The MacNeil/Lehrer Report; Carter and the National Urban League

ROBERT MacNEIL: Good evening. In one sense the honeymoon period for the Carter administration really ended this weekend. Mr. Carter has been attacked here and there in his first six months in office by various parts of his constituency, notably labor. But none of the people who voted for him last fall have come back with such a blistering indictment as that leveled yesterday by the National Urban League. Giving the keynote address at the League`s annual conference in Washington, the Executive Director, Vernon Jordan, charged that black Americans felt "betrayed" by the administration they had elected. This morning President Carter addressed the same conference with a very defensive speech.

Tonight, Carter and the blacks: has the honeymoon gone sour? First, the flavor of Vernon Jordan`s challenge to the Carter administration. Jim Lehrer is on-vacation. Sitting in for him in Washing ton is Jane Bryant Quinn, a columnist syndicated nationally by the Washington Post. Jane?

JANE BRYANT QUINN: Thank you, Robin. Jordan told the crowd that black people were "disenchanted" with the administration they had elected and felt that their "hopes and needs had been betrayed.` He said the list of what the Carter administration had not done far exceeded its accomplishments. It had not lived up to what Jordan called "the first commandment of politics" --to help those who helped you. He noted the administration`s new foreign, defense and energy policies but chided the Carter crowd for not adequately addressing itself to a new domestic policy. A policy, Jordan said, should encompass national solutions to poverty and discrimination, full employment, welfare reform, urban revitalization and aggressive affirmative action. In short, Jordan said, "A black people having tasted the sweetness of victory in November resents the sour taste of disappointment in July."

MacNEIL: The President came today well prepared. Parts of what Jordan was going to say had appeared in the press as early as Friday, and thus gave the White House speechwriters time to put together a rebuttal. Mr. Carter told the conference that his wife Rosalynn was concerned about the tone of Jordan`s criticisms, but he felt no need to apologize.

(Earlier today.)

PRESIDENT CARTER: We haven`t done everything we would like to do nor have we done everything that we`re going to do. I`ve been in office now...(applause)... six months, have no apologies to make. And I was trying to think of a story to illustrate that sometimes an immediate transformation can`t be accomplished when problems have been there for years or terms of Presidents or even generations. Griffin Bell, who will speak to you later, has a favorite story about a man who was arrested for getting drunk and setting a bed on fire. When he got before the judge he said, "Judge, I plead guilty to being drunk. But the bed was on fire when I got in it." (Laughter from audience, applause.)

MacNEIL: The burden of Mr. Carter`s reply to Jordan was a shopping list of what his administration had done or was intending to do to improve life for poor Americans, black and white, including increased aid to education and a special immunization program for poor children. He began by concentrating on two areas of Jordan`s strongest complaints: welfare reform and jobs.

CARTER: Among my first proposals as President was one to stimulate the overall economy, and especially to provide jobs for teenagers in the inner cities. We`ve now established a program to provide 1.1 million jobs -- summer jobs -for youth, more than ever in history. We propose in addition a youth employment program with 1.5 billion jobs for unemployed youth. We`ve doubled the size of the Peace Corps, the Job Corps, and we`ve more than doubled the public service jobs for the unemployed, from 310,000 to 725,000, nearly half of these for the long-term unemployed.

Soon, before August the fifth, we`ll be sending to the Congress our proposal for basic welfare reform. Jobs will be the thrust behind this reform program for those who are able to work, and self-respect and adequate living conditions for those who are not able to work. Our goal is for all those who want to work to be able to find work, so that they can be independent, and so the can be proud and they can be self sufficient. (Applause)

And I`d like to point out that an emphasis on jobs and work for those who are able is not discriminatory, is not moving backwards and is not a deprivation of basic rights. What we want is for people who are able not to be permanently dependent on government but able to stand on their own feet, support their own family and have a constructive attitude toward our society. (Applause.)

In this welfare proposal there will be an additional one million job opportunities. Our goal is to make sure that every single family has a member of it with a guaranteed job.

