Dissing History — Watergate Redux
José de la Isla     [Photo]

Earlier this month, HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson shared a political morality lesson with a Dallas audience at a forum sponsored by the Real Estate Executive Council, a national consortium. He said he had a problem with a firm that was about to be awarded a fat government contract whose owner told him he didn’t respect President Bush.

Jackson went on, “Why should I reward someone who doesn’t like the President so they can use funds to try to campaign against the President?  Logic says they didn’t get the contract.” Clearly, by this criterion, only the President’s friends are eligible for contracts.

Days later, after calls for an investigation and his resignation, Jackson said he made up the anecdote.

Either way, that kind of bullying is unethical and as intimidation, illegal.

Three decades ago, in 1972, Senate Watergate Committee hearings revealed there indeed was a White House plot to coax, cajole and intimidate Hispanic contractors, Some firms were manipulated to fall in line with a standing president.

The committee found widespread doctoring of the government process, one intended to be fair but that was actually requiring loyalty to President Richard Nixon. The “Responsiveness Program,” as the plan was called, flagrantly attempted to channel the nascent Hispanic vote into the administration’s ranks.

A handful of the administration’s appointed officials were subpoenaed to testify about the plot, which was largely designed by Fred Malek, a prominent Republican and today a co-owner of the Washington, D.C., baseball club.

The White House taskforce, known as the “Brown Mafia,” worked diligently to find out who was loyal and deserving and who wasn’t. They facilitated contracts and grants to friends, dirty tricks occurred, and some contractors were ostracized. The lines of activity between the party and the White House were blurred.

Out of the many disclosures few people went to jail. Charles Colson, who had managed part of the Brown Mafia, served time for his role as paymaster to the real Watergate burglars.

From the caper, Hispanic community leaders realized they were over-dependent on government officials to guide federal grants and contracts into their neighborhoods. In the end, these leaders went along with dismantling the President’s Cabinet Committee for the Spanish Speaking, which had been the main broker between Hispanics and the government.

It became patently obvious that Hispanic community development was not in good hands when any political party thought it had the group in its pocket.  Democratic Party passivity was as damaging as Republican boosterism.

Part of the solution was to elect responsible officials at all levels.  Eventually that led to amendments to the Civil Rights Act in 1975 to eliminate voter registrar and language discrimination and gerrymandering practices that kept Hispanic representation to negligible levels.

Today, Latinos are the fastest growing group in registering and voting.  In the 28 years from 1972 to 2000, registration increased 202 percent, compared to 27 percent for the nation as a whole. Votes cast increased by 182 percent, compared to 25 percent for the general population. The fact is Latinos are registering at a rate six times greater and turning out to vote five times greater than the general population, according to the United States Hispanic Leadership Institute.

The Watergate Committee’s 1973 findings amply documented the political tinkering of the government’s administrative process. These revelations and the White House involvement in a cover-up of the Watergate burglary brought about prosecutions and Richard Nixon’s resignation.

The main wrongdoing by the administration’s Brown Mafia operatives, said Watergate Committee’s chief counsel Sam Dash, was to disqualify people from competition, who “if you are not in favor of the administration, you were cut off.”

Judging from Secretary Jackson’s performance in Dallas, that lesson has worn thin over the years.

(Houston-based José de la Isla is author of The Rise of Hispanic Political Power, Archer Books, 2003.  He writes a weekly column for Hispanic Link News Service and may be contacted by e-mail at joseisla3@yahoo.com)

© 2006, Hispanic Link News Service
05/28/06
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