Bush’s Ethics Man Quits Post in Private Sector : Changes Mind on Holding Title Without Pay After Advice From 2 on Panel

President Bush’s point man for ethics policy, C. Boyden Gray, is resigning as chairman of a multimillion-dollar communications company to avoid any appearance of conflict of interest, the White House said today.

Gray, Bush’s official legal counsel since 1981, previously had said he would remain as chairman of family-owned Summit Communications Group Inc. but would refuse a salary.

He resigned, effective today, after consulting with the heads of Bush’s new ethics commission, said White House Press Secretary Marlin Fitzwater.

Fitzwater said the action was prompted in part by news accounts over the weekend that pointed out that the Reagan White House had had a policy that forbade employees from serving in such chairmanships or earning outside income.

Fitzwater said there would have been “nothing inappropriate” about Gray keeping the post in the Bush Administration. But he said Gray was advised to resign by former Atty. Gen. Griffin Bell and U.S. Judge Malcolm Wilkie, chairman and vice chairman, respectively, of the newly created President’s Commission on Federal Ethics Law Reform.

“The duties of the White House counsel are sufficiently broad that it would be constructive to resign such a directorship to avoid any possibility of even the appearance of conflict,” Fitzwater told reporters.

He said Gray also would be putting his personal assets, estimated at over $10 million, into a blind trust.

Bush has made a major point in his presidency of stressing high ethical standards for government employees, and said he wants tougher ethical rules than those he inherited from his predecessor.

“Boyden Gray has the President’s highest trust and confidence and he will remain the primary adviser to the President on ethical matters,” Fitzwater said.

Bush was aware that every year for the last eight years when Gray worked for him as vice president, the Office of Government Ethics reviewed and approved Gray’s financial disclosure forms, he said.

The Reagan White House had a policy that no White House officials should accept outside earned income or serve on the boards of outside corporations, Frank Q. Nebeker, director of the Office of Government Ethics, said Sunday. This policy was mentioned in a 1983 written advisory opinion by the ethics office that was distributed to all government ethics officials, including Gray.

Gray was not bound by those rules when he worked for the vice president, whose policy was more lenient, and he was paid several hundred thousand dollars over the eight years for serving as chairman of Summit, which owns at least a dozen radio stations and has about 130,000 cable subscribers in the South.

Bush has not named a White House ethics officer, but Gray has been serving informally in that role since before the inauguration.