oh, I woman. of the unknown. I never forced your souls remember paying toward God. Invent your own religion. my dime each week to buy a tree in Israel, Since his graduation from Iowa a decade Go on. leaf by leaf, ago, Jack Myers has worked on discovering the to make the desert bloom. And I assume completeness of his particular human condition. that by now And lastly, love. Now l' 11 say be careful. His most recent book, Blindsided, presents his There's nothing more incomprehensible somewhere in the desert there's a tree current discoveries; and, if the legacy of Richard than a man in love.... representing me. Hugo can be momentarily simplified to the Be full of care, careful, not clever. Love Myers' goal, then, has been to aim through premise that the ordinary really isn't and is all you' 11 know of self-fulfillment. the bull's eye of self to "hit the universal." To deserves a song, and that song delivered in an I'd warn you toward yourselves. find in one's own family that the family of self authentic voice, then these are his best songs so Go on. is the family of man. His first attempts, to find far, his most full-voiced, his wittiest. To close this out, here's an excerpt from what might be And "Visitation Rites," from in the brutalization of labor the truths of Blindsided , called the title poem, "How?": expands a scene between father and fourteen- American laborers, ring true as a consequence year-old into the metaphysics of Fatherhood: of effort: The fat lady behind the counter I sit on a little hill watching my son show Today I lug a piano upstairs for a man who at the gas station off his carries wore a pin that said, light dominion over gravity, knowing in the a tune in his head. He can't speak as plain "I've lost 15 lbs. Ask me how!" next few minutes as the straps That was answered by the vision of I will leave again for another year, and across my back. her daughter, obviously being punished, again our lives bent over a book in the corner, will pull apart and heal over like bubbles The plumber turns like a wrench in his wife. like a Vermeer in reverse. separating in two. The carpenter sees the wall he's banging is This is how he says goodbye — without a mirror. [A]s I pounded the car across the compressor hose, I knew that speech or reasons or But the explorations of erotic love in I'm the long looking after that I have honed Amazed That You're Still Singing in the movie[s] I would've leapt have a depth from the swerving car and crashed through time — and fearlessness that makes them naturally con- headfirst through the complacency just in a flash in the sun he's suddenly vincing. To be a poet is to be a man in love, perfected, and l' m gone. of their plate glass window the reader discovers, and to lead the examined where they pretended to be life in the eye of passion, one must become an About his family and origins, Myers has writ- the perfect picture of the average ten many pQems, some funny and insightful, unblind Eros., merciless as the god himself: alienated American family, others painful and profound. He can remark that I suppose, like me, you'd give anything with Dad out back under a car, his father is so uncomfortable that "Someone to pull out the dark sticks of regret and I'd put a gun to her fat mother's head must've told him who he was / was wrong," on which you've hung your body. and nonchalantly say, "Okay, Baby Shoes, or he may respond to a late night call from a dis- I' d like to hold you for a few minutes unless you want to lose another 15 lbs., tant relative on stopover with eyes lifted "to underwater until your need for breath you better tell me how, and tell it to me heaven at his people from The Old Country. was the woman you loved and you were slowly." who wearily lifted their heads from willing Only in real life I just drove on, shoveling six feet of snow to give her up to learn how. swerving toward the "before picture" of off the potato farm and asked as, more Any woman who has got past the comfort- the daughter, snow fell, "Has the time ing notion that men are "just little boys," and past surprised at how far out of myself I had finally come when things have gone from resentment of Sigmund Freud, and who wonders gone, had to worse?" what it is like deep down in the male psyche, blindsided by the "after picture" of her owes herself a thoughtful reading of Jack Myers' mother, But he explores his ties to family and faith who pinned me under the wreckage of some with delicate toughness in "The Minyan," poetry. He's that accurate. Listen to "The Underwater River" from incomprehensible sadness, memorializing the death of his father's mother: Blindsided: making me check and re-check my change ❑ I love the way [women] vanish around

