Carter Attests to Clinton’s Integrity; Platform Adopted : Convention: Ex-President calls attacks on candidate’s character false. Party manifesto shuns bitter ideological issues, seeks to appeal to middle-ground voters.

Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton, with all but one of his Democratic rivals now on board, won a prized endorsement of his character and integrity from former President Jimmy Carter on Tuesday as a pacific Democratic Convention adopted a platform that reflects Clinton’s centrist views.

The formal payoff for Clinton’s patient but persistent maneuvering to move his party closer to the political center without alienating liberals will come tonight at Madison Square Garden. Then the Democrats--more unified now than at any time since 1976, despite continued sniping from former California Gov. Edmund G. (Jerry) Brown Jr.--will officially name Clinton as their 1992 presidential nominee.

But for Clinton, whose candidacy was almost destroyed early in the Democratic race by allegations of character flaws, the staunch defense offered by Carter--a deeply religious churchman as well as the last Democrat to win the presidency--was especially sweet. Carter had officially endorsed Clinton last spring, but his speech Tuesday spelled out his reasons for the assembled Democrats.

“I’ve known Bill Clinton for more than 15 years as a friend and fine governor, voted by his peers as the best of them all,” Carter declared. “This year he has endured--and survived--the false and misleading political attacks on his character. He is a man of honesty and integrity.”

And, the former President declared: “He is the only candidate who can unite our government, heal our nation’s wounds, face facts with courage and marshal the American people to face a difficult future with hope and confidence.”

As the four-day convention moved through its second session, however, the emotional high-point was a set of passionate, moving speeches by a Clinton aide, Bob Hattoy, and a California mother, Elizabeth Glaser of Los Angeles, who are HIV infected. Mrs. Glaser, who contracted the virus through a blood transfusion 11 years ago, unknowingly passed it on to her young daughter and to her young son.

“Exactly four years ago,” Glaser told delegates, “my daughter died of AIDS. She did not survive the Reagan Administration. I am here because my son and I may not survive another four years of leaders who say they care but do nothing.”

Earlier in the day, Virginia Gov. L. Douglas Wilder, the nation’s only black governor and a former presidential candidate, endorsed Clinton and his running mate, Tennessee Sen. Al Gore.

Wilder, who earlier had raised questions about whether he might support independent Ross Perot, said: “Millions of Americans, including myself, are ready to commit time and energy to a campaign that stands for rebuilding and dealing with the most pressing needs of our land.”

Wilder’s endorsement guarantees the governor the right to address the convention Thursday, said Democratic Chairman Ronald H. Brown, who has worked assiduously with Clinton operatives to conduct a well-orchestrated campaign that would show the Clinton-Gore ticket to its best advantage and the long-divided party unified for the fall campaign.

Former Gov. Brown, who earlier said he represented “a voice of the powerless and we are going to stay that way,” continued to withhold an endorsement, although party officials held out hope he would announce his support for Clinton before the convention ends Thursday night.

Brown is expected to use the time allotted for putting his name into nomination tonight to address the convention and discuss his liberal agenda, which the party earlier rejected.

But even Brown’s discordant note, while accompanied by rowdy demonstrations from his supporters, did not appear to distract significantly from a convention that has been extraordinarily harmonious by Democratic standards.

And some of his fellow Californians made it clear they resented the former governor’s refusal to support the candidate who had defeated him in the primaries. “Jerry made a real contribution to California politics, but he’s yet to make a contribution to national politics,” Rep. Julian C. Dixon (D-Los Angeles) said.

“Jerry’s got to make peace with the party. . . . If we can’t win this year, we can’t win for a long time,” Dixon said.

The convention here has seen the Democratic Party broaden its appeal by showcasing minorities and record numbers of women, but in the platform adopted Tuesday night, it turned away from the bitter ideological issues battles of the past. Without overtly rejecting its liberal traditions, it adopted positions that party strategists hope will appeal to voters occupying the broad middle ground of the political spectrum.

Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin, a Clinton rival in the primaries, said the new platform “is about creating a society that is open and welcoming to all of our citizens.”

The Democrats, long known as a party of big government, adopted a plank, for example, calling for “a revolution in government--to take power away from entrenched bureaucracies and narrow interests in Washington and put it back in the hands of ordinary people. We vow to make government more decentralized, more flexible and more accountable.”

Other planks, which some Democrats conceded could have been adopted at a Republican convention, praised free enterprise and honored business as “a noble endeavor”; called for tackling spending by putting everything, presumably including long-sacrosanct entitlement programs, on the table, and urged that America remain the world’s strongest military power.

