Jimmy's Pal Rings a Bell, Off-Key

By all accounts, Jimmy Carter knew there would be some hot reaction to his nomination of an old Georgia chum and political confidant, former Federal Judge Griffin Bell, as Attorney General. The transition team at the Justice Department had sent a memo to Plains warning of a storm of protests. They were right--and the storm went beyond black leaders' upset about Bell's mixed record on civil rights during his 14 years on the New Orleans-based Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. Editorial outrage ran the political gamut. The New York Times's James Reston blasted the nomination as "insensitive, willful, stubborn and even selfish." The Wall Street Journal found it "all too reminiscent of the Kennedy-Nixon tradition of choosing an Attorney General."

Bell, a Georgia country boy who made good, received his judgeship after helping to run John Kennedy's campaign in Georgia in 1960. By most reckonings, Bell's record in civil rights cases was generally good, at least in Deep South terms. But parts of that record have long rankled rights leaders:

> Bell has opposed court decisions calling for busing to achieve school desegregation.

>He endorsed Richard Nixon's abortive nomination of G. Harrold Carswell to the Supreme Court.

> He upheld the Georgia legislature's 1966 refusal to seat black Activist Julian Bond because of Bond's endorsement of an anti-Viet Nam War statement by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. The majority opinion branded the SNCC statement "a call to action based on race ... It aligns the civil rights organization with 'colored people in such other countries as the Dominican Republic, the Congo, South America and Rhodesia.' "

Bell did not help his cause--or Carter's--with his fumbling response to newsmen's questions after his nomination. He insisted that when he endorsed Carswell, he was not aware that Carswell had once made a strongly pro-segregationist speech. Yet the speech was widely reported at the time, as he later conceded. He also waffled when questioned about his membership in two Atlanta clubs--the Capital City Club and the Piedmont Driving Club--that have not admitted blacks or Jews as members. Bell announced that he would quit the clubs only after Carter had made it clear that he hoped Bell would do so. (Budget Director-designate Bert Lance and Charles Kirbo, Carter's closest political adviser, are also members of the Piedmont Club; Houston Businessman Charles W. Duncan Jr., tapped as Deputy Defense Secretary, is a member of Piedmont, as well as two similarly discriminatory clubs in Houston.)

Bell's record contains several pluses. His rulings have been pro-civil rights in employment practices and voting cases. In the 1960s, Bell was a pioneer in urging that Southern courts call more blacks for jury duty ("If you don't get any Negroes on the jury panel, the system is wrong").

Although Carter gave the impression that he was considering several candidates for Justice, it has become clear that Bell was Jimmy's man from the start "because he feels comfortable with him." Aides say, although Carter anticipated some negative reaction, he may have been surprised by the uproar.

While Bell's confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee could be lively, the committee is chaired by Mississippi's archconservative James O. Eastland, who urged Carter to appoint Bell. At week's end, moreover, some black organizations that had loudly opposed Bell appeared ready to recon sider in view of his pro-civil rights decisions. Certain Carter watchers, meanwhile, forecast that the President-elect will name some well-known civil rights activists to important jobs at Justice just to speed up the cooling-off process.

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