I INSIDE WASHINGTON I

Malek

Continued from Page 1

characterized. It was offensive
to me that this character was
portrayed."
Malek describes the period
following his fall from the
campaign as a protracted
nightmare. He suggests that
only the strong support of his
friends — including support
from many in the Jewish com-
munity — kept him from an
emotional tailspin.
During a lengthy interview,
he walks a precarious line be-
tween defending himself
against some of the charges
that surfaced during last
year's controversy, and
criticizing his own mistakes.
It is a line he navigates with
skill.

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26

FRIDAY, JANUARY 20, 1989

"[Nixon] persisted. First he
wanted to know how many of
the people at BLS were
Democrats, then how many
were Jewish. I thought it was
an unusual question, and I
didn't respond. Finally I had
someone check and find out
how many were registered as
Democrats." But the order
came back again, and Malek
says he told Haldeman that
we didn't know how he could
get information on the

The rough outline of Fred
Malek's story is familiar to
most Jews. In 1971, he was
serving as White House per-
sonnel chief. Malek, then 34,
had earned a reputation for
playing political hardball.
H.R. Haldeman, Nixon's con-
troversial chief of staff, re-
ferred to Malek as "the axe,"
in honor of his role during a
series of personnel purges at
the Department of Interior a
year before.
Malek was a diehard Nixon
loyalist; even today, he talks
with pride about the loyalty
that kept him at the White
House to the bitter end of the
Nixon presidency, well after
most of his colleagues had
fled.
What happened at the
Bureau of Labor Statistics, he
says now, was not an uncom-
mon kind of occurrence at the
Nixon White House.
"Nixon was concerned
about the interpretation of
data from BLS," he says. "He
felt that more jobs were being
created, but he kept reading
about increased unemploy-
ment, and he felt that
perhaps this was being done
in a purposeful manner. He
wanted to know if statistics
were being compiled in an
unusual manner, if there
were people at BLS who were
working against him."
Malek says he responded to
the initial presidential direc-
tive by making inquiries at
the Department of Labor. The
statistics were presented in
the usual way, and Malek
says he reported to the presi-
dent that there "was nothing
suspicious" about the way the
statistics were interpreted.
But Nixon's suspicions were
not so easily quelled. Malek
says that the president kept
coming back, demanding
more detailed information
about the people who were
putting together the econom-
ic statistics.

Fred Malek

number of Jews at the BLS.
But eventually, Malek com-
plied with the White House
order — at least in part. What
he provided, he says, was an
estimate of the number of
Jews at BLS. He did not pro-
vide a list of names, he says,
nor did he knowingly par-
ticipate in the subsequent re-
assignment of two Jewish
BLS officials to less con-
spicuous positions in the
department.
"I still feel there was no at-
tempt on my part to discrim-
inate," he says. "I would never
have been part of something
like that. These are the fads:
I did make the report, and I
felt a little uneasy, but I felt
that the president was de-
manding it. I did not think
this was anything that would
go any further. In retrospect,
I feel I made a mistake in re-
sponding to it."
In fact, he argues, subse-
quent events at BLS suggest
that anti-Semitism was never
a part of his actions.
"My report to the president
said that there was no prob-
lem in the career people at
the bureau. But the commis-
sioner of BLS was not in con-
trol of the agency, was not
politically sensitive. My
recommendation was that we
replace him. We tried to come
up with different scenarios for
replacing him, and it took
about six months. Finally he
was replaced by Julius Shis-
kin — who I assume is
Jewish."