At the same time, the party’s platform retained such traditional positions as creating jobs with a national public works investment and infrastructure program; supporting the rights of workers to organize and bargain collectively without fear of intimidation or replacement during strikes, and the right of women to choose to have an abortion.

The Democrats, staunch defenders of gay rights and advocates of greater federal funding to fight the deadly AIDS virus, applauded loudly and many wept as Glaser and Hattoy, a Clinton adviser on environmental issues, told of their ordeals and accused Bush and former President Ronald Reagan of failing to do enough to combat the disease.

Hattoy, calling AIDS “a disease of the Reagan-Bush years,” said: “The first case was detected in 1981. But it took 40,000 deaths and seven years for Ronald Reagan to say the word ‘AIDS.’ It’s five years later, 70,000 more are dead. And George Bush doesn’t talk about AIDS, much less do anything about it.

“Eight years from now, there will be 2 million cases in America. If George Bush wins again we’re all at risk. It’s that simple. It’s that serious. It’s that terrible. I am a gay man with AIDS.”

The normally noisy, boisterous delegates fell silent and listened with rapt attention to Hattoy and Glaser, who was one of the few speakers the disruptive Brown delegates listened to in silent respect.

Here and there throughout the cavernous hall, men as well as women brushed tears from their eyes and, when she finished speaking, the delegates erupted into one of the longest and loudest ovations they have accorded to any speaker thus far.

In the biggest and most spectacular event outside the convention hall Tuesday, thousands of AIDS activists, their supporters, ordinary New Yorkers and out-of-town visitors filled Times Square for an afternoon “unity rally” designed to draw attention to the worldwide AIDS crisis.

Times Square was closed off to vehicular traffic for the event, which featured such celebrity speakers as the Rev. Jesse Jackson, actor-dancer Gregory Hines and film star Jessica Lange. Both Hines and Lange currently are appearing in Broadway productions.

To thunderous applause, Jackson called for a national health care program that would cover all Americans, including AIDS sufferers. But, while condemning the Bush Administration for what he described as its inaction on the issue, he stopped short of urging the crowd to support the Clinton-Gore ticket.

“It’s time for a new program, it’s time for change,” he said. “We can fight AIDS and send Bush and Quayle back into private life at the same time. We must stand together as a nation and change the course, no matter who’s elected.”

The rally was proceeded by a march originating at Columbus Circle, about 17 blocks north of Times Square, in which more than 7,000 AIDS activists and supporters participated, chanting such slogans as “black, white, gay, straight/AIDS does not discriminate” and “off of the sidewalks and into the streets, fight AIDS now.”

The march was sponsored by a coalition of groups that represented, among others, gays and lesbians, labor, religious organizations, feminists and the homeless.

Former President Carter, who characterized his convention appearance here as proof of his rehabilitation into “a more or less respected party figure,” told reporters the Democrats have come full circle since 1976 when he was elected.

He said the Democrats have returned to a moderate position since 1980, when he won their nomination for reelection but Sen. Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts led a liberal revolt that split the party and moved it to the left of most of its traditional constituents.

Carter, who places much of the blame for his loss to Reagan on that split, said that although the party has pardoned him for “the unforgivable sin of losing” in 1980, he has no plans for a major role in the Clinton campaign.

In his convention speech, Carter, who previously had been restrained in any criticism of Bush, severely criticized the foreign policies of both Bush and Reagan. While the world cries out for peaceful resolution of conflict, he declared, “our country is seen as more warlike than peace-loving.”

“We celebrated a great victory over tiny Grenada, and later invaded Panama, where hundreds of our friends were killed,” he said. “We promoted and financed the Contra War that caused 35,000 casualties in Nicaragua.

“There are even second thoughts about the Gulf War, where Saddam Hussein still reigns supreme in Iraq, Kuwait is no closer to democracy and the Kurds and other refugees endure terrible hardship,” Carter said.

He also criticized the Bush Administration for financing the Iraqi military before its invasion of Kuwait and said that in none of the conflicts he mentioned were peaceful negotiations used to avoid conflict.

Turning to domestic issues, Carter said Bush’s Justice Department and “right-wing federal judges are in opposition to the basic rights of those who are oppressed.”

During the evening, a war of signs erupted near the California delegation where Jerry Brown’s supporters were concentrated. New red signs with a simple “Brown” message appeared on the floor but countermoves by pro-Clinton forces, such as holding a large blue Clinton banner in front of the Brown backers, obscured the Californians’ message.

Times staff writers William J. Eaton, Sam Fulwood III, David Lauter, Michael Ross, George Skelton and Tracy Wilkinson contributed to this story.