James Roosevelt on Rocky Crusade for Social Security

James Roosevelt got an exciting introduction to the world of politics when he served as an aide to his father in the White House during the 1930s. Today, at 77, the oldest son of Franklin Delano Roosevelt is getting different, sometimes painful lessons as he leads a crusade to defend the Social Security program his father signed into law 50 years ago.

Roosevelt’s organization has been lambasted on the floor of Congress for exploiting the fears of the elderly and exaggerating the dangers facing the retirement program. It has modified its initial direct-mail appeals in the wake of criticism from the Justice Department, Social Security Administration and Postal Service.

And despite the aura of his name, leaders of the aging community have been markedly aloof from Roosevelt’s mission. The former Los Angeles congressman wasn’t even included in a celebration of Social Security held in August at Hyde Park, the Hudson River estate where he spent summers as a child. The event was sponsored by leading Social Security advocates in cooperation with Roosevelt’s younger brother, Franklin Jr.

At the same time, he has succeeded in marshaling more than a million people to join his National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare. And his group’s tactics, however criticized, may be revolutionizing the way the elderly play politics. In July, he dramatically demonstrated the committee’s strength when he delivered 2 million letters to the Capitol in defense of Social Security’s cost-of-living adjustment. The mail weighed six tons.

Roosevelt, a courtly man with a jaunty grin reminiscent of his father’s, spoke proudly of the committee’s work and dismissed the criticism during an interview in his Orange County office: “I think if you do anything worthwhile you’re bound to be somewhat controversial. I’ve never tried to be not controversial, just to do the things that seemed the right things to do at the time.”

The Social Security crusade is just the latest venture in Roosevelt’s long and colorful career which has included assisting his father in the White House, winning military honors in World War II, a tenure as Los Angeles congressman, a business fiasco in Switzerland and numerous other enterprises. As is often the case with children of the famous, his family name has been both a blessing and a burden.

“It was my greatest asset, no doubt of that,” Roosevelt wrote in a 1976 book about his parents. “But if it was a plus, it was also a minus. I was not my father. . . . I had to be myself.”

In late 1982, the famous son embarked on a venture where his name would be a decided asset. Social Security, which he considers the centerpiece of his father’s New Deal, was in financial crisis, and he decided to launch a campaign to protect it. The battlefield was hardly vacant, with plenty of politicians and interest groups championing the program on Capitol Hill.

But the soft-spoken Roosevelt who stands at an imposing six-foot-four had something different in mind. His notion: to build a grass-roots movement through mass mailings to the public. Professional lobbyists would play a relatively minor role in the political operation, in contrast, for example, to the American Assn. of Retired Persons. Instead, followers would be called on to write their elected representatives when Roosevelt and his lieutenants saw fit.

Controversial Managers

To the surprise of some, Roosevelt selected William Butcher and Arnold Forde of Newport Beach for the key job of handling the mail program. In their own controversial careers as conservative campaign consultants, Butcher and Forde have gone to extraordinary--some say questionable--lengths on behalf of their clients. One past mailing, for example, declared that a rival candidate faced “voter fraud, tax fraud, conspiracy and perjury charges.” The fact that the charges were raised by their own client-candidate, not by prosecutors, was noted only in smaller print.

“Political consultants are not paid to decide what’s right,” Butcher once said. “We’re paid . . . to help a person win an election.”

Roosevelt, who himself receives only expenses from his committee, said he approved of an aggressive letter-writing strategy for his campaign because “I’ve become convinced that you can’t just write a dull letter and expect to get any results from it.”

Starting in early 1983, Butcher and Forde began sending out letters by the thousands. And that is when the criticisms of Roosevelt’s committee were first heard.

One official-looking solicitation to join the committee arrived in an envelope marked “Urgent. Important Social Security and Medicare information. . . . Time-dated legal documents enclosed.” The letter, signed by Roosevelt, asked: “Will you spend 45 seconds, right now, to save Social Security?” and warned of “rich and powerful forces” seeking to destroy the program. For a membership fee of $10, it offered to provide respondents a “free” analysis of their Social Security status.

