Activist Known for Her Candor Chosen to Run U.S. AIDS Office

Pledging an open door to an advisor who “speaks the truth unvarnished,” President Clinton named Atlanta activist Sandy Thurman on Monday as his third director of AIDS policy.

In a brief ceremony in the Roosevelt Room, Clinton assured Thurman that the Office of AIDS Policy would have the resources it needs to help “succeed in this all-important task.”

“My door is open to her,” Clinton said. “I’ve worked with her, and I can attest: She tells it like it is. She speaks the truth unvarnished. She won’t hold back in this office.”

Thurman is a longtime AIDS activist and member of the president’s AIDS advisory panel. She replaces Patsy Fleming, who did not return for Clinton’s second term.

Thurman pledged to improve housing, Medicaid and welfare services for AIDS patients and to “counteract the devastating effects that homophobia and racism continue to have on this epidemic.”

Thurman served as executive director of AID Atlanta from 1988 to 1993 and as director of a task force on child survival and development for the Carter Center from 1993 to 1996.

Some AIDS advocacy groups cheered Thurman’s appointment. The Human Rights Campaign, a gay and lesbian group, called her “a solid choice to take the Office of National AIDS policy to the next level.”

However, ACT UP, a gay activists group, said Clinton should have selected someone with greater name recognition and criticized Thurman, a friend of Democratic strategist James Carville, as a candidate of patronage.