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AppendixB JAMES FARMER ON MALEK MEMO I agree heartily with the main point of The Post's June 13th editorial, "How to Buy Votes." Buying (and selling) votes in any way whatever, and for whatever purpose, is entirely reprehensible. Yet, I was surprised and disappointed that The Post did not seek my view of the facts before going into print with its assertions of my involvement in so venal an enterprise. Frederic Malek's May 2, 1972 memo quoted by The Post is in error: I. Your editorial reports the memorandum as saying that I had "been given a grant from OE to fund [my] project." The fact is, however, that my black think tank project, the Public Policy Training Institute, was not funded until a full year later, on May I, 1973. It was not, to my knowledge , even approved for funding until March 1973-ten months after Malek's memo and four months after the election. 2. Your editorial also reports the memorandum as saying that I would therefore "be able to spend a major part of [my] time on the above project while also making time available to the election effort." (Italics mine.) The fact is that since the project did not begin until a year later, well after the election, obviously I could not possibly have done that or committed myself to do it. The fact is, further, that I did not make any time whatsoever available to the re-election of the President. 3. The memorandum is further reported as saying that I made an agreement to "do speaking on ... behalf of the re-election effort and also to talk to key black leaders in an effort to gain their loyalties." The fact is that I made no such commitment. And at no time did I do any speaking on behalf of the President's re-election. Nor did I speak to any black leaders or anyone else, in an attempt to gain their allegiance to that effort or to encourage them to vote for Nixon. What I did do, at meetings with Fred Malek and other Republican officials, with Democratic officials in my writings, and in public lectures was to reiterate my basic theme-voiced publicly since 1965-that minorities achieve political leverage by being unwed to either party and by voting for candidates regardless of party label. Since resigning in frustration as an HEW assistant secretary in December 1970, I have criticized the Nixon administration on many counts, including 362 APPENDIX the weakening of desegregation guidelines, exploitation of the busing issue,. nominations to the Supreme Court, and failure to support vital parts of {he antipoverty program. I have also credited the administration with such positive moves as the Philadelphia Plan (later dropped), the Family Assistance Plan (also abandoned), and efforts to support minority enterprise. I do not intend to weaken in my determination to build a private nonprofit "think-tank" on minority problems in order to determine where we go from here and how we can best attain minority goals in the complex days of the seventies and beyond. I believed when I left HEW, and I believe equally now, that the federal government has a responsibility to assist in supporting such an effort, for the "think tank" concept involves both a study of basic public policy and pursuit of the constitutional mandates of "ensuring domestic tranquility" and "promoting the general welfare." The precedents are numerous: the Urban Institute and the Rand Corporation, for instance, have become multimillion dollar research operations largely through government grants and contracts. I certainly see nothing sinister in their seeking and getting government funded projects to insure that we plan before we act. In most public policy research, however, the minority perspective is largely lacking. This is one reason, in my opinion, why government policies affecting minorities have failed to achieve their objectives in education and welfare. That is one of the failures in our domestic policy which my associates and I seek to address, using research and planning as a catalyst. The Public Policy Training Institute, a first step toward a minority "think tank" was funded on May 1, 1973, for $150,000 to train selected higher education personel in public policy issues with particular reference to developing institutions. My associates and I will go on, of course, in our efforts to help in a small way to build a better and more equitable America as The Post must persist in its campaign to cleanse the body...

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