But some of those who responded weren’t asking to join.

Government Complaints

A Justice Department official informed Roosevelt that the emblem on the committee stationery resembled the official U.S. seal, a stamp that is not allowed on private mailings. Social Security officials complained of the suggestion that Social Security records were offered as a special, free service for dues-paying members, since the records were available to anybody for free. Postal Service officials advised the committee to eliminate the term “time-dated legal documents” from the envelopes, as the contents didn’t fit that description.

Others considered the tone of the mailings inflammatory, since--despite efforts to postpone yearly inflation hikes--the consensus in Congress was and is that the fundamental Social Security program is in good shape for the foreseeable future. One early letter that, among other things, compared the treatment of Social Security recipients unfavorably with that of illegal aliens, went to an 82-year-old grandmother in Upstate New York. She showed it to her grandson--who happened to be a congressman. Rep. Sherwood Boehlert (R-N.Y.) discovered at the time in 1983 that the official-sounding committee had little presence on Capitol Hill, relying chiefly on one attorney to handle housekeeping matters.

“The old people were being led to believe that the only way they could guarantee the continuation of their benefits was to contribute to this organization,” Boehlert maintains. “All they (committee officials) were doing was raising money and using the money raised to come out with slicker mailings to raise more money.”

Castigated in Congress

Skepticism about Roosevelt’s group peaked in May, 1984, when Boehlert and 13 other House members, eight Republicans and five Democrats, castigated the committee on the floor. Typical was the comment of Rep. Robert T. Matsui (D-Calif): “There is simply no excuse for an organization preying on society’s most vulnerable citizens by claiming erroneously that their very lifeblood will soon be running out.”

In response to the various early complaints, the committee withdrew its free offer of individual Social Security records. The seal on its stationery still looks rather official, but the eagle faces left instead of right, along with some other changes that apparently satisfy the Justice Department. References to immigrants and aliens have vanished from the letters. And the committee has hired a permanent Washington staff, which now numbers eight, in addition to the services of an attorney and two professional lobbyists.

As a result of these actions, much of the complaining has died down.

Membership has reached 1.5 million and continues to grow--along with revenues. The nonprofit committee got $9.8 million in dues and contributions in 1984, according to its accountant Joseph Ransom, up from $1.7 million in 1983. The largest portion of money has been spent on the mail program, newsletters, brochures and lobbyists’ fees, according to committee officials.

All this growth has been fortuitous for strategists Butcher and Forde, whose candidate management business had suffered in recent years from adverse publicity. The consultants have become so intimately involved with the Roosevelt committee, now their largest client, that Forde was among those who interviewed a recent job applicant at the committee.

Earned Major Fees

The committee pays their firm, BFC Direct Marketing, five cents for each letter mailed and an “administrative and management fee” of 15% of outside billings by BFC, such as for printing costs. According to figures supplied by the committee, BFC has mailed more than 70 million letters since early 1983, which at five cents a letter would amount to more than $3.5 million in gross revenues, not including administrative fees.

Indeed, the nonprofit committee may be the most successful private venture in Roosevelt’s career.

As a young man, he took a job as an executive with a yeast company in northern New Jersey, only to quit after a White House assistant discovered that the company was the front for a bootlegging operation. He eventually left the White House amid unsubstantiated charges that he used the post to enrich his private insurance business, charges he denied vehemently.

His attempt to market a “super jukebox” that both played records and projected the vocalist’s image on a screen was cut short by World War II.

Later, after serving in Congress and then at the United Nations, he accepted a job with Investors Overseas Services, a Switzerland-based company that fell apart in the 1970s amid charges of fraud. Investigations focused on some of Roosevelt’s associates, including Robert L. Vesco. Roosevelt was dropped from a Securities and Exchange Commission suit in 1973, after he signed a court order pledging not to violate securities laws, although he acknowledged no wrongdoing.

An Uneven Road

“It’s an uneven road most of us walk,” he once wrote. “A step forward, a step backward, some missteps along the way.”

