Governor Labels Panel’s OK of Book a ‘Mistake’

Gov. George Deukmejian said Tuesday that his appointees to the California Bicentennial Commission were “grossly negligent and made a very, very major mistake” if they failed to read a textbook with racial overtones before approving it for sale.

In words unusually blunt for him, Deukmejian said that after having read excerpts from “The Making of America” it was “pretty hard for me to understand how anybody on that commission, if they did in fact read that book,” would have agreed to market it under the commission’s auspices.

It was the governor’s first direct comment on the controversy.

In one chapter on the 15th Amendment, the book suggests that black slaves in the United States were responsible for mistreatment suffered at the hands of white masters. It also refers to black children as “pickaninnies” and asserts that slave owners were the “worst victims” of slavery.

Promote Anniversary

In March, Deukmejian’s appointees to the commission, which is responsible for helping to promote the 200th anniversary of the U.S. Constitution, voted 3 to 1 to approve the textbook as a fund-raising device.

A commission spokesman said recently that commission members “leafed through” the book, but “no one reviewed it thoroughly” before it was approved for sale. He described the resulting furor as embarrassing and called selection of the book an “error in judgment.”

Two influential legislators, Assembly Speaker Willie Brown (D-San Francisco) and Sen. Gary Hart (D-Santa Barbara), who authored the 1984 bill that created the commission, Friday demanded that Deukmejian fire his appointees. Subsequently, Deukmejian ordered his aides to determine from his commissioners how and why they voted for the text.

In response to a question at a press conference, Deukmejian said Tuesday, “It would seem to me that if they did not read it and were not aware of it, that they were, indeed, grossly negligent and made a very, very major mistake.”

He declined, however, to say what action he will take after completion of the gubernatorial inquiry, expected sometime this week.

No Public Comment

A commission spokesman said Tuesday that the three Deukmejian appointees had agreed to withhold public comment until the “whole situation is reviewed thoroughly with the governor’s office.” They are chairwoman Jane Crosby of South Pasadena, a Republican activist; Marguerite P. Justice, Los Angeles, a former member of the Los Angeles Police Commission and its first black woman member, and Coanne Cubete of Fountain Valley, a realtor. The “no” vote was cast by Stanford University history professor Jack Rakove, an appointee of the state Senate.

The commission sold 215 copies of “The Making of America” and netted $2,145 before sales were abruptly halted when the controversy broke out. The textbook was written by W. Cleon Skousen, founder of the National Center for Constitutional Studies, a bedrock-conservative think tank based in Salt Lake City.

The controversial chapter, which Skousen says “tells the story of slavery” in America, was written by the late Fred Albert Shannon, a teacher at several Midwestern colleges and universities who won a Pulitzer Prize for history in 1929.

In a separate comment at the press conference--held jointly with U.S. Sen. Pete Wilson (R-Calif.)--Deukmejian struck out again at state Supt. of Public Instruction Bill Honig, criticizing the educator for forming a political action committee to fight for more money for schools.

“It’s not going to . . . benefit education to have a superintendent warring with the governor,” Deukmejian said of their monthlong feud. “I think it is most unfortunate. . . .”

Honig, who has assailed Deukmejian’s proposed budget as a “disaster” for public education, said he has loaned $10,000 to his newly formed committee and will loan another $40,000 in an effort to amass an organization of 2 million parents to seek more money for education. Deukmejian maintains that education is his top budget priority and that he has proposed as much money for it as he can.