A Tough Lady for HEW

If Joseph Califano was dismissed as Secretary of HEW because he was too independent, things may remain much the same under Patricia Roberts Harris, 55, whose colleagues at HUD consider her, with some admiration, every bit as "abrasive" and "pushy" as Califano. A strong-willed woman who fights hard within the bureaucracy for what she wants, Harris does differ from Califano in one important respect: if she loses a battle, she keeps quiet in public and joins in carrying out the Administration decision.

When she first came to HUD in 1977 Harris was widely criticized as inexperienced in housing matters, but she shook up the department, which had been demoralized by past scandals, and gave it a solid sense of purpose. Declared one veteran official: "For the first time, I think we have a sense of mission and movement." Within the agency, she stressed affirmative action in promoting women, blacks and hispanics. Of Harris' appointees half are women, 21% are black and 7% are hispanics. Comptroller General Elmer Staab praised HUD, under Harris, for becoming "a forerunner in dealing with program fraud." Harris strongly pushed subsidized housing for the poor, the repair rather than abandonment of rundown buildings in public housing projects, and a graduated mortgage payment plan that helps young people buy houses by starting with low monthly payments. She worked hard, and often successfully, to channel more federal funds into urban areas.

Harris has not won every contest. She tried publicly and unsuccessfully to get Oakley Hunter, Republican holdover chairman of the Federal National Mortgage Association, fired when Fannie Mae refused to put as much money into low-income housing as Harris wanted. Says one congressional critic: "Her temper gets her in trouble.She fights so hard she loses patience with people who don't see it her way."

Nevertheless, Harris has come a long way by being aggressive. The daughter of a railroad dining-car waiter and a civil servant mother, she finished first in her class at George Washington University Law School. She taught at Howard University Law School, joined a top Washington law firm, served on the boards of IBM, Scott Paper and Chase Manhattan, worked in Lyndon Johnson's presidential campaign and became U.S. Ambassador to Luxembourg. But when a liberal Senator once implied that she was a member of the privileged class, she indignantly replied: "While there may be others who forget what it meant to be excluded from the dining room of this very building, I shall never forget it."

She has been married 23 years to a Washington judge; they have no children. For relaxation, she likes to cook "everything from Chinese shrimp to strawberry pies." Standing the heat in the kitchen will serve her well at HEW.

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