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                                                                                COVER STORIES, Page 41

THE POLITICAL INTEREST

What Can Be Done?


By Michael Kramer


    For 14 minutes from the oval office last Friday the echo
was familiar. It was George Bush at his Inaugural. There were
kind words, gentle words and tough words -- all appropriate,
all profound in their simplicity. It was good, plain talk from
the heart. Nothing flashy; none of the "Message: I care"
nonsense the President pushed on New Hampshire voters last
winter when it was his survival and his future that were at
stake.

    The nation needed to hear its leader condemn the mindless
rioting -- and it was good to learn that a federal grand jury
is investigating the violation of King's civil rights. It was
good, too, to hear the President again share with the country
his frustration and anger with the Simi Valley verdict.
Nevertheless, there was little that telegraphed a true
understanding of the connection between what the President
deplores and what he still, for the most part, ignores.

    "After peace is restored," Bush said, "we must then turn
again to the underlying causes of such tragic events." Given the
G.O.P.'S ideology and its sources of political support, it is
unrealistic to expect the President to direct a mass transfer
of resources toward the economic inequality that plagues
America's minorities. But there is a good deal else that can be
done, and Bush should begin listening to Housing and Urban
Development Secretary Jack Kemp, the only Administration player
who has thought seriously about urban problems. Kemp's proposals
to turn over public-housing units to tenants and his incentive
schemes to tempt business and industry into the inner cities
have got nowhere with Bush. They should now.

    Straight talk -- the place where we all must start --
demands that the President move far beyond last week's speech
to articulate what everyone knows: in a country that each day
reveals itself as two nations, where almost everyone sees race
first and the individual second, where there still exist
children of a lesser god, the Simi Valley verdict is perfectly
explicable -- not as a fair consideration of the evidence but
as an expression of fear. The argument that won acquittal played
to that fear -- the defense's clever evocation of the "thin blue
line" that "alone" staves off chaos. "The jury's message," says
Adam Walinsky, a New York lawyer who served as Robert Kennedy's
top aide, "is this: What are cops for if not to protect you
against what you watch all day on TV and what you feel each time
you pass two blacks on a deserted street? White people are so
terrified of black violence that they will condone even what
they can plainly see on videotape."

    As the fear is real, so is the crime that feeds it -- and
it should be said again that blacks are themselves the most
likely victims of violence. This much, at least, the President
must acknowledge. It would help, too, if the man who sanctioned
the infamous Willie Horton ad during his 1988 run for the White
House would admit his complicity in developing the images and
code words that encourage whites to demonize blacks.

    Beyond admissions and entreaties, a little extra funding
and a little leadership could significantly enhance the public
safety. Here are three actions Bush could take immediately:

    -- More cops in poor, high-crime neighborhoods: The
unimpeded looting in Los Angeles is nothing compared with the
violence that inner-city residents endure daily -- and that most
of us will suffer at some time. The Justice Department says that
83% of all Americans will be victims of a violent crime at
least once in their lives. Forty years ago, there were three
cops for every violent felony. Today there are 3.3 violent
felonies for each officer. Returning the ratio to its 1950s
level should be a first priority, and a first step is to break
out and pass two provisions of the crime bill currently stalled
in Congress. One would provide about $1 billion in extra
law-enforcement assistance to local areas. An environment of
disorder -- broken windows, graffiti, shoplifting -- threatens
civility and leads to major outrages like robbery and murder.
Cops on the beat are the best defense. More than 300 communities
have found that returning cops to the street is the best way
both to police petty offenses and to build the trust between
police and citizens that is the best guarantee against abuse.

    Another way to get more -- and better-educated -- cops is
to pass the crime bill's police-corps provision, a plan that
would finance a college education for those who agree to serve
as cops for four years after graduation.

    A third way to add cops -- and deal with another pressing
problem in the bargain -- is to retrain as police officers some
of the troops being demobilized as the Pentagon cuts personnel.

    -- Gun control: It's past time, period.

    -- The President should support U.S. Circuit Judge Jon
Newman's call for a law that would more easily permit the
victims of police brutality to recover monetary damages. To
ensure payment, Newman would have the Federal Government bring
lawsuits directly against local governments. "A city pays when
a garbage collector negligently causes a motor-vehicle
accident," says Newman. "The city should similarly pay when one
of its officers commits an act of police brutality." Newman
would also eliminate the good-faith defense: "The reasonableness
of [one's] belief in the lawfulness of his actions should not
stand in the way of the city's obligation to pay damages to the
victim of his wrongdoing."

    These are fairly simple steps, but they should appeal to
a President taken with law-and-order cures -- and they go beyond
talk at a time when even good talk, alone, will no longer do.