As a Marine, Roosevelt was courageous enough to win the Navy Cross and Silver Star for service in the Pacific, and rambunctious enough as a training officer in the early 1940s to lead his troops from Camp Pendleton to San Clemente on an unusual exercise: “capturing” the mayor and city council and then shooting out nearby street lights.

“I don’t think they thought it was very funny,” he recalled.

From 1955 to 1966 he was a Los Angeles congressman, active in labor and education issues. Ultimately, he resigned his seat to accept a United Nations post offered by then-President Lyndon B. Johnson. Roosevelt cites his work on the 1964 Civil Rights Act, particularly a section dealing with the rights of workers, as his proudest congressional accomplishment.

But despite his liberal Democratic roots, he has shown a strong affinity for Republican candidates. For example, he endorsed President Reagan in 1984, even though most leading supporters of Social Security are wary of the President--given his past proposals to cut certain benefits. Roosevelt continues to defend Reagan, saying the President ultimately has ended up on the correct side of Social Security issues.

As for his current enterprise, Roosevelt and his assistants consider any missteps to be minor.

“We’ve got a strategy, and that is to get senior citizens organized into a grass-roots lobby that will make their concerns very apparent,” said William Wewer, the committee’s attorney and a longtime associate of Butcher and Forde. “ . . . I think that a lot of the opposition from the other (aging) groups derives from their concern that we’ve been very successful very quickly at things they haven’t done very much of.”

Prompted Reappraisals

Clearly, the committee’s emphasis on aggressive, direct-mail tactics has prompted reappraisals among the more established organizations that represent the elderly. The AARP, for example, is reconsidering its ability to mobilize members quickly in light of Roosevelt’s success.

But the committee’s reputation is far from secure. Its early letters are still recalled vividly by congressmen and aging advocates. Others find problems with more recent tactics, as well.

“The Roosevelt group has shown us that we haven’t been as aggressive about mobilizing people as we could have been,” acknowledged John Rother, public policy director of the 19-million-member American Assn. of Retired Persons. “But I think the resistance to the committee comes not because they’ve mobilized people, but because of the means they’ve used to do it.”

Rep. Claude Pepper, the 85-year-old Florida Democrat is among those leaders of the elderly who has had concerns about Roosevelt’s tactics. Last December, at Roosevelt’s request, Pepper sent his colleague of many years a friendly, personal note. To Pepper’s chagrin, Roosevelt’s committee reproduced the note and included it in membership solicitations.

The committee’s orphan status was illustrated in August when Roosevelt’s staff tried unsuccessfully to get him an official invitation to the Hyde Park commemoration of Social Security’s 50th year.

Snubbed by Brother

Franklin Roosevelt Jr. would only say that he had little awareness of James’ crusade: “I didn’t know he (James) was setting himself up as a national defender of Social Security. I didn’t know Social Security needed a defense.”

And while committee officials maintain that their differences with federal agencies are largely in the past, Social Security officials aren’t pleased with a recent mailing that says the “minimum age” of receiving Social Security benefits will increase to 67 in the future. Actually, the minimum age for benefits will remain at 62. The age for complete benefits, now 65, will gradually step up to 67 after the turn of the century.

“We’re concerned with some of the misleading statements in the (recent) mailings, just like we were concerned with some of the previous mailings,” said John Trollinger, a Social Security spokesman.

When asked about this apparent discrepancy, committee officials described it as trivial.

Boehlert, the early congressional critic, said: “My perception is that they have taken steps to clean up their act somewhat, but there is an awful lot of room for improvement.”

Tepid praise, indeed, but Roosevelt vows to remain vigilant--and keep up his unusual direct-mail crusade. His current priorities include pushing for an independent Social Security agency in order to shield the funds from annual budget skirmishes, and an end to taxation of Social Security benefits.

“I honestly believe Social Security is the most important legacy father left in his domestic program, and I really feel it would be a tragedy to see it curtailed and made ineffective,” he said. “Unless we make sure the benefits are safeguarded and put beyond the reach of other interests, they’ll always be a prize which is subject to attack.”