The Battle Against Deprivation, on a Small Scale and Large : The War Against Hunger in America Draws Its Ranks of Fighters From Some Unlikely Sources : Ex-Political Advance Man Advances the Cause for Extending a Helping Hand

When Fred Droz was advance man for President Jimmy Carter and vice-presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro, he was required to set up only one town at a time for his clients. Piece of cake. But between now and May 25, Droz is committed to setting up the whole United States--or at least a 4,135-mile coast-to-coast path across 16 states and the District of Columbia. The principle, he says, is the same. Just a little more complicated.

Since last October, Droz has been national project director of Hands Across America, the human chain that will supposedly clasp hands in a continuous line from New York to Los Angeles on the morning of May 25 in the cause of publicizing and alleviating hunger and homelessness in America. Droz would object to “supposedly.” There are no contingencies for gaps in the line, he says, adding, “It will happen. Period.”

He also says that the recent unraveling of the PRO-Peace March “hasn’t affected our activities at all. We’ve had a few questions from folks who were confused as to which event was what, but that’s all. The first indication that it might affect us would have been our corporate support, and that just didn’t happen. It hasn’t even come up. I just feel terrible for David (Mixner, PRO-Peace founder). I understand the effort it took to mount something like that.”

Droz made these assessments last week for The Times from his firm’s new office in Irvine, where he ducks in every once in a while from the Hands Across America headquarters in Century City to renew acquaintances with his staff. He turns up at his condominium in Fullerton--the city where he was born, reared and educated--just about as frequently. Human chains aren’t forged from ivory towers. They are put together link-by-link on the road, and that’s where Droz will be spending most of his time for the next three months--mending a tear in Arizona, sewing on a patch in Pennsylvania, stopping a rip in Texas.

For readers who may have dozed through the Super Bowl commercials (when three minutes were devoted to a pitch for Hands Across America) or tend to confuse the sudden multiplicity of highly publicized efforts to march, hold hands and otherwise give aid and comfort, Hands Across America is a kind of domestic USA for Africa. Both were conceived by the same people--Ken Kragen, personal manager of some of the entertainment industry’s biggest names, and Marty Rogol, a longtime activist in the cause of alleviating world hunger)--and built on a base of enthusiastic support from such entertainers as Kenny Rogers, Lionel Richie (both Kragen clients), Bill Cosby, Lily Tomlin and, as they say in the business, a cast of thousands. The biggest difference in the two campaigns is Fred Droz, who was brought aboard to handle the mind-blowing logistics of a 4,135-mile hand-holding.

An Early Activist

Droz, 40, a bachelor divorced 10 years ago--has been gearing up for two decades for this challenge. A 1967 political science graduate of Cal State Fullerton, Droz was one of the early activists on that conservative campus (“the first anti-war stuff was done by myself and six other people”), a graduate of Georgetown Law School (which he attended at night while working for the National Education Assn. in Washington), and a political organizer who got his feet wet managing the presidential primary campaign of then Oklahoma Sen. Fred Harris in New Hampshire (“we came in fourth; if we’d come in third, he would have been a viable candidate”).

These efforts won Droz both recognition and respect from Democratic Party professionals who put him to work as advance man for Hubert Humphrey and Jimmy Carter. (“An advance man,” he explained, “is sent into a city four days before a candidate or public figure arrives. Somebody has to figure out where the plane will land, how you get an entourage of 250 people from airport to hotel to event, and make arrangements for all those signs you see cropping up spontaneously at rallies--among a lot of other things.”)

Carter was sufficiently impressed by Droz’s planning of the inaugural parade and ball to appoint him to a committee whose mission was to reorganize the White House staff. “We spent 10 months,” recalls Droz, “and cut 19 divisions to 12 and the total number of workers from 735 to 350. All that was changed instantly on Reagan’s first day in office. Now the staff is more than 900.”

After performing a similar reorganization job for Carter’s Department of Transportation, Droz came home in 1978 to try to put into practice for himself what he had been doing for others. “I think,” he says today, “that anyone who has ever been involved in serving a politician has wondered whether or not he could do it (campaign for office) better. I did, and it was terrible--just terrible.”

The office he chose to run for was the Orange County congressional seat vacated by Republican Charles Wiggins. The present incumbent, William E. Dannemeyer (R-Fullerton), was then running for the Republicans. Droz saw himself beating Dannemeyer and returning triumphantly to Washington with a seat in the House of Representatives.

Found Opposition

There was one detail in the way, however, before Droz could even take on Dannemeyer. A well-known and respected local attorney named Bill Farris had already announced for the Democrats--and neither he nor the Democratic organization took kindly to this young carpetbagger breezing in from Washington to launch a political career.