QUINN: President Carter came to the meeting this morning to mend his fences, and was received politely. But Vernon Jordan, addressing the crowd last night, was a man on his own turf. The audience frequent ly broke his litany of complaints against the Carter administration with loud applause, while those sections of his speech where he praised the President`s achievements met with noticeable restraint. The crowd was there to share a grievance, and share it they did.

But Mr. Jordan didn`t go away mad, despite the harshness of some of his words. He portrayed himself as the conscience of the administration, come, he said, to recall the government to its true spirit of social reform. He stood before the crowd of more than 8,000 representatives of Urban Leagues around the country as a man who held some high cards and was ready to play them in Washington`s permanent floating game of political poker. The cheering audience was in a mood to back a hard-line stand.

We have Mr. Jordan with us here in Washington. He sat on the platform right next to President Carter this morning while the President sought to pour oil on troubled waters. Mr. Jordan, after the reassurances that Mr. Carter gave the Urban League this morning, do you still think his administration has, as you put it, betrayed the interests of the blacks and the minorities?

VERNON JORDAN:. What I said last night has not changed. I stand by that today.

QUINN: You said that his failures far outweighed his successes, and he came before you this morning and he listed his successes. It was a pretty long list. Do you think it was insufficient?

JORDAN: It was a good list; we are encouraged by it, we are hopeful for it, and we think that we have performed a service to the President, a service to the country and a service to black people.

Our government is built on a process where you come to the seat of the government, you air your grievances, you understand that the government by its very nature is a responding agency rather than an initiating agency. We came to Washington, we staked our claim, and the President has responded and we accept his words of partnership, his offer of cooperation, and we are encouraged by what we saw this morning.

QUINN: Are you saying that the harsh words you used last night, then, were more in the nature of staking your claim than serious, deep-lying criticisms?

JORDAN: The words that we stated last night we stand by; they were what the President would understand as sort of an idiom in the South -- "But the Lord loves the truth."

QUINN: You were very harsh in some of the words you used last night, saying that people were disenchanted with him and felt betrayed by him. Do you really think that it`s gone that far? Has Carter gone that far from his black constituency?

JORDAN: I believe that what I said is an accurate articulation of what black people feel, and I think you have to understand the basis of that feeling. The march on Selma, the march from Selma to Montgomery sort of ended November 2, 1976, where for the first time black voting power was a decisive, crucial factor in the election of a President. Having been able to bring that about, having been able to play a new kind of historic political role, given our historic neglect and absence from the political process, then we expect the political process to operate as it has for others in this system.

QUINN: We`re only six months into this administration so far. What would you expect him to have done in six months other than what he`s done already?

JORDAN: We expected what we said we expected last night: for the President to have had by now a clear national urban policy. I think what we`ve seen now is the beginnings of that. I also think now he understands that we expect that.

QUINN: One final question: you proposed last night a program of job creation and welfare reform that goes far beyond what the President has proposed so far. Is all of this flap you`ve created really just an opening gun in the negotiation to get this included in the President`s program?

JORDAN: What we understand about the political process in this country is that in order to be sure that you will get what you think you need, you have to keep the pressure up, you have to keep the issue in the public, you have to be sure that that person, that individual, that elected official, whether he`s friendly or whether he`s hostile, continually understands what the needs and aspirations are of your constituency.

QUINN: Thank you very much, Mr. Jordan. Robin?

MacNEIL: During the Presidential campaign, when Mr. Carter was making some of the promises to blacks that Vernon Jordan referred to, his chief issues advisor was Stuart Eizenstat. Mr. Eizenstat is now Assistant to the President for Domestic Affairs and Policy. Mr. Eizenstat, clearly Mr. Carter values his relations with the black community. Was he personally hurt by these criticisms? Did he feel betrayed?

