Nader on Nader

CONSUMERISM Nader on Nader

Ralph Nader may have discovered perpetual motion. Now in his sixth year as the nation's foremost consumer champion, he is busier than ever, speaking on campuses, recruiting raiders and issuing reports. In recent months Nader and his associates have released studies on pollution of the Savannah River, the condition of nursing homes, and nationwide water pollution. Two investigations have resulted in books: One Life, One Physician and What to Do --An Action Manual for Lemon Owners. Forthcoming, among other things, are reports on occupational health and safety, the antitrust division of the Department of Justice, and California land policy. Though at first Nader's charges often seemed extreme and wildly exaggerated, he has so often been right and so seldom off base that he has built a large fund of credibility even among his targets. Last week TIME Correspondent Hays Gorey caught up with Nader at the U.S. Air Force Academy, Colorado Springs, where he was addressing the student body. In an interview rare for its direction, Gorey spoke with Nader at length about his life, his motivations and his work.

Natural Rebel. Says Nader: "Well, everything begins with the parents. It has to be because of them that I have never felt pressured by the existing status symbols. Actually I had a casual upbringing. What my parents taught, they taught inductively. They knew it was natural for children to rebel. So they didn't talk at us or particularly to us. Just around us, and we listened. They came here [from Lebanon] to be in a land of justice, and they saw justice declining." The concept of beleaguered justice has remained with Nader ever since. At age four, he used to listen to lawyers argue cases at the courthouse in Winsted, Conn., where his father runs a restaurant and bakery. By age eight, he conceived of the lawyer as a defender of the people, and determined to be one. "But when I really decided what I wanted to do," he recalls, "was when I was at Harvard Law School. All the courses trained us how to defend corporations. I wondered where the lawyers for the ordinary people were being trained, and discovered that they weren't."

The ideas took time to mature and more time to put into effect, but Nader has been unerring in his dedication to his original precepts. "You know, a lot of people just don't care what's being done to them. Others do care and ask, 'What can I do?' We are living the answer. We are creating a new professional citizen role. We are developing a reform goal that is noninstitutional [not dependent on institutional power, corporate or government]. In this country we long ago perfected ways to give representation and help to the special interests. Now we need to concentrate ori how to help the nonspecial interests.

"Something else that's important: I think we're showing that people can develop independent powers of persuasion" And six years ago, there really were no independent sources of reliable information outside the Government and industry. Now you have several. Bob Choate--the one who disclosed the low nutritional value of breakfast cereals --is one. I think we've had something to do with things like that."

Not to Be Loved. Nader's gift is not one of personal mien. His narrow-lapelled, ever rumpled suits and too short sideburns make no concession to the generally young, liberal audience he addresses. What Nader radiates is pure purpose, an almost fanatical sincerity. He asks nothing for himself, financially or politically, and is virtually monastic in his private life. Though he earns more than $100,000 a year in honorariums, he lives on less than $5,000 in one room of a boardinghouse, minus a car and television. The rest of the money goes into his investigations.

Isn't this ascetic existence carrying things a bit too far? "Dollars have never been the prime thing," Nader says. "It's always been boring to think about money. What we're doing is getting along on the sheer power of the idea; the idea of more justice for, and less exploitation of, the ordinary individual.

"If you want to be loved, you'll be co-opted. People often ask me how I choose people to work with me. Well, you start off by saying they have to be bright, hardworking, the usual traits. But the one key probably is how willing they are not to be loved. We've had raiders who will start off on an investigation, say, of the Food and Drug Administration; and after a while one or two come back and say the people over there were so nice to them that they just can't write reports that are critical."

How can he detect someone anxious to be loved before hiring him? "You can't. But there's no problem of easing them out. They ease themselves out. They can't perform."

To Love. But can Nader be so harsh, almost unfeeling in his dedication? Just as it begins to appear so, he sits back and muses: "It's more important to love than to want to be loved. What would happen to me if I went out to Jim Roche's [chairman of the board of General Motors] house to dinner, for instance? Well, pretty soon it's Ralph and Jim, and pretty soon there's a report coming out on G.M., and someone says, 'You know you can't do this to Jim. Remember those great dinners at his house. Not to good old Jim.' Well, there it is --the most important quality for this kind of work is to have no anxiety to be loved."

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