White House's missing voices
By Mimi Hall
Washington -- President Clinton came to office offering more public commitments to racial diversity than any previous president.
And by many measures, he has fulfilled his promises.
His 14-member Cabinet has four women, three African-Americans and one Hispanic.
His large executive branch staff comes close to mirroring the population: More than half the workers are women and 20% are minorities.
And Clinton has nominated the most diverse group of federal judicial candidates in history.
When it comes to appointing racial minorities, "this guy has a record that exceeds any other president," says 15-term Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., a member of the Congressional Black Caucus.
But as Clinton approaches the final year of his presidency, a closer look at his record reveals a White House operation that lacks racial diversity where some say it matters most: in several key decision-making positions.
The dearth of blacks, Hispanics and other minorities in the White House's top posts is stunning even to Clinton's closest advisers.
When asked about it, many openly wonder how a president so publicly committed to racial inclusion could squander an opportunity to give minorities a more direct hand in helping him shape national policy on everything from foreign affairs to health care to economic policy.
There's a sense among critics and some supporters of the president that some critical decisions might have been made differently if there had been more diversity in the Oval Office when key advisers had gathered with the president.
In a broader context, others see a telling lesson in how far the nation still has to go in tearing down the barriers to racial diversity.
Clinton's predecessors also surrounded themselves with top-level teams of mostly white men.
The only minority to break into those ranks was Colin Powell, who was national security adviser to President Reagan.
But expectations were higher for Clinton, who from the start of his presidency preached the benefits of racial diversity.
Although the White House has scores of staffers with lofty titles, the power to influence the president -- any president -- mostly resides within a small group of top aides.
During Clinton's seven years in office, 26 people have held the seven key jobs that academics and former White House aides say have the most access to and influence on the president.
Those jobs are: chief of staff; national security adviser; domestic policy adviser; economic policy adviser; White House counsel (the top lawyer for the president); press secretary; and counselor or senior adviser, interchangeable titles for the same job of all-around adviser on policy and politics.
George Stephanopoulos and journalist/commentator David Gergen have held that job.
All 26 people appointed to those seven jobs have been white. Five have been women.
The numbers reveal what Clinton's closest aides know: In the parlance of those who work for him, his closest aides are a bunch of "white boys."
"This is an unattractive picture," says Christopher Edley, a black Harvard law professor and the president's main adviser on race.
"As a committed policy wonk, I am saddened to see that when a tight circle is drawn around the president to make the most important policy choices for the nation, minorities are generally on the outside, or, perhaps, the back bench."
Asked Wednesday at his news conference about his appointments, Clinton struggled to answer: "All I can tell you is that I have never not tried to recruit minorities for any job that was open in the White House."
White House Press Secretary Joe Lockhart says that when it comes to minorities, "this president has opened a lot of doors for a lot of people."
But when crucial decisions have to be made, Lockhart acknowledges that "women and minorities still have to fight for a seat at the table."
Dee Dee Myers, Clinton's first press secretary, found that to be the case: "The rule is still that when the big decisions get made, it's not as diverse a group as the overall administration And I'm putting it nicely."
Outside observers also suggest that although Clinton has appointed minorities -- and some women -- to significant administration positions, some amount to window dressing.
"He said he wanted a government that looks like America, and I think he went a long way toward producing that," says Brookings Institution scholar Christopher Foreman, a political scientist who has studied affirmative action and other racial issues.
"But the diversity has been at the Cabinet level, and no president relies on his Cabinet when it comes to making the difficult decisions."
In fact, Clinton rarely meets with the full Cabinet.
Embracing the issue
A son of the segregated South who took a stand in favor of civil rights as a 16-year-old member of Boys Nation, Clinton is widely regarded as one of his generation's most passionate and eloquent leaders on the issue of racial reconciliation.
He takes considerable time out of his schedule to attend events hosted by minority groups, and he speaks out frequently about the importance of embracing the differences between races.
Clinton also is known for his close relationships with a number of black friends and advisers.
Among them: Vernon Jordan, a prominent Washington, D.C., lawyer and frequent golfing partner; the late Commerce Secretary Ronald Brown; and former deputy White House counsel Cheryl Mills, who helped him through the Monica Lewinsky crisis.
And the overall numbers show that Clinton has appointed a fairly diverse staff. Of his 670 political appointees to the Executive Office of the President, more than half have been women, 11.6% are black, 3.8% are Hispanic and 4% Asian.
"We have the most diverse White House in history," White House Chief of Staff John Podesta says.
"To say this place is a white male bastion is just wrong."
