White House Becomes Less White, Male

By ELIZABETH SHOGREN

Aug. 22, 1999 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

WASHINGTON —

A few weeks ago, Ann Lewis looked around at the small group gathered in the White House chief of staff’s office for the morning meeting of the president’s inner circle and was stunned at the male-female ratio in the room.

“I remember looking around at the 7:45 meeting and saying to myself, ‘Gee, I think we’re half and half,’ ” said Lewis, who recently was promoted to the post of counsel to the president. “I was very pleased about that.”

In the last quarter of the Clinton presidency, a steady exodus of big names from the White House--many of them white men--has made room for more minorities and women to move into coveted West Wing jobs.

Lower-ranking officials often ascend to top jobs in a lame-duck White House, especially toward the end of a second term. But in the past, even the incoming candidates in the pipeline were often white men.

Now, because of the Clinton administration’s early insistence on filling a certain number of slots with diverse candidates--a policy derided by critics as a quota approach to government service--those ready to climb the ladder include an array of women and minority members who might not have been there otherwise--and who will be there as prime candidates for top positions in future Democratic administrations.

Terry Edmonds, an African American, is the new chief speech writer. Maria Echaveste, a Latina, is one of the deputy chiefs of staff. Minyon Moore, an African American woman, is the political director. Thurgood Marshall Jr., whose father was the nation’s first black Supreme Court justice, is assistant to the president for Cabinet affairs and has just been nominated to head the U.S. Marshals Service. Loretta Ucelli is communications director, one of the few women ever to hold the post. Presidential advisor Karen Tramontano is an openly gay woman.

Cheryl Mills, the 34-year-old African American lawyer who vigorously defended the president at his Senate impeachment trial this year, declined the prized position of White House counsel earlier this month. She said that her decision not to become the first woman to serve in the job was painful and that she struggled with concerns about disappointing the president and First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton. On Thursday, Clinton named Deputy Assistant Atty. Gen. Beth Nolan, 47, to the post.

Women and Minorities Gain Numbers, Power

Of the 29 people with assistant to the president titles, six are white women, two are minority women, five are minority men and 16 are white men. When Clinton took office in 1993, there were 21 assistants, including three minorities and seven women. For women, the ratio is not much different from the first term. But women and minorities have gained in numbers and, they say, real power.

The metamorphosis has not been painless. Sexist attitudes and racial tensions have marred the record.

And, arguably, the weightiest jobs in the White House remain in the hands of white men: Chief of Staff John Podesta, National Security Advisor Samuel R. “Sandy” Berger, domestic policy advisor Bruce Reed and National Economic Council Director Gene Sperling.

But in the White House, where access to the Oval Office is a reflection of power, the influence of women and minorities is discernibly on the rise. Sylvia Matthews, deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget, has wide influence on what battles the president fights with Congress over how the nation’s money is spent. Echaveste and Tramontano weigh in on issues across the board. They, along with Lewis, join about 10 top staff members who meet with Podesta at 7:45 every morning before a larger staff meeting at 8 a.m.

The women and minorities in positions of power believe that the president’s policy priorities reflect, in part, the insights they bring because of their backgrounds.

Mickey Ibarra, a Latino who is director of intergovernmental relations, said that his first responsibility is to advocate the president’s policy priorities with local and state elected officials and represent their views to him.

But he acknowledged that he has his own policy goals. “In addition to that, you bet I have an interest in education and work force development in the Hispanic community,” Ibarra said. “It’s about time that we have folks who bring that connection with the Hispanic community here at the White House.”

When Clinton wanted to draft an education plan aimed at improving basic skills and lowering the dropout rate, he turned to Ibarra and Echaveste to develop proposals that would work in the Latino community.

Diversity is not just a numbers game for Clinton, who has always seemed comfortable working with women and people of other ethnic heritages and has consistently demanded greater diversity in his circle of advisors. As recently as a year ago, he was still expressing frustration that there were too many people from similar backgrounds sitting at the table when he made big decisions, one senior official said.

Despite the tone set by the president, senior women in the first term often complained of difficulties in dealing with a “white boys only” culture. Dee Dee Myers had the high-profile job of press secretary to the president but was barred from meetings that she thought she needed to attend.

Even in the first years of Clinton’s second term, a few high-ranking white males--though asking to remain anonymous--admitted to a reporter that sexism had led them to make life difficult for female staff members. Some of the newly promoted women now believe that the macho atmosphere in the White House has improved. “It turned out that was more personality driven. It didn’t come with the walls,” Lewis said.

But some problems persist. African American staff members tend to associate with one another, both in and out of the White House, as do whites, creating cliques and a feeling of division, officials said.

“There are normal racial tensions at times and some uneasiness of some people to deal with people who are different,” Edmonds said.

But Marshall said that in access to policy formulation, where it matters most, he has never felt racial bias.

From Foster Homes, Farm Workers’ Family

“I have walked into plenty of meetings where I was not formally told I was welcome but knew I needed to be there to do my job,” he said. “I was never made to feel I overstepped.”

