Nader's Neophytes

As a one-man scourge of dangerous cars, diseased meat, dirty fish and innumerable other public nuisances, Washington Attorney Ralph Nader has become the self-appointed lawyer for U.S. consumers. This summer Nader, 34, took aim at Washington's official bastion of consumer protection, the Federal Trade Commission, and infected other youthful Americans with his muckraking zeal. Seven bright young Ivy Leaguers flanked him, five of them with legal training, badgering startled FTC officials with pointed questions that Nader believes Congress should ask but never has.

In keeping with their mentor's way, Nader's apprentice inquisitors were unpaid, uninvited and unflappable. "It's not easy," says Nader, "for a bureaucrat to give them an evasive answer. These kids know too much."

Toothless Watchdog. When one of Nader's sleuths sought information that he believed should be public property, FTC Chairman Paul Rand Dixon angrily ejected him from his office. John Schulz, 29, a fledgling lawyer from Yale who is the patriarch of Nader's neophytes, had requested a copy of a monthly FTC memorandum detailing complaints made to the commission. Dixon told him that the document was for FTC use only. After slamming his door on Schulz, Dixon threatened to bar all of Nader's investigators from the building--an unenforceable fiat, since the FTC building is legally open to the public.

The seven intend to publish their findings in December, but their interim judgment is severe. They argue that the FTC's billing as guardian of consumer rights convicts the commission of misleading advertising--one of the principal sins it is supposed to eliminate. With only 1,170 employees and a paltry $16 million budget, the commission, they charge, is a toothless watchdog with a sorry record of too little protection too late.

Student Power. Nader's investigators also claim that the FTC is reluctant to tackle enterprises that hire high-priced lawyers and is chary of publicizing its findings. The commission, Nader testified recently before the Senate Select Committee on Small Business, has made a study of the auto industry that is being kept secret from the taxpayer, while manufacturers have received copies of the findings. The FTC insists that the report is still incomplete.

One member of Nader's task force supported himself in part by serving as part-time superintendent of an apartment building. Two others wangled rent-free rooms as caretakers. William Howard Taft IV, a great-grandson of President Taft, who is in his second year at Harvard Law School, lived on his savings. Edward Cox, 21, took a few days off to visit a girl friend while her father was winning the Republican nomination for President. Cox had met Tricia Nixon, now 22, in Manhattan at a Chapin School dance, and they have been going out together "more or less regularly" for four years. Judith Areen, 24, the lone girl on Nader's team, conducted a spare-time investigation of the FTC's West Coast regional office while working for a Los Angeles law firm.

Bird-dogging for Nader meant toiling six or seven days a week, but the group's enthusiasm is undimmed. "This is student power," says Nader. "Young people ask: 'Is the system sick?' Well, if they suspect it is, they should diagnose it. If it is sick, we can ask them 'What is your prescription?' "

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