STUART EIZENSTAT: Well, the President has been very close to Vernon for a number of years, as have I. We`re very friendly with him and we`ll continue to be partners with him. We feel that our record is one we can be proud of, it`s one that we will build on -we`re not going to rest on it. But we feel that given the fact we`ve been in office only 180 days we`ve made a remarkable effort at tackling in a very direct and positive way the problems which afflict black Americans, disadvantaged Americans and indeed. all Americans across the board.

MacNEIL: Well, that`s a very diplomatic answer. Can I just repeat the question: did Mr. Carter feel a little bit hurt by this? Was this a bit of a dirty shot so early in his administration?

EIZENSTAT: He feels, I think, that his record was one that did not justify the criticism that was leveled at it.

MacNEIL: Presumably you were one of the White House staff who over the weekend helped put together his speech that he delivered today. Did you have to scrape the barrel a bit to find things to put into it to make the record look good?

EIZENSTAT: No, we didn`t. These are things that we`ve done that we`ve talked about in other speeches. If you`ll look at the United Auto Workers speech which the President gave in California you`ll see many of the same things listed. We are fortunate that we`ve been able to add to the list since then, which was a month ago, because we`ve done a number of additional things, but the economic stimulus package, major refinancing in very progressive way of the social security system, the jobs programs that we`ve been able to put forward and all the other things that the President mentioned are hardly things that came from the bottom of the barrel; indeed, they`re the centerpiece of our domestic policy.

MacNEIL: Isn`t it largely a matter of economics? If Mr. Carter were to do everything that Mr. Jordan wants him to do right away, it would mean scrapping this delicately balanced economic package leading to balancing the budget by 1981, and everything that flows from that. I would just cost so much that it wouldn`t be able to carry through what is the sort of main economic scenario.

EIZENSTAT: There are limits, obviously, to what government can do and the time limits within which government can do them. When we came into office we had only a month to prepare revisions to President Ford`s fiscal year 1978 budget, so that there were both time constraints and financial constraints, but within those constraints we feel that we`ve been consistent with the sorts of things that Vernon would have us do, because our concept is that the way to balance the budget, the way to do it is not by cutting back but it`s to put people to work --take them off of welfare, take them off of food stamps, take them off of unemployment compensation and therefore reduce your expenditures, and on the other hand make them employable, make them taxpayers like the rest of us. This is the best way, consonant with the best traditions of the Democratic Party, to balance the budget.

MacNEIL: Mr. Jordan in his speech also referred to the recent looting in New York City, and he said that if Mr. Carter could go to Clinton, Massachusetts and to Yazoo City, Mississippi it would also be appropriate for him to go to New York and talk to the looters and the looted. I just wonder how explosive the White House feels -- in view of that connection -- the situation is in the urban ghettos for the rest of this summer, in the next few months.

EIZENSTAT: We think that the situation in all of the urban areas is one that really requires direct attention, and I think we`ve really given it. For example, we signed into law only very recently a bill which will give 1.1 million young people jobs this summer; that`s twice as many as ever have had summer jobs paid for by the government. We`ve targeted special community development aid to the cities and we have provided a whole range of programs which will get at these very fundamental problems. So we`re very aware of the situation, we think it`s a situation that cannot be ignored, and it is a situation that in this administration will never be ignored.

MacNEIL: Thank you, sir. Let`s look at this from another angle. In his speech Vernon Jordan spoke of an institutional retreat from civil rights that is infecting the nation and said recent decisions by the Burger Supreme Court symbolized that retreat. He also had a passing shot at the Congress, saying it seems more anxious to ban busing, to limit affirmative action programs and bar Medicaid funds for abortions than it is to improve the schools, enforce civil rights or enable meaningful life after birth.

John Conyers, Democratic Congressman from Michigan, is a member of the Black Caucus. Congressman, do you think Mr. Carter answered Mr. Jordan`s criticisms effectively?

