Thornburgh Picks Black Lawyer to Be Rights Enforcer

Atty. Gen. Dick Thornburgh said Friday that he has recommended the appointment of William Lucas, a black Democrat-turned-Republican, to be the Administration’s chief civil rights enforcer, saying that he’s “the right person for this job at this time.”

Thornburgh’s statement signaled that the White House is likely to announce Lucas’ nomination next week, along with nearly all other assistant attorneys general posts.

Lucas, who is 61 and practices law in Detroit, declined in an interview to support or oppose controversial steps taken by the last holder of the post, William Bradford Reynolds, that were bitterly denounced as cutbacks by civil rights activists. He said that he does not want to comment on subjects likely to be raised at Senate confirmation hearings if he is nominated.

Rights Lobbyists Puzzled

Lucas’ selection was greeted with puzzlement and some disappointment from civil rights lobbyists here, with one contending that the Administration “has missed a golden opportunity to send the nation a signal of its strong commitment to civil rights, reversing what has been going on for eight years.”

Ralph Neas, executive director of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, said that the selection of Lucas “is the latest in a series of decisions by the attorney general that have caused apprehension in the civil rights community regarding the readiness of this Administration to vigorously and fully enforce the civil rights laws.”

But Thornburgh, in his comments, said that Lucas “has a longstanding commitment to the civil rights movement and a record of strong and fair law enforcement.”

Patrick McGuigan, director of the Free Congress Center for Law and Democracy, said that Lucas’ selection is “impressing a lot of conservatives” and “should resonate very well with everyone in the President’s base.”

Lucas, whose maiden and unsuccessful race as a Republican for Michigan governor in 1986 turned out to be unusually acrimonious, was first recruited to the Justice Department in the early 1960s by an aide to then-Atty. Gen. Robert F. Kennedy.

The former aide, Edwin O. Guthman--who now teaches journalism at USC after stints as national editor of The Times and editor of the Philadelphia Inquirer--recalled that Lucas was one of two police officers providing security to Kennedy who was giving a law school speech in New York City.

Lucas, attending Fordham Law School at night while serving as a police officer, was “exactly the kind of guy we were looking for,” Guthman said, noting Kennedy’s efforts to attract blacks to the Justice Department and the FBI.

“It was hard to find guys like that,” Guthman said. “They weren’t dropping off bushes.”

Lucas represented the Justice Department during the desegregation of Tuskegee, Ala., schools and participated in gathering information on barriers to voting by blacks--material later presented to Congress before its enactment of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, according to Thornburgh’s announcement.

Lucas served as an FBI agent from 1963 to 1968, then moved to Detroit where he left the bureau and was elected sheriff in 1970, the first black to hold that job in Wayne County. He later was elected county executive.

In those posts, he had little direct involvement in civil rights. Ken Cockrell, a Detroit attorney and former councilman, said that it is “hard to point to affirmative instances of civil rights concern” on Lucas’ part.

“When he was county executive, he was confronted with budget shortfalls and chopping off programs,” he said. “He is not a person who has had the opportunity to fly civil rights flags” during his elective career.

In 1977, Lucas was among five finalists recommended by then-President Jimmy Carter’s screening committee for consideration as FBI director. But his candidacy ended after The Times reported he had acknowledged that while sheriff he accepted free air transportation on a return flight from a Las Vegas gambling junket.

In the interview Friday, Lucas said that he had accepted “only one ride back in an empty plane” flown from Las Vegas to Detroit by the gambling junket firm.

His unsuccessful bid to unseat Michigan Gov. James J. Blanchard, a Democrat, was marked by charges that Lucas had a conflict of interest involving a longtime colleague and that his wife had defaulted on a student college loan.

The conflict allegation arose when Lucas, as county executive, approved a $23-million county construction contract knowing that his chief of staff, Dennis Nystrom, held an interest in a company that was to be involved in the project. Lucas said Friday that he had taken “sufficient safeguards” to avoid any conflict and that investigators found “no wrongdoing.”

The student loan allegation arose when his wife left college to support his candidacy for governor, and Lucas maintained Friday that her attempt to pay off the loan in installments was “distorted” and misrepresented as a default.