THE CAMPAIGN: Candidate Carter: 1 Apologize’

Slamming a fist against his desk, Atlanta Mayor Maynard Jackson last week postponed plans to endorse Jimmy Carter and angrily exclaimed: “Is there no white politician I can trust?” Jesse Jackson, director of Chicago’s Operation PUSH, called Carter’s views “a throwback to Hitlerian racism.” Mayor Richard Hatcher of Gary, Ind., declared: “We’ve created a Frankenstein’s monster with a Southern drawl, a more cultured version of the old Confederate at the schoolhouse door.” Added Civil Rights Activist Bayard Rustin of New York: “He is only giving ammunition to those who would divide America. [He has] a big smile with no heart.”

What outraged the black leaders was Carter’s ill-considered remarks last week about neighborhood integration.

One of his phrases, “ethnic purity,” particularly offended many blacks and whites. The episode had overnight become the cause celebre of the campaign and sent the Carter camp reeling. Was this one of those fatal slips that can destroy a candidate? For the first time in what had been a near faultless campaign to reach the White House, the candidate had stumbled badly. He had confidently fielded highly complex issues, from abortion to defense spending, yet he ignited a brushfire over race—just as white liberals were beginning to swing behind him and his broad support among blacks was being widely noted (TIME, April 5).

The furor began when Carter was asked in Indianapolis to explain his recent statement that there was “nothing wrong with ethnic purity being maintained” in neighborhoods. Carter replied that he wholeheartedly supports open-housing laws that make it a crime to refuse to sell or rent a house or apartment on the grounds of race, color or creed. But he opposes Government programs “to inject black families into a white neighborhood just to create some sort of integration.” Said he: “I have nothing against a community that is made up of people who are Polish, or who are Czechoslovakians, or who are French Canadians or who are blacks trying to maintain the ethnic purity of their neighborhoods. This is a natural inclination.”

Fleeing Whites. Thus Carter is against federal policies that would require the building of public and other federally subsidized housing on sites deliberately chosen to desegregate neighborhoods. With different language and emphasis, both Morris Udall and Henry Jackson have expressed reservations about too vigorous a policy of placing low-rent housing in high or middle income neighborhoods. Many black leaders have voiced similar misgivings. Says Eugene Callander, former president of the New York Urban Coalition: “Government should not break up a neighborhood on a numerical basis. As soon as the Government does, the white folks flee.”

Still, reporters thought Carter’s views needed to be clarified. Carter was asked how he felt about federal pressure for low-income housing in the suburbs. That decision should be left to local governments, he said, adding that he supported local requirements that new suburban housing be “compatible with the quality of homes already there.”

As the reporters persisted with their questions, Carter’s face reddened with anger, and he began to sweat. Instead of softening his language, he spoke of housing policies in terms of “black intrusion,” of “alien groups” and of “a diametrically opposite kind of family.” Some blacks began to suspect that Carter was showing signs of being a closet racist, even though his record in private and public life has demonstrated that he is not. Other critics suggested that he was using the offending words to try to win the support of white ethnics.

Carter’s rivals for the presidential nomination promptly seized on his gaffe. Udall accused Carter of practicing “the politics of racial division.” Jackson called Carter’s language “amazing” and said that the Georgian “will be explaining that for the rest of the campaign.” Protests poured in from black groups, including the Urban League and the congressional Black Caucus.

Despite the pleas of his staff, Carter refused to retreat at first—thus giving a rare public demonstration of his obsti-nancy under pressure. Asked why he, a man who is generally precise and subtle in his use of language, persisted in using words that offended so many people, Carter became snappish. “You know what ‘alien’ means,” he said, “and it doesn’t have the negative connotation you are trying to put on it.” Reported TIME Correspondent Stanley Cloud, who has observed Carter closely for several months: “When he is angry, he can be very, very stubborn—very much the south Georgia turtle.”

Contrite Retreat. Finally, Carter bowed to the pressure and backed down. At a press conference in Philadelphia, he contritely retreated from his language —but not his stand on public housing. Said he: “I was careless in the words I used, and I apologize for it. It was a very serious mistake.” He took a further step toward working his way out of trouble with black voters. He announced that he no longer regards the Humphrey-Hawkins full-employment bill as too costly because it has been significantly amended, and now supports it. The measure would require the Government to reduce adult unemployment to less than 3%—a plan that is strongly endorsed by most black leaders.

Still, that maneuver may not restore Carter to the good graces of many blacks and white liberals. Reported TIME Political Correspondent Robert Ajemian: “A lot of people have been waiting for him to stumble over his own piety. His statement showed a certain insularity in his thinking—a narrow outlook rather than a broad one. If the mistake had come earlier, before his primary victories, it could have been ruinous. Many people are already likening it, despite significant differences, to Edmund Muskie’s crying in 1972, or George Romney’s ‘brainwashing’ in 1968.” As it is, Carter was badly damaged, and his road to recovery may be long and painful.