Dick Thornburgh : Cabinet Housecleaner Fights His Own Dust-Ups

Replacing the scandal-prone Edwin Meese III in the last year of the Reagan Administration, Atty. Gen. Dick Thornburgh came to Washington as a proved leader who would get the beleaguered Justice Department back on the track. Reappointed by President Bush, he has been forced to engage in some extensive housecleaning of his own and questions are being raised about how long he will stay in the job.

His first choices to head the civil-rights division and serve as deputy attorney general--nominations that a new attorney general and President usually are given deference on--were blocked by Senate opponents. His assistant for legislative affairs did not work out. And then, most humiliating of all, his deputy resigned and charged that Thornburgh meddled in an investigation involving two of his top personal aides, both of whom have been reassigned. No Cabinet officer has worse relations with the press.

The reasons for Thornburgh’s plunge are hard to fathom. He has all the qualifications: U.S. attorney in Pittsburgh for six years during the Nixon and Ford administrations; assistant attorney general in charge of the Justice Department’s criminal division; governor of Pennsylvania for two terms; director of the Institute of Politics at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government.

While serving as the liaison in 1977 with the incoming Carter Administration, Thornburgh so impressed Griffin B. Bell, the new attorney general, that Bell considered asking him to stay as his deputy--even though Thornburgh was a Republican and Bell a Democrat.

Soon after becoming governor of Pennsylvania, Thornburgh handled the Three Mile Island nuclear crisis with such skill that panic and injury were avoided.

Off the public stage, Thornburgh is a highly entertaining repository of baseball statistics and a skilled mimic of everyone from famed sportscaster Red Barber to a Justice Department official with a pretentious manner of speaking.

As attorney general, Thornburgh, 58, has gained congressional approval of a massive increase in federal prosecutors and launched a number of significant probes of white-collar crime. But he has also run the department largely through a group of loyal followers from Pennsylvania, who often shut off other appointees and career officials from their tight circle. Frustration among Thornburgh’s subordinates boiled over this month with the resignation of Deputy Atty. Gen. Donald B. Ayer.

Although Thornburgh is not the ideologue that Meese was, Congress has clashed with him over his approval of Supreme Court decisions rolling back affirmative-action plans. Thornburgh’s strong support of a constitutional amendment outlawing flag burning has also raised hackles.

As a condition of this interview, Thornburgh said he would not answer questions on his handling of the probe into the leak of the FBI investigation involving Rep. William H. Gray III (D-Pa.). The leak investigation is the source of much of Thornburgh’s difficulties.

Question: The country seems beset by a new order of civil-rights problems: blacks vs. Latinos, Asians vs. Latinos vs. blacks in some parts of the country, rising anti-Semitism and, of course, increasing hate crimes. What is your diagnosis?

Answer: Probably the single biggest reason is an improved quality of life for all Americans and the frustration that results from some Americans not having full access to that.

Q: So the solution would be to give more people full access?

A: The solution lies outside the legal field, as President Bush has often noted. It depends on better education, continued economic growth and a breakdown of barriers to equal opportunity.

Q: Doesn’t that take us back to the root-cause approach of the ‘60s? Are you suggesting that the federal government has to step in?

A: Expectations continue to rise. That’s one of the byproducts of an improving quality of life that doesn’t reach every group at once. But the government’s role has to be to enforce the rules that we’ve adopted to ensure equal opportunity and to search for additional barriers that need to be removed, as was done this week when Congress passed the Americans with Disabilities Act. For some 43 million Americans, this act opens up opportunities that didn’t exist before.

Q: What about using your office as more of a bully pulpit in times of what seem to be rising tension?

A: We have re-established a dialogue with community leaders, including prominent civil-rights leaders with whom I’ve had a longtime relationship. We don’t always agree, but we are able to discuss our differences in pursuit of a common cause.

Q: But as far as using your office not just for this dialogue with the civil-rights leaders but as more of a platform--sending out the word on hate crimes and some of the other racial tensions, for example--could that be an effective direction?

A: I’ve tried to address the subject of hate crimes on numerous occasions, have worked with leaders in the affected communities. The Department of Justice has two separate and distinct roles. First, the high-profile role of prosecution--and we are bringing a record number of these cases and securing convictions in 90% of them.

