The totalitarian, anti-Semitic party?

SHOULD A MAN who is an anti-Semite and a lickspittle for Communist and other dictators be permitted to address the Democratic Convention in San Francisco as an acceptable spokesman for the Democratic Party?

That question immediately raises another one. Does Walter Mondale recognize a moral imperative when he sees one? During the past three weeks, Mondale has interviewed, ostensibly for the Vice Presidency, representatives of every known and some unknown minorities and interest groups, and if he has not yet conferred with Gunga Din, the yeti, and Gore Vidal, we expect to read in tomorrow's newspaper that he has finally done so. Mondale's moral sense may have become so rubberized by ambition that it resembles a squash ball, but if he has any of it left he must realize that Jesse Jackson (see "The Cuban Primary," below), who has hailed Castro and Che Guevara and even praised Castro's "moral leadership," who has fawned on the Sandinistas and attacked his own country from foreign rostrums, who has denounced the U.S. for arrogance and even for creating the Panama Canal, who has called our Founding Fathers militarists and given foreign audiences a botched and servile version of the early history of the Republic, who speaks about "Hymies" and "Hymietown" and who had to be dragged kicking and screaming to put some distance between himself and the crazed anti-Semite Louis Farrakhan--Mondale in San Francisco must realize that Jackson's appearance at the Convention must be permitted only in the context of Mondale's explicit disavowal of him and his views.

Jackson himself, of course, created Farrakhan as a national figure, with Farrakhan clinging to Jackson's hospitable lapel like some kind of evil lizard, not even flicked away when he issued public death threats, praised Adolf Hitler, and threatened race war. Finally, while Jackson was abroad embracing dictators, Farrakhan attacked Judaism as a "dirty religion," called the creation of Israel an "outlaw act," and described supporters of Israel as part of a "criminal conspiracy." Jackson was in Havana enjoying Castro's "moral leadership" when a reporter brought the latest atrocity to his attention, and he refused to comment on it. Perhaps this evident reluctance is understandable in an anti-Semite who himself talks about Jews as "Hymies." A short time later, Jackson's headquarters in Washington issued a brief statement denouncing Farrakhan's latest remarks, which after all were not that different from what Farrakhan--who was once described as Jackson's "surrogate"--has been saying for months. Jackson, that connoisseur of "moral leadership," has since declined any further comment.

Jackson's behavior in all of this has led to speculation of a sort not exactly commonplace in national politics. New York's mayor, Ed Koch, charged that Jackson is afraid to repudiate Farrakhan because "I think he knows where Jesse Jackson's money comes from. I think it comes from Libya." Columnist Jimmy Breslin did some digging and in an interesting column connected Farrakhan with various lethal events going back to the murder of Malcolm X. Breslin plausibly concluded: "Given the history of these things as I recall them, I think it is legitimate today to ask Jesse Jackson if he is afraid of Louis Farrakhan."

But what about other black leaders and what about Walter Mondale? Are they afraid of Jesse Jackson?