American Notes Civil Rights

George Bush looked more than a little relieved. After two years of stalling, his top aides had finally worked out a civil rights compromise with Congress -- and none too soon. Bush hardly relished the prospect of vetoing a civil rights bill in the same fortnight that the Senate nearly disintegrated over the Clarence Thomas nomination and an ex-Klansman named David Duke became the Republican Party candidate in Louisiana's gubernatorial runoff.

The President said for months that he wouldn't sign a bill requiring businesses to resort to quotas to avoid discrimination suits. The breakthrough was engineered by Senator John Danforth, the Missouri Republican who shepherded Thomas' nomination through the Senate. Danforth believed that Bush's opposition to a civil rights bill was uninformed, and complained late last week that a White House analysis of his compromise bill, leaked to NBC News, misrepresented the facts. Within hours, the year-old White House stalemate collapsed. Asked afterward if Bush "owed him one," Danforth replied, "I don't think he feels that way, and I've never felt that way either."