Rep. JOHN CONYERS: Well, as I analyze his remarks, he used as a defense first of all that he`s done more than anybody else -- certainly his two most recent predecessors -- and secondly he hasn`t had enough time. On both those counts I find that an unsatisfactory response in a large way because the support that we brought to the President wasn`t based on whether he would be any better than Ford or Nixon -- there wasn`t any doubt about that--but would he deal with the structural, long-term problems that inform and describe a black people and the urban crisis? And in terms of these kinds of programs, which are the same kind of patchwork legislative process that we`ve been in for eight years earlier, the answer is that it`s better but it`s not sufficient. Now, with regard to the fact that he`s only been in office six months, that`s a pretty persuasive argument on the surface. The. problem, though, I find in it is that when you examine the programs as-they are being developed, you`re not going to be able to turn this huge ship of state around midstream somewhere along the second or third year. The fact of the matter is that when you put balancing the budget at the top of your priorities, substituting in effect many of the election commitments, and then discover an energy crisis that also preempts the field, you have in effect given an excellent rationale for pushing to the background many of the major problems that I don`t see will be addressed during this administration; and therein lies the problem.

MacNEIL: Can I ask you this, to get to the heart of what the black attitude to Mr. Carter may be --clearly it was very supportive of him during the campaign: Mr. Jordan spoke of an institutional re treat from civil rights infecting the nation. Has such a retreat infected Mr. Carter himself, do black people believe?

CONYERS: I can`t say that. It`s not really clear how the President is going to respond to what is, I think, developing in the long range. First of all, there is going to obviously be a black leader ship meeting. Vernon Jordan has called for it, the Congressional Black Caucus is moving toward it in August and September, so that`s for sure. Then we`re going to meet with the President. The Caucus has been unsuccessfully trying to meet with the President on the question of jobs for months. Coretta King has the Full Employment coalition; so clearly this is a critical point, and I see the development of a long-range program absolutely necessary for us to come out of this malaise. To just increase CETA programs, public service jobs and a few summer youth jobs isn`t adequate to the dimensions of the problem.

MacNEIL: Mr. Jordan, whom I keep quoting, but the speech was full of very pithy lines: "We are learning," he said, "the callousness of political reality." Isn`t the callous political reality in this case -- and I might put it to you and then to Mr. Jordan -- isn`t the callous political reality that blacks have nowhere else to go for the next few years but Mr. Carter?

CONYERS: That`s been the traditional dilemma of black people in the two- party system in America from the beginning. But there is a problem developing. The despair and despondency that people thought would result in a low voter turnout in the black community did not materialize last year. We are operating off of new anticipation and expectation, and so there is a very clear danger that by 1980 we might be in a very difficult situation in terms of bringing back out the vote if we haven`t really dealt effectively with the problems that we`ve been discussing.

MacNEIL: Mr. Jordan?

JORDAN: Well, first of all, I think that it is very clear that black people in 1980 will not be, and don`t have to be, in one basket. Black people, in my view, have never been wedded to any one party or to any one candidate. They`ve always voted their needs and their aspirations. It is clear that where race is an issue the black vote polarizes; where race is not an issue the black vote proliferates. And I believe that come 1980 if that is a problem and if the Republican Party is sensitive to the kind of crucial role that the black vote can play, if it could get ten to fifteen to twenty percent; that could very well make a difference. Had Mr. Ford had the political wisdom, say, to go to Cleveland or to Cincinnati or to Columbus he may have been able to make sufficient inroads in that vote so that the difference that the black vote made in Ohio. would not have been as significant as it was. It is clear to me that black people will, come 1980, make an assessment of the extent to which this administration, the extent to which the Republicans, will be and can be responsive-to their needs and aspirations.

MacNEIL: Mr. Eizenstat, picking up something Mr. Conyers said, why, if your administration is so keen to help the blacks, has the Black Caucus been unsuccessful in its attempt to talk about jobs with Mr.. Carter for several-months?