THE TEXAS OBSERVER • 21

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California, as chairman of the House Republican lisher Ronnie Dugger wrote. ✓ LLOYD BENTSEN'S PENDING departure from the U.S. Senate to straighten out Conference and DeLay over Bill Gradison as sec- the U.S. Treasury has set off a flurry of spec- retary of the conference. The election of Armey ✓ GOOD NEWS from Alpine. The Nimby ulation and calumny unseen in Texas since the and DeLay follows two years of chafing by con- News, Jack McNamara's muckracker, is back in days of LBJ. Virtually every Democratic and servative insurgents at the moderate House GOP print after a brief publishing hiatus. The Nimby, Republican officeholder at or above the rank of leadership. But unlike Armey, who is seen as a published in Alpine, seems to have a knack for precinct chair has been floating the idea of loner on Capitol Hill, DeLay was part of the printing all the news that doesn't fit in the region's running in the special election for Bentsen's GOP leadership structure and is more of a net- mainstream dailies and weeklies. In his lead edi- seat. Henry Cisneros, who was assumed to have worker who could make his move past Armey torial, editor McNamara engages in a bit of self- a virtual lock on the appointment by Gov. Ann when, as expected, Newt Gingrich challenges vindication, reminding critics who in the past Richards, apparently did not relish a statewide Minority Leader Bob Michel. accused Nimby writers of advancing conspiracy campaign, particularly with the prospect of an theories in the paper's ground-breaking coverage of drug dealing in West Texas, that "it was appointment as Clinton's Secretary of Housing ✓ THE LOSS OF A DEPENDABLE and Urban Development. Better to face a Senate Republican Presidential veto will put the heat conspiracy. That is precisely what Robert confirmation panel than 21 Texas media mar- on conservative Democrats who had the luxury Chambers and [Presidio County Sheriff Rick] kets, the former San Antonio mayor, now an of voting with labor and other progressive groups Thompson were charged with." Both men were investor, must have thought. That left at least occasionally for the past 12 years, know- convicted. McNamara is likely to be vindicated Comptroller John Sharp and former Lt. Gov. ing that the bills Congress was passing would even further soon in a PBS "Frontline" feature Bill Hobby in the first tier of potential not become law. Southern Democratic senators on West Texas drug dealing. appointees. Hobby, who was on vacation in particularly will be pressed by business groups Ireland, has shown electability but little inter- as labor unions revive labor law reforms. ✓ BARBARA HINES, an Austin-based est in the post, while Sharp reportedly is hesi- immigration lawyer now working for the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights, an immigrants' tant to risk his current job to accept the Senate ✓ JERRY PATTERSON, the Pasadena appointment and face the special election. Republican who upset longtime incumbent Sen. rights advocacy group, is advising the Clinton Attorney General Dan Morales and conserva- Chet Brooks in District 11, may yet face a seat- Administration transition team on immigration tive Sen. John Montford of Lubbock moved into ing challenge because he held a seat on a Harris affairs. Earlier this month, collaborating with the picture, as did U.S. Rep. Mike Andrews County municipal utility district board of direc- attorneys Robbie Greenblum and Alberto of Houston, U.S. Rep. John Bryant of Dallas tors at the same time he ran for the Senate, in Almendariz, Hines won a ruling in the El Paso and former Attorney General Jim Mattox, for- apparent violation of the state constitution. The court of U.S. District Judge Lucius Bunton, stop- mer state Rep. Frances "Sissy" Farenthold of Galveston Daily News reported Patterson quit ping random Border Patrol searches in the El Houston, the liberal peace and social justice the MUD post September 3, two months before Paso sector. Hines got "the call" G.B. Trudeau activist, and even Robert Strauss, the Democratic the general election, which has prompted a has been writing about in his "Doonesbury" fixer who recently returned