
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, August 21, 1993                   TAG: 9308210161
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: The Washington Post
DATELINE: RICHMOND                                LENGTH: Medium

NOTED BLACKS URGE CLINTON TO PULL ROBB ENDORSEMENT

Forty-one prominent blacks have written to President Clinton demanding that he withdraw his endorsement of next year's re-election bid of Sen. Charles Robb, who is expected to be opposed in the Democratic primary by Virginia Gov. Douglas Wilder.

"This letter is to express our utter outrage at your action," said the Aug. 14 communication, whose signers included poet Maya Angelou, Eddie Williams of the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, African Methodist Episcopal Bishop John Hurst Adams and District of Columbia Council member and former Mayor Marion Barry.

The president's "unprecedented intervention" into a Democratic Party nominating process "threatened the political future" of Wilder, who the letter pointed out is "the sole elected African American governor in the history of our country and . . . a constant source of pride" to blacks.

The letter was composed last Saturday at a conference of black leaders in Hilton Head, S.C. Although Wilder attended the meeting, he told the weekly Richmond Free Press, which obtained a copy of the letter, that it was "an unsolicited action" for which he is "gratified."

Clinton endorsed Robb, Wilder's longtime rival for pre-eminence in Virginia Democratic politics, in a late June fund-raising letter. At the time, a senior White House aide said the letter had been approved at least two months earlier, before Wilder formalized his intention to challenge Robb.

However, Wilder had been hinting broadly for more than a year that he might challenge Robb.

White House spokesman Jeff Eller said this week that he was not sure the president had seen the letter.

But Eller said that although the president was "glad to oblige" Robb's request that he sign the fund-raising appeal, Clinton has "no plans to take sides in a partisan Democratic primary."

Relations between Robb and Wilder, never good, reached the breaking point after Robb associates recorded and distributed tapes of a cellular telephone conversation between Wilder and an ally. Three former Robb staff members and two Robb supporters pleaded guilty to minor offenses arising from the taping incident. Federal prosecutors identified Robb as a target of that investigation, but a grand jury voted not to indict him.

Keywords:
POLITICS

by CNB