American Notes MIAMI

When Claude Pepper died last May at 88, the tenuous harmony among Hispanics, Anglos and blacks in his Miami congressional district seemed to depart with him. Last week Republican State Senator Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Cuban American, won Pepper's old seat, defeating Democrat Gerald Richman 53% to 47%, after a race marked by ethnic calumny.

Republican Party chairman Lee Atwater set the tone last June by declaring that since Hispanics account for nearly 50% of the district's voters, electing a Cuban American to the seat was his "No. 1 goal." Shot back Richman, a former head of the state bar association: "This is an American seat." For the rest of the campaign, the opponents bickered over each other's alleged bigotry. Spanish radio stations added to the nastiness by charging that a vote for Richman was a vote for Fidel Castro. Although Richman won a majority of black and Anglo voters, Ros-Lehtinen's 90% support from Hispanic voters gave her the edge.