White House to Go All Out for Ginsburg

The White House, stung by criticism that it had failed to mount a vigorous campaign for Supreme Court nominee Robert H. Bork, laid plans Friday for a full-scale offensive to win confirmation of Douglas H. Ginsburg, President Reagan’s new choice for the vacant court post.

“Already, you see a changed strategy,” said one Administration official, noting the contrast between the low-key announcement of Bork’s ultimately unsuccessful nomination in July and the fanfare accompanying Ginsburg’s nomination Thursday. Administration officials realize that “you can’t wait,” the official added.

Wary Watchfulness

Potential opponents, by contrast, have adopted a stance of wary watchfulness.

Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats met to lay plans as Ginsburg paid courtesy calls on key senators. And liberal activists who opposed Bork, nervous over reports that Ginsburg is the personal favorite of Atty. Gen. Edwin Meese III, met for the first time to discuss strategy for opposing the new nominee.

“Everybody’s very cautious,” one strategist said. “It’s clear they picked him for some reason, and it’s probably not his views on interstate banking.”

Views Unknown

Repeatedly, senators, their aides and even former colleagues of Ginsburg emphasized overwhelming lack of knowledge about the nominee and his views.

“He’s an enigma,” one Senate Judiciary Committee staff member said.

“He better believe in the right of privacy. He’s one of the most private people I know,” added a person who has worked with Ginsburg.

White House strategists hope that an aggressive campaign to put out their view of the nominee will allow them to “set the terms of the debate” this time, in contrast to what happened with the Bork nomination. “We’re not nominating someone and letting him go off in the world by himself,” one official said.

To begin that process, Ginsburg, accompanied initially by White House Chief of Staff Howard H. Baker Jr., spent Friday paying courtesy calls on key senators, including Judiciary Committee Chairman Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.) and three key centrist members of the committee: Democrats Howell Heflin of Alabama and Dennis DeConcini of Arizona and Republican Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania.

Senate staff members said that the talks were brief, that they did not go over the nominee’s views in detail and that the meetings will continue Monday.

Nominee ‘Forthcoming’

After his meeting with the nominee, Heflin said that he found Ginsburg “to be very forthcoming in his answers.”

“Hopefully, we can get on with this . . . and have the hearings, if we possibly can, this year,” he added.

Committee staff members said Friday that, despite President Reagan’s challenge to the Senate to begin hearings “within three weeks,” the proceedings probably will not start before December. The committee traditionally waits until the FBI and the American Bar Assn. complete evaluations of the nominee--generally a four- to six-week process--before opening its hearings.

Whether the hearings can be concluded in time for a vote this year will depend mostly on how long the Senate stays in session before adjourning, they added.

Hearing Schedule Discussed

Committee Democrats Biden, DeConcini, Heflin, Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts and Howard M. Metzenbaum of Ohio met early in the day to discuss a hearing schedule but reached no decisions, committee spokesman Pete Smith said.

Later, in Senate floor speeches, Specter, Heflin, DeConcini and Senate Majority Leader Robert C. Byrd (D-W. Va.), who also is a member of the Judiciary Committee, urged colleagues to avoid taking positions on the nomination until a complete record can be developed.

“Most people don’t know anything about Judge Ginsburg,” DeConcini said. “It’s important that we have a deliberate process.”

Potential opponents said they are beginning their investigations of Ginsburg’s record by looking at his activities in the Office of Management and Budget. Ginsburg was in charge of a controversial program there designed to give the President more control over rules issued by federal regulatory agencies.

Critics at the time charged that the program was designed to allow political considerations to overrule expert opinion on safety, environmental protection and other regulatory issues.

‘Tough on Crime’ Theme

Ginsburg’s supporters, for their part, began to outline the themes they plan to use. In addition to judicial restraint, which was used to bolster the Bork nomination, Reagan and his aides will continue to emphasize that their nominee will be “tough on crime,” a theme Reagan stated repeatedly during Thursday’s announcement of the nomination.

That campaign may be complicated by Ginsburg’s record: He has never taught or written about criminal law and has never ruled on a criminal case as a judge.

One former Harvard Law School colleague, Alan M. Dershowitz, who is a prominent defender of the rights of criminal suspects, said he asked Ginsburg about criminal issues last year, when Ginsburg was a nominee for the appeals court. He said Ginsburg replied: “I just haven’t formed any hard and fast views on it.”

In addition to those themes, White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater confirmed Friday that one of the reasons Chicago-born Ginsburg was named is his Jewish religion, but Fitzwater insisted that religion was not a major factor.

‘Jewish Seat’ on Court

Ginsburg would be the first Jewish justice on the high court since Abe Fortas resigned in 1969. Before that, the court had had a “Jewish seat” since 1916, when Louis D. Brandeis was confirmed.

“You have to say it’s a factor in the sense it is a fact and it is known that he is Jewish,” Fitzwater said. The fact “was discussed in the preliminary meetings . . . but it was not a factor in the final decision.”

Ginsburg’s past is certain to be carefully scrutinized in coming weeks. One unusual fact is that, after enrolling at Cornell University in 1963, according to Harvard law professor Hal Scott, who described himself as Ginsburg’s “best friend,” Ginsburg left during his freshman year, because he couldn’t figure out why he was there, and co-founded a computer dating service.

An article in Look magazine, in February, 1966, said that the dating service, called Operation Match, grossed nearly $300,000 in its first nine months, with 100,000 applications at $3 each. The applicants were mostly undergraduates at the dozens of then-sexually-segregated New England colleges.

135 Questions

Applicants filled out a questionnaire containing 135 questions, among them: “Is extensive sexual activity in preparation for marriage part of growing up?” and “Do you believe in a God who answers prayer?”

In an interview with the New York Times in 1966, Ginsburg, then a 20-year-old vice president of the dating service, said that the “questionnaire is geared toward the college dating situation, for people in their late teens or early 20s, and for what they want in a date, not what they want for a marriage.”

Meanwhile, in Sacramento, Calif., federal appeals court Judge Anthony M. Kennedy--the man Reagan passed over to pick Ginsburg--told UPI that he was “disappointed in a professional sense” but plans to “write . . . (Ginsburg) a letter congratulating him and saying I look forward to his early confirmation.”

Staff writers Ronald J. Ostrow, James Gerstenzang, John Broder and Jim Mann in Washington and Melissa Healy in Boston contributed to this story.