Senator seeks delay on vote on Nevadan

Benjamin Grove

Thursday, June 23, 2005 | 9:40 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., is seeking to delay a vote on Nevadan and State Department post nominee Henrietta Holsman Fore until he has more clarification about controversial statements she made in 1987.

President Bush on May 10 nominated Fore, currently Director of the U.S. Mint, to be Undersecretary of State for Management, a nomination that needs Senate approval.

At issue are comments Fore made during a speech at Wellesley College 18 years ago, when Fore was a factory manager.

At a June 9 Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Fore's nomination, Obama questioned her about the comments. According to a meeting transcript, Obama quoted a New York Times article that quoted Fore's comments about workers she had hired at the factory.

Obama quoted the Times article, which reported Fore as saying, "Blacks preferred pushing drugs to working in a factory."

Obama also quoted the newspaper as having reported that Fore had found Hispanic workers lazy, white workers resentful of having to work with machines and Asians, while very productive, likely to move on to professional or management jobs.

Fore responded to Obama, saying the article contained misunderstandings and misrepresentations. She said her hiring record showed she had promoted people without discrimination.

Of the comments, Fore said, "At that time, this was 1987 in Wellesley, it was a time of high emotions in the student body. And I was speaking to a class informally, and questions came up in the question and answer period which I responded to with a meaning that, we often are being stereotyped and what we as leaders and managers must do, is to overcome those stereotypes."

Mint spokeswoman Becky Bailey today said, like most nominees, Fore is not doing interviews until the confirmation process is over.

Obama sent a June 10 letter to Rice, requesting an FBI report on Fore's nomination, but has not yet received the report, an Obama spokesman said today.

Obama also asked for meetings between Fore and the Congressional Black Caucus and Hispanic Caucus, which Fore has agreed to, the spokesman said. Obama is the only black senator and a member of the Black Caucus.

In the letter to Rice, Obama also asked for answers to 15 written questions about Fore's statements and her record of hiring and promoting minorities in the private and public sector.

Obama asked Fore about a letter she wrote to the Wellesey College newspaper, in which she stated that none of the black workers she hired stayed because they "in their words wanted to go 'back to the street' to earn more money."