Word: nader
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...Goddard's excellent tenure in the Food and Drug Administration showed the difference in an agency's efficacy that a vigorous administrator can make. Widespread replacement of personnel by men with a more wary view of business practices would indeed change the whole character of the agency. But the Nader report also notes that the conclusions of the Hoover Commission in 1949 were much the same as the F.T.C. deficiencies of 1969. Though the immediate problem lies with Dixon and his appointees, such consistent faults suggest consistent causes...
...Commission's sympathy to business must be blamed on the "conditioning process" to which all regulatory agencies are open. Congressional and lobby friendships, the interchange of jobs between agency and the industry it is regulating, inundation by the industry viewpoint -- are pressures to which all agencies are subject. The Nader report offers some hope of escape. It notes that the F.T.C., in "regulating" all of business, has a non-specific "clientele" and so is less likely to have interlocking relationships with it. The chairman can widen his awareness of consumer problems--he need not address business groups uncountably more times...
...long-range political prospect for the recommendations of Nader's group is uncertain. Several Senators--Ribicoff, Magnuson, Nelson, Pastori, and Kennedy--can be expected to be sympathetic to an F.T.C. reform effort; the Kennedy staff has "requested" a copy of the Nader report and the January 25 copy of Business Week reports that three Congressional investigations into the F.T.C. are slated for the spring. More public sentiment for reform may be generated upon commercial publication of the Nader report--leading perhaps to preliminary injunctive power for the Commission if not a change in personnel...
Dixon, however, is valiantly attempting to convince President Nixon that the Nader group is essentially anti-business (and thus Nixon should keep favor with business by retaining Dixon). Nixon, up to now, has made no response...
This year's project members are now seeking grants from several foundations, and expect to have investigations of several government agencies and programs under way next summer, all under the advisement of Nader. With "administrative discretion" executive agencies are often able to withhold information to cloak their weaknesses. Broad systematic investigation of Federal agencies are impossible for a Congressman who lacks enough staff and fears political liabilities. Some of the balance will be restored next summer when for the first time agency critiques are conducted by students whose political constraints are as yet unauctioned...