— President elect Reagan will not have “a Jewish liaison officer” or such personnel for “Blacks or other ethnics” after he takes office, Reagan’s transition director, Edwin Meese III, has indicated publicly.
Meese was asked, during an appearance on me CBS-TV program “Face the Nation” yesterday if the absence of a Black and “ethnics” in Reagan’s Cabinet “it a signal that this Administration is not as interested in their particular problems as with other minorities.” Meese replied, “There will be people representing these groups in the White House, yes, But there will not be a single conduit that all Blacks have to go to this door other feeling like that.”
Reporters on the TV program observed that President Carter has liaison personnel One, pointed out that he has “an ethnic liaison person and a Black liaison, a Jewish liaison and so forth.”
Alfred Moses, of Washington, is advisor to President Carter on Jewish matters. He succeeded Edward Sanders of Los Angeles who resigned last spring to assist in Carter’s reelection campaign Earlier in the Carter Administration, Robert Lipshutz of Atlanta, White House Counsel, and Mark Siegel, a White House aide, performed Jewish liaison functions.
However, representatives of Jewish organizations frequently were able to meet with Administration officials, including the Vice President and the Secretary of State, without recourse to the Presidential liaison personnel.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