Another distinguishing feature of the women and minorities who have made it to the top in the Clinton White House is that they include quite a few individuals who did not come from privileged backgrounds or attend elite institutions.

Ibarra and his brother grew up in foster homes after their teenage mother divorced their immigrant Mexican father. Echaveste is the daughter of migrant farm workers. She defied her father, who believed a young woman’s place was in the home until marriage, and accepted a scholarship to Stanford University. Edmonds graduated from Morgan State University in Baltimore, a historically black college that has not often been a proving ground for White House assignments.

Echaveste said that because so many minorities and women were appointed to jobs at the start of the administration, filling top posts now with trusted minorities and women seems natural.

“These folks were in the pipeline, so people had a chance to see that they had the capacity,” said Echaveste.

Edmonds, 49, is a case in point. He had a relatively obscure 20-year career in public relations and communications in the Washington area when he decided to apply for a job in the new Clinton administration. He was hired in 1993 to write speeches for Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala, where he made a name for himself as a talented wordsmith who could capture complicated issues in clear, persuasive prose.

In 1995 he was brought into the White House as one of five speech writers and was well regarded during a 2 1/2-year tenure.

When his wife had a stroke, he transferred to a less demanding job at the Social Security Administration. After his wife’s health improved eight months ago, Edmonds accepted a temporary assignment helping write a book on race relations that is to be published soon under the president’s name. Thus he was under the noses of the senior staff when the search for a chief speech writer began.

Edmonds, 49, is ecstatic about his job, which he started Monday.

“I am the first African American to do this, so it is somewhat of an awesome historical opportunity and responsibility,” he said. “But having been in that office before and working with the president before, I’m coming into it with my eyes wide open.”

Edmonds said that seeing other people of color in major jobs since the start of the administration has helped him believe in his future in the White House.

“From the time I got here, there were people sprinkled throughout in responsible positions,” he said. “It has always felt like it was possible for me to progress.”

This has not always been the case, in either Democratic or Republican administrations.

Robert Ben Johnson, an African American who was a low-level appointee in the Jimmy Carter administration and has worked for Clinton since 1993, said that his experiences in the two administrations were quite different.

As special assistant to President Carter, Johnson was one of that administration’s highest-ranking blacks in the late 1970s. There were no black assistants to the president or deputy assistants.

“You didn’t expect to climb very fast back then,” said Johnson, who worked in the same post for three years under Carter and has been promoted several times in the Clinton White House.

“I was amazed when I walked back into the White House in May of 1993 and saw not only a number of African American employees but also Hispanic and Asian employees,” said Johnson, who heads the president’s race initiative.

Now Johnson is one of five blacks with the title of assistant to the president.

While top women and minorities are gaining experience that will prepare them to assume powerful posts if a Democrat wins the presidency in 2000, there are also young minorities and women in lower-tier White House jobs who are likely to keep moving up the ladder in a future Democratic administration.

Irma Martinez, 29, who grew up in the Aliso Village public housing project in Los Angeles’ Boyle Heights neighborhood, works under Marshall as the key contact person between several Cabinet agencies and the White House.

Her experiences growing up give her special insight into her work. “When I deal with [the Department of Housing and Urban Development], I have the perspective of growing up in a housing project,” said Martinez.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

The Changing Face of the White House

Of the 29 White House staffers who now hold the title assistant to the president, 16 are white men, six are white women, two are minority women and five are minority men.

Maria Echaveste

* Age 45

* Position Deputy chief of staff

* Education Stanford undergrad, UC Berkeley Boalt Hall law degree

* Background Corporate litigator, bankruptcy attorney in Los Angeles and New York

***

Terry Edmonds

* Age 49

* Position Chief speech-writer

* Education Undergrad from Morgan State University, Baltimore, MD.

* Background public relations, marketing, speechwriter for Health & Human Services

***

Mickey Ibarra

* Age 48

* Position Director for intergovernmental affairs

* Education Brigham Young University undergrad; University of Utah masters in education.

* Background Special-ed teacher, staffer for National Education Association.

***

Minyon Moore

* Age 41

* Position Political director

* Education University of Illinois-Chicago

* Background Former White House deputy political director; Democratic National Committee political director, youth coordinator for Jesse Jackson’s presidential bids in 1984 and 1988.

***

Ann Lewis

* Age 61

* Position Counselor

* Edu-cation Attended Radcliffe

* Background former White House communi-cations director; Vice president for public policy of Planned Parenthood. Political director, Democratic National Committee.

***

Thurgood Marshall Jr.

* Age 43

* Position Cabinet secretary

* Education University of Virginia undergrad; University of Virginia School of Law

* Background Former aide to Sen. Albert Gore Jr., son of first black Supreme Court justice Thurgood Marshall.

***

Robert Ben Johnson

* Age 55

* Position Staff director for race commission

* Education Awarded honorary doctorate by Morgan State University

* Background Former district of Columbia administrator, Carter White House aide.