Farris’ campaign was being managed by another former student activist named Howard Adler, who had known Droz well during their college days when Adler was student body president at Long Beach State and Droz held a similar position at Cal State Fullerton.

“I told him,” Adler recalls, “not to make the run. There was an Assembly seat vacant that would have been a lot more appropriate. I made the same mistake in 1974 when I tried to run against Jerry Patterson. But Fred had to learn for himself. He was determined to go back to Washington. So we beat him. Not by much, but we beat him.”

Looking back today, Droz says firmly: “It was the first and last time I’ll ever run for public office. You have to be a unique individual to allow a constant public scrutiny, to permit your privacy to be invaded as deeply as it must. I didn’t like it.”

So on the reasonable theory that if you can’t lick ‘em, join ‘em, Droz went into partnership with Howard Adler in a political management firm. The business was successful, but both partners grew increasingly disenchanted with the demands of political management. “You can’t win,” said Adler, “without destroying the other person’s credibility--and that got harder and harder to do.”

So Adler Droz Inc. began to shift into managing the business affairs of trade and professional associations. Adler got out of political management altogether two years ago, and Droz was fast approaching that place when Ken Kragen asked him to take over the direction of Hands Across America for $80,000. (This figure has been sniped at by critics who claim too much of the money raised is going for excessive administrative fees. Droz said: “First of all, none of the money coming from people who buy places in the line is going for administration. And secondly, I would normally charge three times that amount for the work I’m doing.”)

Hands Across America faced an exotic logistical problem that USA for Africa didn’t. Most of the money raised to help relieve famine in Africa was the direct result of concerts or records performed by musicians with whom Kragen worked regularly--or knew well. These same musicians could lend public support to Hands Across America--but they couldn’t bring it off unilaterally. Only 6 to 10 million Americans could do that--and Fred Droz drew the job of first motivating this many people sufficiently to pay from $10 to $35 for a place, then organizing them into positions along the more than 4,000 miles of continuous line.

Three Qualities

Most of the people reached by The Times who have worked with Droz agreed he has three qualities that would appear to qualify him--if anyone is qualified--for this massive task: He is calm, deliberate and commanding. Adler summed it up this way: “The curse of the advance man is that he is constantly trying to resolve other people’s mistakes. Fred does that well. He gets annoyed but not angry, and he can step into the most chaotic situation, remain calm and take charge.”

Not everyone agrees. One old-line Orange County political pro called Droz “flaky,” but not for attribution; another objected to his hyper-casual dress habits. And the New Republic--in a recent lengthy attack on Hands Across America--referred to Droz as “a middle-tier Carter operative (who) does not have paper credentials that would bowl over anyone in Washington.” (Once Droz got past the depression this article caused, he fired off a letter to the New Republic saying the article was demonstrably a “pack of lies” because actually he was “a low -tier Carter operative.”)

Droz appeared for this interview in his new office--amid the debris of a fresh move--chewing on an unlit pipe and wearing an open-necked dress shirt and the slightly wary expression of a man accustomed to dealing with skeptics. He has a cherubic build, with the hint of a belly and a shock of graying hair that caresses his forehead. It was clear from the beginning that Droz’s fundamental whimsy prevents him from taking himself too seriously. But he takes Hands Across America very seriously.

The temptation to describe Hands Across America statistically is overpowering--even to Droz, who is much more a people person than a statistician. Here are some of the numbers he introduced that are also being tossed around in Hands Across America press releases:

- Twenty million Americans go hungry some time each month, 40% of Americans now seeking food aid were able to buy their own food two years ago, and the number of Americans seeking food assistance is rising at more than 50% a year.

- The exact length of the Hands Across America line can’t be determined at this point because its route through city streets will depend on the number of urban participants. But figuring 1,300 people a mile (Hands Across America’s estimate), a minimum of 5.4 million Americans will have to participate in order to span the country.

- By selling places in the line for $10 (contributors receive a certificate), $25 (certificate plus imprinted portable radio and sun visor) and $35 (all of the above plus a trademarked T-shirt), Hands Across America expects to raise between $50 million and $100 million to feed America’s hungry and homeless.

- All of this will take place at 3 p.m. EST on Sunday, May 25, when the participants will join hands for 15 minutes and sing the Hands Across America anthem while the print and electronic media record the event for posterity.

Droz says the first and most important thing he had to do was reduce the scale of the job to manageable segments. Thinking in terms of a 4,000-mile line of people is mind-blowing “so we looked at it first as 200 20-mile segments. Then we broke down each of those 20-mile segments into one-mile pieces--and one mile is a relatively easy stretch in which to move people. When you look at it in those terms, it is manageable.”