EIZENSTAT: Congressman Hawkins, who -is, as you know, the sponsor of the Humphrey-Hawkins legislation which is the main jobs program other than our own on the Hill, has had numerous conversations with us and we have indicated to the Black Caucus that we want to develop our position on that legislation, which we`re now in the process of doing, so-that we`ll have a fulsome discussion with them. -I think it`s important, however -- if we can get beyond the rhetoric that we have been listening to and get to some of the facts -- if I can just state a few: let`s take the public service jobs. We inherited a situation in which there are only 310,000 public service job slots. We proposed and Congress passed legislation which will increase that to 600,000 within six months and then 725,000 by the end of September 1978. Now, that is more than doubling the program. In eighteen months we`re adding 15,000 public service jobs each week. This is twice the number that has ever been done before. And I don`t think either Congressman Conyers or Vernon wish to have a program that falls of its own weight. We`re moving as rapidly and as prudently as we possibly can, and by moving this quickly in the public service jobs area we`re doing so using the full resources of the Labor Department to accommodate this tremendous increase in the number of jobs. And it would, in our mind, be counterproductive to try to double that number when we`ve already doubled the number we had and risk a tremendous failure and a tremendous resentment in the American public that these jobs weren`t working.So we`re trying to come in with programs rapidly, we`re trying to make sure that those programs work and that they help the people that they`re intended to help.

MacNEIL: Mr. Jordan, that is an impressive series of figures. What do you think?

JORDAN: It is impressive. I`m not sure that they will be impressive in Bedford-Stuyvesant, in Harlem and in the Bronx today.

CONYERS: But may I respond that the Hawkins-Humphrey bill, H.R. 50, a bill that candidate Carter supported and President Carter has been silent on, is precisely the piece of long-range planning legislation that the Caucus and a hundred members of Congress have been supporting for going on to thirty years. Now, I think it`s very important to notice, since we`re going to cite some facts, what the impact of the jobs that have been created under the public service programs, principally CETA, have resulted in in terms of black employment. The 200,000 public service jobs that will be created this year will employ approximately 80,000 blacks. The 400,000 or more jobs that will be created in 1978, according to our best figures, will employ 160,000 blacks. That means that two-tenths of one percent of the unemployed blacks will be employed in `77 and one-half of one percent in 1978. And therein lies the problem.

QUINN: Mr. Conyers, may I pick you up on that a minute? Let`s consider for a minute the situation in Congress. Even if Carter were to back 100 percent this program that you`re talking about, do you think it could pass? Can something like this pass right now? Is it realistic for President Carter to go out on a limb for this?

CONYERS: Well, wait a minute now. In the political process we have some things the President recommends that can pass, and other things that the President recommends cannot pass. Whether this can pass or not is what we`re all here in Washington gathered to determine. The point is, do we need long-range planning? And I think what Stu Eizenstat suggests is that the answer is yes. If it isn`t Hawkins-Humphrey, then it for God`s sake ought to be something else so we can begin to move the long-range planning into focus and deal with the problem rather than these one-half percentage points, which is just not going to adjust the problem in Detroit and in Harlem.

QUINN: Mr. Jordan, let me ask you a question just a minute. Earlier in this program you said that you accepted Carter`s explanations when he came before the Urban League this morning. Does that mean you withdraw some of the harsh words that I heard you say about him last night?

JORDAN: I`ll repeat to you what I said to you earlier in this program: I stand today on everything that I said last night. It was truth yesterday and it`s truth today.

QUINN: So you were harsh last night but you accept his explanations this morning.

JORDAN: No, I said that his explanations were encouraging, they present a hopeful sign; but what I said last night still stands.

QUINN:Will this double-barreled attack make any difference, Mr. Eizenstat, to the President`s programs and the way he plans to attack the problems of joblessness?

EIZENSTAT: We think we`ve attacked the problems in a systematic way and we`ll continue to do so. It`s not good to make public policy based on the headlines of the moment.

QUINN: Thank you very much, Mr. Eizenstat. Robin?

MacNEIL: Thanks, Jane. That`s all for tonight. Jane and I will be back tomorrow night, and other news permitting, our story will be women in the military: their achievement and frustrations. I`m Robert MacNeil. Good night.