Second, the low-profile role of our Community Relations Service, which is involved on a daily basis across the country in mediation and conciliation efforts. It’s not all speeches. But I’ve never hesitated to speak out against injustice or bigotry or racial or religious violence and intimidation--ethnic intimidation.

Q: You noted that you don’t always agree with civil-rights leaders. A number of them are saying that if the Administration doesn’t support the total rollback of the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent affirmative-action decisions, it’s going to be a litmus test and that some support the President enjoys now in the black community is likely to erode. Do you think there’s a hazard there?

A: There’s undoubtedly a risk, but the President has clearly stated that he is opposed to quotas, which are, ultimately, the most divisive technique that can be used to remedy perceived wrongs. Quotas are inherently designed to favor one group over another and do not provide the kind of relief to individuals who may be denied equal opportunity on an individual basis. So I believe the risk is minimal for those persons who recognize and understand the matters of principle that the President feels are involved. He has said he wants to sign a civil-rights bill, but he will not sign a quota bill.

Q: What constitutes a quota and what doesn’t? It isn’t really a black and white question.

A: No one claims that the Kennedy-Hawkins language mandates quotas. In fact, one of the unnoticed attributes of the current civil-rights debate is that everyone supports the (Supreme Court’s) Croson case. (A.J. Croson, a Virginia construction company, successfully contested the city of Richmond’s plan to set aside 30% of the city’s business for minority contractors.) Quotas are inadmissible. But an indirect quota is just as harmful as a mandated quota. There is a great concern that the Kennedy-Hawkins bill, by its reliance on statistics alone to establish discrimination, would tempt or even force employers to adopt quotas as a defense to costly litigation based purely on statistical evidence.

Q: Your predecessor, Atty. Gen. Edwin Meese III, and his chief adviser in this area, William Bradford Reynolds, contended that the civil-rights community had become an Establishment unto itself and that the leaders were wedded to policies that were out of date with current problems. Do you subscribe to that view?

A: You have to recognize that these are people with whom I’ve shared a relationship for the last 25 or 30 years. The nature of the problem has changed since the 1960s. Much of the debate today is over methods of fine-tuning the laws that were passed in the 1960s. I don’t ascribe any improper motives to those with whom we have honest differences. I believe that honest discussion and debate are characteristics of our political process in civil rights or any other area. Our commitment is, as the President has indicated, to air and discuss these matters of disagreement so that ultimate agreement can be obtained.

Q: Switching to flag burning, if the Supreme Court rejects the legislative approach as unconstitutional interference with the First Amendment, will the Administration--will you--push for amending the Constitution to protect the flag, which was the Administration’s original position?

A: The President is firmly committed to taking whatever steps are necessary to protect the flag from desecration.

Q: Including amending -- --

A: Including a constitutional amendment . . . .

Q: It has been a long time since any Administration backed altering the Bill of Rights. Is it that crucial?

A: The President doesn’t perceive this as a threat to the Bill of Rights. He perceives it as protection for the most important symbol that this country has had since its founding. It’s a fairly discreet approach to a particular problem and does not threaten free speech, as the court recognized it before the Johnson decision, in any respect. (Gregory (Joey) Johnson’s burning of an American flag at the 1984 Republican National Convention led to the Supreme Court ruling protecting his action.)

Q: You’ve had some personnel difficulties in the Justice Department. Your Office of Legislative Affairs with Carol Crawford out; the failure to get William Lucas confirmed; Robert Fiske Jr., your first choice for deputy; and now with the Donald Ayer matter. Is there a thread here? Is it a sign that you haven’t been able to line up the right people with the right jobs?

A: I’m not going to comment on any particular cases, but the only thread is that a good manager should not ever cease to seek out good people, nor hesitate to make changes when they appear to be in order. That’s what has guided me throughout my career, and I hope will always be the case.

Q: Critics say you’re the Cabinet officer who came in on the white steed and then surprised everybody by falling off. Justice and prosecuting are not areas in which you lack familiarity or expertise. How do you look at your own difficulties?

