Reflections of a Radical Moderate. - book reviews

Washington Monthly, Oct, 1996 by Fred Grandy

If you pick up Reflections of a Radical Moderate hoping for some juicy scuttlebutt about the four different cabinet departments Richardson has headed, or the inside scoop about any of the administrations he has served in, or even the last word on Richard Nixon's 1973 firing of special Watergate prosecutor Archibald Cox, you will be frustrated. Reflections is not so much a memoir as it is a book of manners, or in some instances, a moral tract about the conduct of public service, the proper motivations behind it, and the reasons its practice has fallen so low in popular esteem.

Richardson's writing style at once reflects his patrician upbringing and classical education as well as his extensive background as a bureaucrat. In other words, the book often reads like congressional testimony - uncommonly formal, verbose, and, every so often, stodgy. You wont find many soundbites in Richardson's tumescent prose. He writes for serious students of public policy who understand the fragile relationship between principle and pragmatism that ultimately determines genuine leadership. Ideologues and noisy partisans will find little worth keeping in the measured deliberation of these essays.

Richardson is clearly adamant about hearing all arguments on an issue, rendering a judgment based on the dispassionate analysis of fact, and then tolerating the points of view he opposes. With this kind of chronically fair-minded approach, it is even, more astonishing that none of Richardson's employers ever thought to make him a judge.

He has done almost everything else: cabinet secretary at the Departments of Commerce and Health, Education, and Welfare; Attorney General; U.S. attorney; diplomat; special envoy; Defense Department official; even a misbegotten U.S. Senate campaign in Massachusetts during the 1984 Republican primary. In one of the book's very few private asides, Richardson wistfully reminisces about his campaign against supply-side economics during the height of Ronald Reagan's popularity.

Reflections of a Radical Moderate is a good book, but not because it breaks new ground. Most of what Richardson concludes in his essays we already know. Near the end of the book he zeroes in on the hypocritical expectations that drive our present political system and our aversion to the truth about the problems afflicting our society. "Rather than face up to really hard problems like the self-perpetuating cycle of inner-city poverty, despair, joblessness, and violence - we allow ourselves to be diverted by such secondary issues as abortion, school prayer, or term limits. And when, on top of all these, were told we can have it both ways - a balanced budget and tax cuts, global leadership and the avoidance of sacrifice, better government and contempt for the bureaucracy - the disconnection between representation and reality has become all but unbridgeable."

These notions are "radical" only in that we are unwilling to hear them from our elected officials. It is no wonder that Elliot Richardson was asked to address neither the Republican nor the Democratic conventions this August. And it is unlikely you will see him on "Meet the Press" or "This Week with David Brinkley" anytime soon. So if you want to know what else he has to say, you'll just have to buy his book. When you do, turn first to page 199 and review the attributes for a "true public servant" Two in particular should jump out at you - "unflinchingly accepts responsibility" and "does not try to Shift blame to others."

Hold those thoughts for November.