Shift at the FTC

Depending on how warmly he feels about a departing subordinate, Richard Nixon accepts resignations with either "deep personal regret," "deep regret," "regret," or simply "appreciation." When Miles W. Kirkpatrick resigned last week after two years as chairman of the Federal Trade Commission, a White House spokesman could muster only "appreciation" for Kirkpatrick's services. After some questioning by the press, that lukewarm feeling was heated up a day later to "deep regret." Even so, as a Republican Senator explained: "Nixon expects people to know fundamentally what his philosophy is and generally to follow it. When they don't, he has ways of letting them know it is time to leave."

Kirkpatrick insists that he was not shoved out. But it is no secret in Washington that the President has been bothered by the proconsumer vigor that Kirkpatrick injected into the once lethargic FTC. Under him the agency began requiring advertisers to submit periodic documentation of their claims. The FTC ordered a few advertisers--including Sugar Information, Inc. and the makers of Profile bread--to run corrective ads to straighten out earlier misleading claims. The FTC also advocated that broadcasters allow "counteradvertising" by groups that oppose a product or a message that regular advertisers are trying to push. Under the proposal, for example, antipollution forces would be entitled to free time to rebut auto-company commercials. The FTC charged four big food companies (Kellogg, General Foods, General Mills and Quaker Oats) with monopolizing the breakfast cereal market, and tried to block a merger between two large drug firms (Parke-Davis and Warner-Lambert). Last month the agency accused Xerox of illegally muscling competition from the $1.7 billion copier market.

Kirkpatrick will probably be succeeded by Lewis Engman, an aide to White House Domestic Policy Chief John Ehrlichman. There is speculation in Washington that Engman, who helped prepare the Administration's since-rejected proposal for a value-added tax, may not continue the FTC's strong proconsumer orientation. But the job sometimes makes the man. After drawing some initial criticism, a number of Nixon appointees have turned out to be eager and effective regulators. Among them: Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman William J. Casey (who is moving to the State Department), Environmental Protection Administrator William Ruckelshaus--and Kirkpatrick himself, who was originally opposed by some consumer groups as being too soft.

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