as George Bush's review by the Texas Attorney General, but comic strip, the day after Bunton handed down ambassador to the Kremlin. Patterson said he is confident if the attorney gen- his opinion in El Paso. Hines has been involved On the Republican side, Treasurer Kay Bailey eral rules against him and the Senate votes not in sanctuary cases, has challenged in court the Hutchison has indicated she would run; for- to seat him he could regain the seat in another Immigration and Naturalization Service's deten- mer Public Utility Commissioner Marta Greytok special election. Brooks, who will draw $40,000 tion of minors and, with her recent victory in has put out feelers. Other potential candidates a year in legislative retirement benefits, has said El Paso, reaffirmed an earlier Bunton ruling in include congressmen Jack Fields of Humble, he would not run again for the $7,200-a-year which the judge declared that agents must have Joe Barton of Ennis and Dallas Mayor Steve seat. Among Patterson's potential challengers some probable cause before stopping and ques- Bartlett, a former congressman, as well as Tom is Rep. Mike Martin, D-Galveston. tioning people on the streets or in business estab- Luce, a Republican who fell out of grace for his lishments. role in the Ross Perot campaign. George W. THE EL PASO TIMES said there is only ✓ to sing Bush, son of the President, and former Dallas one way to provide for equitable financing of ✓ "IT MAY BE TOO EARLY Cowboys quarterback Roger Staubach removed schools without a constitutional amendment: An `Happy Days Are Here Again,'" said themselves from the field, which may rival the income tax. "A properly designed income tax Downwinder News, a Fort Worth environmen- size of the 70 candidates who filed to succeed could replace property taxes for the operation of tal newsletter, "but for environmentalists, the Lyndon B. Johnson in 1961. John Tower, a lit- schools while giving the elderly who own homes election of Bill Clinton and Al Gore can only tle-known Republican college professor, won a but live on fixed incomes a huge break in their mean better days are ahead for all of us as well runoff election in that race. taxes," the Times editorizalized. as this battered old planet." The newsletter, edited The appointment and special election is impor- by Betty Brink and Lon Burnham, noted that Clinton reportedly will promote natural gas over tant for Richards not only because the senator ✓ OUTIDE OF WHAT? "Let me tell you, would be responsible for clearing major federal I have felt like an outsider for 12 years," Senator coal and oil; will shift federal research priori- appointments in the state, but because the Lloyd Bentsen said December 10, when he was ties to conservation and renewable energy over appointee would have to run for election in introduced in Little Rock as Bill Clinton's choice nuclear energy and coal; will make available to May. The winner also would lead the 1994 bal- for Secretary of Treasury. Eleven years ear- private industry new technologies developed lot, when Richards will be up for re-election. lier, however, Bentsen didn't seem like such an by the Department of Energy to clean up the outsider when he joined Republicans and Boll damage done by nuclear weapons plants; and will Wevil Democrats voting for draconian budget expand the United States' role in the global mar- ✓ CONGRESSIONAL REPUBLICANS showed they are ready to step up the fight against cuts requested by Ronald Reagan. Bentsen was ket for environmental and pollution control the Democratic majority with their selection of of little help when Democrats tried to restore research, manufacturing and services. "The bright- Dick Armey of Lewisville for the third-ranking some of the funds cut from social services pro- est spot on this horizon is the fact that both men post and Tom Delay of Sugar Land for the fifth- grams (See TO 5/29/81). "Of the 34 amend- seem to be accessible an open to new ideas. ranking post. The Republican Caucus picked ments proposed, Bentsen voted with Republicans Remembering the 'environmental president' Armey over Jerry Lewis, a moderate from 25 times and with. Democrats nine times," pub- just defeated, the future looks bright indeed."❑

