Blast from a Bishop

The Nixon Administration normally takes little note of criticism by black militants, campus radicals and war dissenters. Last week, however, it appeared severely stung when the annual convention of the moderate N.A.A.C.P. gave an ovation of cheers to a blanket denunciation of the Administration's racial policies by the organization's board chairman, Bishop Stephen G. Spottswood. The 72-year-old black leader accused the Administration of being anti-Negro and charged that it has adopted a "calculated policy to work against the needs and aspirations of the largest minority of its citizens."

Speaking in Cincinnati, Spottswood suggested that the Administration goes along with whites who "always manage to find some issue other than race to which they give their priority attention, the latest of which is pollution and the ecology." He listed some specific Government acts that he contended have "given encouragement to the Southern racists." Among them were the nominations of Clement Haynsworth Jr. and George Harrold Carswell to the U.S. Supreme Court, the Pat Moynihan memo suggesting a "benign neglect" of racial problems and the Administration's initial support, now reversed, of tax exemption for "white, separate private schools."

Worst Light. The White House took the unusual step of replying to the charges. The vehicle was a telegram from Presidential Consultant Leonard Garment, Nixon's chief liaison with civil rights groups. Garment termed Spottswood's attack "unfair and disheartening," and said that it "misrepresents" the Administration's record. "It is one thing to criticize, to give voice to deeply felt concerns," the telegram said. "But it is an entirely different thing to search out ways to portray the actions of this Administration in the worst possible light, to rally every fear and reinforce every anxiety. This sows distrust and makes our commonly agreed-on goals more difficult to achieve."

The Garment refutation listed some substantial Administration moves, including the Philadelphia Plan to open construction jobs to blacks, a proposal to spend $1.5 billion to aid school desegregation and actual gains in Southern school desegregation. He also claimed Administration credit for the expanded Voting Rights Act that was finally passed, even though this was a far more effective bill than the one Nixon officials had proposed.

Not Aginners. One accurate assessment of the controversy was offered by former Attorney General Ramsey Clark, who told the N.A.A.C.P. convention that he "hated to believe" that the Administration was antiblack. "It's not that they are aginners," he said, "but rather they are do-nothingers. They are guilty of neglect, not malice." In fact, the Administration can have it both ways. Even if it is not really antiblack, the charge that it is certainly does not constitute a political liability in some parts of the U.S. On the other hand, as the Administration proved last week, it has done just enough for the blacks to be able to put up a vigorous defense when accused of having done nothing.

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