But when faced with a crisis or tough decision, Clinton relies on a much less racially diverse group.
Aides say his first call tends to be to his wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton.
He also consults closely on many issues with Vice President Gore.
After that, he turns to those who hold some of the top positions: Podesta, national security adviser Samuel Berger and senior adviser Doug Sosnik.
All three are white.
Not everyone appointed to one of the top seven positions has been very close to Clinton.
And there are people beyond that circle whom he consistently turns to for advice on critical issues.
They too tend to be white.
The best example is Deputy Counsel Bruce Lindsey. A long-time friend from Arkansas, he is one of the president's most trusted aides.
There is another tier of aides who, depending on the issue, is brought into the circle but has less influence.
This is a slightly more racially diverse group that includes Jack Lew, Office of Management and Budget director; Deputy Chief of Staff Maria Echaveste; Deputy Chief of Staff Steve Ricchetti; and Political Affairs Director Minyon Moore. Moore is black, and Echaveste is Hispanic.
Clinton's record in Arkansas, where he served for 12 years as governor, was similar.
Blacks did hold some important state jobs during his tenure, including state highway commissioner, department of finance and administration chief and head of the state development finance authority.
But "Bill Clinton found himself more surrounded by older white males than anything else," says Max Brantley, a long-time Arkansas journalist who has covered Clinton's political career from its beginning.
For a man who seems to care so deeply about racial reconciliation, "there's a little bit of a paradox there," Myers says.
In his 1996 book, Not All Black and White: Affirmative Action and American Values, Edley notes that when it comes to political strategy, Clinton is more likely to consult blacks, Hispanics and other minorities because "after all, a Democratic administration needs to attend to the politics of minority communities with some care."
But when it's time to make important policy decisions, Edley writes, "a different, mysterious calculus comes into play."
Missing voices
Edley acknowledges that it is difficult to know how Clinton's policies on issues such as economic growth and military readiness might have changed if there had been more racial minorities at the table.
But he and other observers identify several issues and events in which they say minorities might have tried to change Clinton's direction:
*The United States' slow response to the civil war and genocide in Rwanda in 1994. At least 1 million people were killed. "We did not act quickly enough," Clinton told the people of Rwanda during a visit in 1998. While the slaughter proceeded, "all over the world, there were people like me sitting in offices, day after day after day, who did not fully appreciate the depth and the speed with which you were being engulfed by the unimaginable terror."
*Clinton's tepid opposition to California's Prop. 209, an anti-affirmative action ballot measure approved by voters in November 1996. Aides say that at that time the president didn't want to try to exert too much influence over a state ballot measure. Critics say the president was being warned by his political advisers not to take a strong stand on a controversial issue in the middle of his re-election campaign.
*The administration's decision in 1994 not to fight for the Racial Justice Act. The crime bill provision, which was opposed by Republican congressional leaders, would have allowed death row inmates to challenge their sentences if they could produce statistical evidence proving the sentence was the product of bias.
Critics say the reasons to include more minorities in the decision-making process go beyond getting their advice on racial politics and policies.
In selecting members of his inner circle, the president also can pave the way for the next generation of leaders.
Those who hold the top jobs in any president's administration often move into top public and private-sector jobs afterward.
Says Brantley : "I know Bill Clinton sees people through color-blind and gender-blind glasses.
He's as comfortable with black people as any man who is not black." So why he hasn't appointed a more racially diverse group of key aides "is a mystery to me," Brantley says.
When asked to explain the lack of racial diversity among Clinton's closest aides, those aides and the outside observers who have criticized his failure to employ more high-level minorities fall back on the same excuses that have been used for decades.
Among them:
*Everyone has a tendency to turn to the familiar. In difficult situations, Edley says, there's a natural inclination for people to turn to others from similar backgrounds.
"You tend to prefer people who are just like you," he says. "Each of us has that tendency. You have to work at overcoming it."
*Patterns are hard to break. "I think there's a (white male) culture in Washington and around the White House that's been there for 200 years," Myers says.
"It's just a way that men who've been in business together behave.
There's an informal network that exists, and I'm sure it exists along the upper echelon of all business."
*There's a smaller pool of qualified women and minorities from which to choose top-level aides. "One problem may be that it's a lot easier to find representatives of racial constituencies than it is to find real policy experts from racial minorities," says Foreman, editor of the new book The African-American Predicament. "If you want to know how the politics of decision are going to play out, it's pretty easy to know who to call. But if you want sustained policy analysis, it's less obvious who you would get in, and in that situation, the imperatives are different."
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Carl
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