Has Until May 25

Droz has until May 25 to fill up those one-mile segments with people. To assist him, he has a staff of 40 in the Hands Across America national headquarters on the 20th floor of a Century City high-rise, plus 150 more people “out in the states.” He divides his time almost evenly between Los Angeles and “the states,” and his days and nights in the field are divided between planning sessions with staff members, media appearances and meetings with potential sponsors who might either pick up a portion of the expenses, promote the event to their customers and employees, or “buy a mile” in the chain--or perhaps all three. (“Thom McAn Shoe Stores,” says Droz, “just bought the George Washington Bridge; we’re still negotiating the price.”)

A typical recent day for Droz, for example, went like this:

After flying from Los Angeles to Chicago with Ken Kragen late on a Monday afternoon for dinner with the Hands Across America staff there, Droz met early the next morning with McDonald’s hamburger chain executives about possible sponsorship, followed by:

- Chicago Tribune interview;

- Lunch with representatives of 20 potential sponsoring groups;

- WGN radio interview;

- Sponsorship meeting with Montgomery Ward;

- 4:30 p.m. flight to Washington for an 8 o’clock dinner with the staff there.

Droz says that everywhere he goes--in airports, parking lots, restaurants--people recognize his Hands Across America lapel pin and want to share stories with him. “At the airport in Atlanta yesterday, a teen-age girl saw my pin and told me that her whole school is organizing buses to go out on the line. I realize that for a rational person to say we’re going to have a continuous link seems a little strained, but I’ve been out there, and I know it’s going to happen. We have no contingency plans because this won’t be repeated the next day, and you either bring it off or you don’t. That’s the point we’re working from.”

The question Droz is asked most frequently is how he expects to fill gaps in the line across Arizona and New Mexico and Texas, where there aren’t enough people to man the line even if the entire population turns out.

“Right now,” he says, “the best advance people in the country--Republicans and Democrats alike--have set out to manage those 20-mile segments and assign directors to each mile of the route. A lot of different strategies will be used in rural areas to bring in as many people as we need. Dozens of RV clubs, for example, are taking over the more isolated segments. Groups of flight attendants are offering to do the same thing.

Finds Positive Attitudes

“What you must understand is the feeling that is growing all across the country about this effort. According to the studies we’ve done, different people are seeing it in different ways--but all positive. Adults see it as neighbor helping neighbor again, grass-roots activism, just like the old days. Young people see it as the biggest party in the world. And children see it as an opportunity to reach out of childhood into the transition of really helping someone for the first time in their lives.”

Comparisons of Hands Across America with the 1984 journey of the Olympic torch are inevitable and--Droz thinks--instructive. He’s both amused and irritated at the idea that Americans spent their emotional support on the torch and have little left for a human chain on behalf of hunger--even after USA for Africa’s Bob Geldof flew home from Africa recently complaining of “compassion fatigue,” a label that was picked up instantly by the press. “He was joking,” says Droz. “If there’s compassion fatigue in this country right now, we certainly aren’t feeling it.”

Droz’s role in Hands Across America will probably end with the event, itself. What then? What can he possibly do for an encore?

Droz lit his pipe and turned a little pensive. He says he’ll go back to organizing campaigns for his Irvine firm--but not political campaigns.

Seeks Certain Type

“An effective public official,” he says, “has to be both idealistic and cynical. Fifteen years ago, we had such people, but I don’t see any around now. That’s depressed me enough that I’m no longer interested in political management. Sure it’s possible a candidate might come along who would excite me, but even if that happened, I’d probably get involved the same way Howard and I did before we got into this business--as professional volunteers for people we believe in.”

Who was the last presidential candidate to measure up to these requirements in his eyes?

“Jimmy Carter. He was badly perceived by the public. The nature of his personality didn’t let him cozy up to the power brokers in Washington--and that had a great effect later. He and the people he brought to the White House just couldn’t sit in Georgetown cocktail parties. They wanted to roll up their sleeves and go to work.

“Then, too, for some strange reason, Carter had an inability to communicate well after he became President, to convey the things he was doing, many of them very complex.”

That suggested a final question: Has Ronald Reagan been approached about supporting Hands Across America, an event designed to alleviate a social problem the Reagan Administration has steadfastly insisted doesn’t exist?

Standing in the doorway of his office, Droz smiled briefly. “I’m not sure how we’re going to approach the President. We haven’t done that yet--but we will.”

Won’t that make a small problem for him?

“Possibly.” The smile intensified. “Or an opportunity.”