Educator Gets Hard Political Lesson : Campaign: Boston University President John Silber’s pointed statements have plagued his campaign for governor. But some voters like what they hear.

Whenever Boston University President John R. Silber opens his mouth in public these days, television cameras start rolling and reporters scoot a little closer to the edges of their seats.

Considering that Silber has been a professional politician for only five weeks, and faces what appear to be almost insurmountable odds in his quest to become governor, it might seem a dream come true to have the news media hanging onto every utterance.

But, for Silber, long one of higher education’s most prominent and controversial figures, it shows just how much heat a man can generate with a campaign that he describes as “appealing to voters as a person who can write his own speeches and whose words are his own.”

Although Silber likes to describe himself as a “straight shooter,” his words lately have tended to explode like cherry bombs. In the last few weeks, he has said:

--That Massachusetts is a “welfare magnet” for “people who are accustomed to living in the tropical climate,” with the town of Lowell becoming “the Cambodian capital of America.”

--That he decided against converting to Judaism after learning that “the racism of Jews is quite phenomenal” and that he could never be accepted fully in the faith.

--That Jesse Jackson’s speaking style reminds him of Adolf Hitler’s, and that, if he were President of the United States, Jackson would “have a place in my Cabinet, because every President needs someone to write bumper stickers.”

--That too many children are needlessly being placed in special-education programs, which “would lead one to believe that there has been a collapse of the gene pool in Massachusetts, because 17 1/2% of our kids are weird, are not capable of being educated under normal circumstances.”

Silber, who is running a close third in the polls in a four-candidate race for the Democratic nomination, insists that many of these statements have been taken out of context and blown out of proportion.

When he told a group that drugs present a greater threat to society than alcohol, for example, the Boston Sunday Herald bannered the headline, “NEW SILBER SHOCKER: Gov Candidate in More Hot Water for Pooh-poohing Alcoholism.” In fact, Silber never suggested that alcohol abuse is not a problem and has even advocated confiscating the automobiles of people convicted of drunk driving.

But part of the blame lies in the combative Silber’s own insistence on using language as a bludgeon, a style that invites disaster in an era in which any phrase can become a “sound bite” on the evening news. His concern about placing too many children in special-education programs mirrors that of many other educators, for example, but the words he used to express it struck many as harsh and insensitive.

“Some of the difficulties have been caused, I think, by an irresponsible press. Others have been caused by my own naivete and the mistakes I have made,” Silber admitted in an interview, adding that he hopes to run a “bomb-proof” campaign in the future.

Still, although his choice of words has backfired, some say that his campaign has given voice to a frustration and anti-Establishment backlash that have been building in this state for more than a year.

“In some ways, I agree with most of his ideas, and especially with shooting straight. It’s about time people said some things that needed to be said for a long time,” said Jim Vallee, a 23-year-old Boston law student who describes himself as a liberal Democrat.

“What he says makes a lot of sense to me,” added Lou Alberghini, a 66-year-old retired consultant from Malden. “I’m registered independent and tend to vote for Republicans, but, in this case, I’ll probably switch.”

The embarrassment that Massachusetts citizens felt over the trouncing of Gov. Michael S. Dukakis in the 1988 presidential race turned to rage when they learned that their state economy had been crumbling even as he had traveled the country touting the “Massachusetts miracle.” Dukakis has since decided not to run for reelection, and lawmakers here have become the target of scorn as they have fumbled every attempt to find a solution to what has become a full-blown fiscal crisis.

With once-robust companies laying off workers, confidence in business has plummeted. And the reputations of the news media and law-enforcement agencies were badly bruised when they got snookered in the sensational case of Charles Stuart, who concocted a story of a black assailant to cover his apparent own guilt in his wife’s murder.

Silber is the only political newcomer in a Democratic field that includes former Atty. Gen. Francis X. Bellotti, the front-runner, Lt. Gov. Evelyn Murphy and state Rep. John H. Flood, chairman of the Legislature’s Taxation Committee.

Silber, a native Texan, came to Boston University almost two decades ago, after being fired as dean of the University of Texas’ College of Arts and Sciences. At that time, he was lionized as a heroic liberal whose outspokenness and independence had cost him his job.

His admirers speak of how he has changed Boston University from a backwater commuter school into a powerhouse that attracts top students and faculty from across the country. In a poll of college educators several years ago, Silber was ranked as one of the nation’s five most effective private college and university presidents. His salary, approaching $300,000 a year, is said to be the highest of any of this country’s college presidents. (Silber is currently on a leave of absence.)

But others contend that Silber has created more problems than he has solved. They describe his administration as a reign of terror and intimidation and say he stops at nothing to impose his standards and philosophy on the institution. Early in his tenure, Silber called in police to quash a student demonstration against Marine Corps recruiters that he had invited to the campus. In 1976, 10 of the university’s 15 deans and several hundred faculty members demanded his resignation, but Silber prevailed.

“He’s handling his (gubernatorial) campaign the way he handles Boston University. We became very accustomed to being treated in a very belittling, contemptuous, sometimes insulting way,” said Bernice Buresh, a former associate professor of journalism at the school. Buresh resigned in 1988 in a dispute over Silber’s decision to have the journalism school sponsor a U.S.-government-financed program to train Afghan rebels to use propaganda.

Even Silber’s admirers say he can be hard to take. Former Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger, who served with Silber on a presidential commission on Central America, put it this way in an interview with the New York Times Magazine last year: “When he first started, my only question was, if I killed him, would it be considered murder or justifiable homicide? He is very fierce in his convictions. He takes no prisoners. I swore I’d kill him, and then, as the weeks went by, I grew extremely fond of him.”

When Silber entered the race last month, it was clear that he would bring this confrontational style to politics. The sparks started flying only a few days later, when, in an interview with the Worcester Telegram & Gazette, Silber demanded: “Why has Massachusetts suddenly become so popular for people who are accustomed to living in the tropical climate? Amazing.” Further, he asked why Lowell, a city that has received more than 25,000 Cambodian refugees over the last five years, should be “the Cambodian capital of America? It is extraordinary. Why should they all be concentrated in one place? This needs to be examined.”

“What Silber should study,” retorted his opponent Murphy, “is the dark recesses of his own mind.” However, a poll by the Boston Globe and WBZ-TV found more than half of the respondents thought Silber’s statements had “some merit.”

Although the public mood may boost an outsider’s chances in Massachusetts politics these days, the system of nominating candidates does not. Before Silber can be listed on the ballot for the September primary, he must win the support of at least 15% of the delegates to a statewide Democratic convention in June--a gathering that will be dominated by party stalwarts.

When asked whether he might do better running as a Republican, in a party whose last two presidential candidates he has supported, Silber insisted: “Certainly not! I’m a Democrat, and identifiably a Democrat. Moreover, I’m a liberal Democrat.”

But when it comes to actually practicing politics, he admitted: “I’m Johnny in the first reader, and the book is a little bit longer than I thought it was.”

INTOLERANT AUDIENCE--Those who speak out about ideas that impinge on others’ images of themselves often find an intolerant audience. E1