A: I have difficulty determining the basis for that assessment. Our relationships with the White House are excellent. Our relationships with the Congress, particularly key leaders in the Congress, are vastly improved over what they were when I came here. We have had a conscious outreach to state and local officials with whom I’m used to working, and to other members of the Administration and established some very important beachheads with foreign counterparts--all of which have enabled us to record some very significant accomplishments during the two years that I’ve been privileged to serve as attorney general. Why a contrary perception persists in the news media is something that I’m at a loss to explain.

Q: One diagnosis of the problems is that, while governor of Pennsylvania, you depended on a highly centralized staff, a system that seemed to work well in Harrisburg but may not work in Washington, may not work at Justice. I’m wondering what you think of that assessment ?

A: As governor and now as attorney general, I believe in finding good people to do the job and in delegating them the responsibility to do that. I have done that here, and I am extremely proud of the high level of professionalism that exists among the people who we have attracted. So much focus is put on one or another individual who we were not able to get in place that I fear no attention has been paid to appointments that are generally conceded to be first rate: Ken Starr, solicitor general; Bill Barr as office of legal counsel and now deputy attorney general; litigating divisions, Ed Dennis, Shirley Peterson, Jim Rill, John Dunne, Dick Stewart, Stu Gerson. Absolutely, by common consent, top-drawer, experienced people as part of an effort to make this department more professional and less political.

I’m proud of those appointments that the President has made at my request. These persons are delegated full responsibility for carrying out their assignments, with no interference from me or my office. Again, I am somewhat puzzled by the contrary view that is espoused in some quarters.

Q: You mentioned Solicitor General Starr. I wondered, given his recent assignment to review the Gray leak matter if there is a danger in asking the government’s principal advocate before the court to get involved in matters like that? ( While running for a House leadership post, Rep. William H. Gray III (D-Pa.) was falsely said, in a CBS news report, to be under investigation for financial irregularities by the FBI. The source of the story was thought to be within the Justice Department.)

A: No danger whatsoever. He was a person whose integrity and judgment and standing are respected by the chairmen and ranking minority members of the judiciary committees in both the House and the Senate, who immediately acceded to my suggestion that he could provide the kind of unbiased review of this entire matter that I felt was necessary in view of the multitude of questions that had been raised from other quarters about this matter. He acquitted himself to everyone’s satisfaction in that regard.

Q: In a television interview over the weekend, you said that flunking a polygraph examination is not evidence of wrongdoing in U.S. courts of law. That raised in my mind the question of your view, as a veteran prosecutor, of the efficacy of a polygraph?

A: It’s a useful tool. It’s been consistently used by law-enforcement agencies. But it’s not infallible and it’s not admissible as evidence.

Q: A useful tool solely for investigative purposes?

A: Sure, as part of an overall investigative regimen. It’s been traditionally used.

Q: When it doesn’t register correctly or when it doesn’t show true deception, it’s not likely to mislead investigators, take them down a path that -- --

A: Not a resourceful investigator. They have to look at the whole context . . . But nobody regards a polygraph as infallible. In fact, the Congress passed a law that prohibits employers in the private sector from using them for that very reason.

Q: Running through these recent difficulties is an indication that you’re not satisfied with the Office of Professional Responsibility (the Justice Department’s internal watchdog unit) and the role it has been playing.

A: I’m not going to comment.

Q: I was going to ask you whether any changes in the unit’s structure were contemplated.

A: I am not going to comment.

Q: Are you still not happy with the idea of reporters calling attorneys directly?

A: We try to respond to reporters’ requests as best as we can.

Q: Do you find yourself ever wishing you were back at Harvard University near the Charles River and the life of a semiacademic?

A: Not in any respect. I respect and enjoy this office. It is inherently a center of controversy, always has been, always will be. I’ve never ducked controversy. I recognize my responsibility to the President to be the point man in many areas that are contentious. And I recognize what Herbert Brownell, President (Dwight D.) Eisenhower’s attorney general, said at the department’s 200th birthday party last year. “Any attorney general who is popular isn’t doing his job.” . . . There are a lot of bumps and bruises that go with the job but I wouldn’t trade the office for any one around.

Q: No second thoughts on anything that’s happened in your tenure?

A: Don’t misunderstand me. I’ve made my share of mistakes. We all do. The important thing is to recognize mistakes and learn from them. I hope I never lose that capacity.