Ev's Mutation

If anything, Everett Dirksen's performance in the Senate last week was entirely too improbable to have been sinister. Never notably troubled by the hobgoblin of little minds, the minority leader executed one of his more spectacular political somersaults in becoming once again the champion of the civil rights bill.

For six weeks, the Senate lay becalmed in a turbid filibuster sustained by a coalition of Southern Democrats and conservative Republicans. Chief among the obstructionists was Dirksen. The bill, as passed by the House, provided federal protection for civil rights workers. In the Senate, however, Minnesota's Walter Mondale gambled by adding an amendment to end discrimination in the sale or rental of 97% of the nation's housing units.

To Dirksen, the open-housing provision seemed just as "unconstitutional" a few weeks ago as it did in 1966, when he succeeded in killing a similar Administration proposal. He lobbied against the Mondale measure until Majority Leader Mike Mansfield called for a cloture vote to break the filibuster. The liberal Republican-Democratic coalition fell seven votes short of the necessary two-thirds majority.

No Apologies. Yet it was clear that most of the Senate favored the measure. As in 1964, when he helped shep herd that year's sweeping civil rights bill into law, Dirksen abruptly appointed himself field marshal of the liberals' forces. Together with a squad of his lawyers known as "Dirksen's Bombers," Ev spent more than two days in negotiations with Senate liberals to fashion a compromise bill. The legislation that emerged would affect an estimated total of 44.6 million of the roughly 65 million housing units in the nation.

"One would be a strange creature indeed in this world of mutation," Dirksen intoned, "if in the face of reality he did not change his mind. I do not apologize for my conduct."

There was no need to do so in the Senate, except perhaps to the Southerners, who predictably muttered "betrayal." The liberals extravagantly welcomed his defection to their cause. With tears in his eyes, Michigan's Philip Hart took the floor and said huskily, "Thank you very much."

As soon as the quickly drawn compromise was ready, it seemed certain that cloture would shut off the filibuster and the bill be speedily enacted. But Dirksen had miscalculated his power to swing most of the conservative Republicans with him. Some were affronted by the haste with which he demanded cloture and a final vote. The nation's powerful and well-informed real estate lobby deluged Senators with telegrams demanding the measure's defeat.

Insurance Policy. Dirksen, for all his gifts of legerdemain, found himself without a solid two-thirds majority for cloture. Therefore he and his son-in-law, Tennessee's Senator Howard Baker, sought to mollify the conservatives by introducing new amendments, this time to weaken the open-housing section. Together, their amendments would exclude from the ban on dis crimination all single-family, owner-occupied housing--potentially 30 million units in the U.S.

Even that was not enough, and at week's end the Senate again balked at cloture. The bill is up once more this week and probably will be passed, though perhaps in battered form.

Politicians and Senate reporters were mystified by Dirksen's volte-face--though after watching his ambidextrous performances in the past, they should not have been. Many believed that he simply found himself on a losing side, unable to sway the bulk of his Republican forces, and decided to assume the winner's cause with a flourish.

But for all his flamboyance, Dirksen probably was taking a longer, pragmatic view toward racial violence and the November elections. If riots erupt again and voters accuse congressional leaders--especially Republicans--of obstructing laws to improve life in the ghetto, Dirksen will be able to point to his considerable, if weirdly won, achievement in open housing. As one of the President's advisers put it: "Dirksen is just taking out a little insurance against the summer."

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