22 • DECEMBER 25, 1992

1.0.0.4..nitsvop .••• • ••-•••••∎vc. AFTERWORD The Real J.R.

BY MOLLY IVINS

Austin His contempt for small-minded people who , had known well, and after giving a balanced and R. PARTEN HAS DIED, leaving Texas were afraid of any change or any new ideas indeed rather charming account of that highly shy of both the vision and the integrity that . was always gently expressed but profound. eccentric man, J.R. shook his head and said, j • have enriched our state for many years. During the McCarthy Era, Parten was so trou- "But I never could forgive him for the way he Parten was a very old man when he died, bled that the guarantees of his beloved treated his oldest son — I never could." 96, I believe; still active and clear almost to Constitution were giving way before the waves I knew Parten only as this admirable part of the very end. Parten was one of the great inde- of fear and hysteria that he was an important Texas history; I think he was a great man, but pendent oilmen of Texas, and in that field alone, force behind the Fund for the Republic, which I doubt he was an easy one to be close to. He his knowledge and wisdom were formidable. helped provide the money for scholarship and had such extraordinarily high standards of con- But he was also a great citizen. In fact, when he to publish the work of those who felt the duct himself — such integrity, he was a man was a student at the University of Texas, he Constitution was more important than the of such astonishing rectitude — that it was not majored in both law and government because Communist Menace. easy for lesser mortals to be around him. I always he felt that no matter what one did in life, one Parten had three big ranches near Madisonville thought part of Parten's life was rather sad — always had another responsibility as a citizen, where he bred cattle, and those places were one said that such a gifted man of such exceptional and Parten wanted to be prepared for his. of his great loves. He used to say, "The finest character, who was devoted to his country, was President Truman also named Major Parten, fertilizer any soil can have is the footsteps of never given more scope to serve it. But to the who had served in World War I, as chief of its owner on the land." His other great interests best of my knowledge, Parten himself had no staff of the U.S. delegation to the War were in education, particularly efforts to broaden regrets. He never repined. I suppose he thought Reparations Commission that went to Europe the University of Texas, and civil liberties and it was akin to self-pity, and of course that would right after VE Day to inspect the damage and constitutional freedom, in which pursuit he con- never have been acceptable. make recommendations on what the United sorted with the late John Henry Faulk, the Texas It seems to me most of us go through life States could do to help repair what was always folklorist and humorist. Hearing the two of them more or less knowing what is right, but not referred to as "war-torn Europe." talk about history and politics and the university often or even usually able to measure up to our I always liked a story Parten would some- and the Constitution and the oil bidness was an own standards, to always be what we would like times tell about a big-deal industrialist who was education, perhaps the best I ever received. to be. I never knew anyone quite as good as J.R. on that commission and who was incredibly In politics, Parten was a bridge between Parten at simply Doing the Right Thing with- rude and condescending to our then-allies, the Democrats such as House Speaker Sam Rayburn out ever counting the cost, simply because it Soviets. "I had to send him home," said Parten and the liberal-loyalist wing of the party. He never occurred to him to do anything else. simply. "His manners were so bad." Parten, tall, helped push Ralph Yarborough into the race for Rest in peace, Major Parten. ❑ blue-eyed, erect, the soul of integrity, was also Governor against Allan Shivers in 1952 and a gentleman. Of course he was a capitalist and again in 1954; Parten was a staunch supporter an oilman, but his admiration for the fight the of Yarborough in his later successful Senate 310."""Ntil Sea Soviets put up against the Nazis never dimmed. campaigns. His bankrolling of George 4,1# Parten served on the University of Texas McGovern's Texas campaign in 1972 landed •• Horse System Board of Regents from 1935 to 1941 and Parten a place on then-President Richard Nixon's was chairman for two years. His accomplish- Enemies List, a distinction Parten chetished; he • Inn ments included the hiring of Homer Rainey to also was a strong supporter of Frances "Sissy" I

head the Austin campus and Dana X. Bible to be Farenthold's campaigns for Governor. et Kitchenet les-Cable TV its football coach. The pinheads and know-noth- He believed that a democracy needs alter- e. ii , Pool o4 ings in the Legislature later fired Dr. Rainey and native voices. With Frankie Randolph and oth- e beside the G uirorcxicom . 4,,,. Parten was in the thick of the battle to save him. ers he helped found the Texas Observer in 1954; on Mustang Island Sr I don't know that Parten was ever liberal in his he staked the fledgling newspaper when there A , Available for private parties k ry views, but he was an immensely civilized man, was no other voice to balance the stridently con- • 11% with a deep reverance for the Constitution. He dii I rnique European Charm 0• servative daily newspapers in the state. He was 0 read widely and had great faith in this country. called upon to bail out the publication on sev- ) & Atmosphere 0, Of course, he had himself gone from picking cot- eral occasions. He also put up money for the Special Low Spring & Summer Rates % ton in East Texas as a boy to the university and Pacifica radio station in Houston and, after its Pets Welcome Gt. on to become one of the wealthiest men in the transmitter was bombed out of commission by country. So he always worked to make sure oth- the Ku Klux Klan in 1971, helped put the sta- 1423 11th Street ers had the same kind of opportunities. tion back on the air. i Parten was such a striking Texas figure, so at .4010' Port Aransas, TX 78373 IS variance with the stereotypical Big Rich Texas call (512) 749-5221 Molly Ivins, a former editor of the Observer, Oilman, that the New York Times once wrote is a columnist for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. him up as "The Real J.R." There wasn't an for Reservations ,,„1 Her best-selling book, Molly Ivins Can't Say jra.,,,,,* ounce of snob in him, but he simply could not ....."...0, ,,,*, ..4._ „ira That, Can She? was recently released as a bear the meretricious or cruelty in any form. I mw,, sv mi...... — • Vintage paperback. once asked him about H.L. Hunt, whom he

THE TEXAS OBSERVER • 23

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