... And Farmer

Along with its first physician, the Nixon sub-Cabinet is losing its most prominent black member, HEW Assistant Secretary James Farmer. His voluntary resignation, expected for several months, was scheduled to be announced .this week.

The parting is described by the Administration as friendly; Farmer plans to return to the lucrative lecture circuit and to organize a Washington-based consulting firm that will probably get federal contracts. But his departure symbolizes another type of defeat for a civil rights leader who once had national influence. The onetime national director of the Congress of Racial Equality, Farmer, now 50, lost much of his following to younger and more militant black spokesmen in the mid-1960s.

Expecting financial support from the Office of Economic Opportunity during the Johnson Administration, Farmer attempted to establish a major program to combat illiteracy among the poor. The money was not granted, and the project never got beyond the planning stage. In 1968, Farmer ran for Congress as a Brooklyn Republican-Liberal. Despite his national reputation, he lost to Shirley Chisholm, then a state legislator. As a member of the Nixon Administration, Farmer was rarely consulted on important policy issues. Nor did he have much clout as an advocate for the black movement. Much of his time was spent traveling to campuses --particularly black schools--in an attempt to maintain some kind of communication between the Administration and black students. Now, says Farmer, he hopes to reduce the alienation of blacks by reclaiming an independent voice outside the Government. His post at HEW is to be taken by Rodney Brady, a white California businessman and a Republican, selected for his professional managerial skills rather than his politics.

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