ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, April 4, 1996 TAG: 9604040092
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
TYPE: NEWS OBIT
SOURCE: Knight-Ridder/Tribune
A MAKER OF DEALS and profits, he was also skilled in serving the public.
Ronald Harmon Brown, 54, the wheeler-dealer with the oversized moustache, was a voice for moderation in the civil rights movement, a peacemaker in the Democratic Party and a champion of American business abroad.
Perhaps his greatest accomplishment was being a black man who stepped beyond the bounds of race into the inner sanctums of political and corporate power.
As commerce secretary since 1993 - ``The Great Facilitator,'' as he didn't mind being called - Brown won more foreign business for America than anyone else in that job.
Given to traveling with large entourages, preferably in limousines or corporate jets, and to wearing custom-tailored suits, Hermes ties and monogrammed shirts with French cuffs, Brown was the administration's not-very-secret weapon at winning foreign business.
Brown also saved his Democratic Party from national disaster twice: first by negotiating peace in 1988 between his man, Jesse Jackson, and nominee Michael Dukakis, then by convincing Democrats in 1992 that the governor from Arkansas might be able to beat incumbent George Bush.
It was his determined three-month campaign to win election as party chairman in 1989 that thrust Brown beyond black politics.
Thereafter, while Brown ensnared himself in several questionable business deals, he was viewed tolerantly as the sharpest of political operatives and respected even by opponents.
By 1994 U.S. big business was so high on the Clinton administration that offended Republican conservatives turned mainly to small and independent businesses for their support. Largely thanks to Brown, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce sat out the House Republican revolution.
``He's more Republican than any Republican I know,'' groused Mary Matalin, campaign strategist for Bush in 1992, as Brown led Clinton centerwards, into their rival's constituencies.
Brown was born for such mergers, the only child of two Howard University graduates. He grew up in New York's Harlem, where his father managed the Hotel Theresa, the city's premier hotel for blacks. As a youth, Brown collected the autographs of celebrity guests like Louis Armstrong, Joe Louis and Jackie Robinson, until word got around that Brown sold them.
He was the only black student in the class of 1958 at elite Middlebury College in Vermont. When he joined Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity, its national organization revoked its charter. The college responded by barring any fraternity with a racial exclusion clause.
After serving in the Army as a logistics officer, Brown joined the National Urban League in New York as a welfare caseworker. (Chairman Whitney Young was a family friend.) He studied law nights at St. John's University, where one of his lecturers was Mario Cuomo.
In 1973, Brown became Washington spokesman for the Urban League. Six years later, ``tired of being an expert on all things black,'' as he told a Washington Post interviewer, Brown joined Sen. Edward Kennedy's campaign for president.
Brown's management of Kennedy's primary victory in California in 1980 led to the post of chief counsel of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which Kennedy headed, and later to Brown's becoming his chief of staff.
Brown first made real money in 1985 by joining the aggressive Washington lobbying firm of Patton, Boggs & Blow - about $200,000 a year, compared with his Senate salary of $65,000.
His clients included two Japanese electronics manufacturers - Toshiba and Sony - and the corrupt Haitian regime of Jean-Claude ``Baby Doc'' Duvalier.
Known for his deadpan glibness, Brown insisted in his Senate confirmation hearing that he represented the Haitian government, not the Duvaliers. Nonetheless, Justice Department records show Brown made extensive efforts to ease the U.S. prison term of Duvalier's brother-in-law, who had been convicted on drug charges.
Brown, who had wanted to be secretary of state or White House chief of staff, agreed to take over the Commerce Department after Clinton promised to make it the focus of his administration's push for international trade.
Brown often seemed drawn by goals that might seem to conflict - for example, performing public service and getting rich. Several congressional and federal investigations explored these conflicts, beginning two months after his January 1993 confirmation.
In February 1994, the Justice Department cleared Brown of charges he had accepted a $700,000 bribe from a Vietnamese businessman in exchange for helping lift the trade embargo against Vietnam.
Last May, however, U.S. Attorney Janet Reno decided an independent counsel should investigate Brown's dealings with a Washington businesswoman, Nolanda Hill, and with a company in which both once had interest.
The independent counsel also decided last month to investigate $160,000 in payments to Brown's son, Michael, by an Oklahoma natural gas company. The payment was made three months after Michael Brown, 30, joined the company's board. The company's president has said his intention was to win influence with the commerce secretary.
Both Browns have denied any wrongdoing.
Brown lived with his wife of 33 years, Alma Arrington, in a four-bedroom town house near Rock Creek Park in Northwest Washington. The couple has two children: Michael graduated from the University of Delaware law school; and Tracey Lyn, who graduated from Boston College in 1989.
To Brown, the black struggle for civil rights was moving into the world of commerce. ``The key to our future is really how the economy grows,'' he told the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, a centrist think tank on black issues, two years ago.
``I believe that's what the civil rights movement is all about now - not that we have forgotten the other issues, not that we have forgotten that racism and discrimination still exist in America.
``But the focus has to be on economic opportunity,'' he said. ``We are wasting too many human beings in America. We can't afford to waste any more.''
LENGTH: Long : 111 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: (headshots) Brown. color.by CNB