JOSEPH N. BELL -- The Bell Curve

The death last week of John Schmitz -- former state senator and

congressman from this district -- deserves more perspective than it

received in the local press. Schmitz, more than any other public figure,

represented the political and philosophical excesses that have hung, like

the Ancient Mariner’s albatross, around the neck of Orange County for the

past four decades -- and still linger.

The local effect of his political life was poorly served by this quote

in the Los Angeles Times from Tom Fuentes, Orange County GOP chairman:

“His sense of humor, intelligence and enthusiasm will long be remembered

by his Orange County friends.”

So will a lot of other things, not quite so benign, by the rest of us.

I was covering Southern California for both the Christian Science

Monitor and the National Observer (the weekly Wall Street Journal) when

Schmitz first ran for public office in 1964. He was a former Marine Corps

pilot and information officer at the El Toro Air Station who became a

political science teacher at Santa Ana College. He was also an active

member of the John Birch Society, whose founder, Robert Welch, called

President Dwight Eisenhower “a conscious agent of the Communist

conspiracy.”

Orange County, although deeply conservative, was not always

politically predictable. This district, for example, was represented in

Congress for many years by James B. Utt, who once sent us a newsletter

describing the impending threat from “barefooted African hordes” training

in Cuba and regarded sex education and rock ‘n’ roll music as “part of a

Communist plot to destroy America.” But we also strongly supported such

moderate Republicans as Gov. Earl Warren, U.S. Sen. Thomas Kuchel and

Assemblyman Bruce Sumner.

Then in the mid-1960s, the Birchers split the California Republican

party asunder by running right-wing candidates in Republican primaries.

Kuchel was taken out by State School Supt. Max Rafferty. Richard Nixon

was almost taken out by Assemblyman Joe Schell for the gubernatorial

nomination. And Bruce Sumner -- considered a Republican star headed for

bigger things -- was defeated by Schmitz in the state Senate primary,

largely over Sumner’s refusal to abandon the principle of fair housing.

The Republican Right has been in charge around these parts ever since.

Early on, Schmitz was their poster child. When Utt died in 1970, state

Sen. Schmitz -- then a national director of the John Birch Society -- won

a Republican free-for-all for Utt’s seat. It was one of the great

political ironies of the time that for three years Schmitz was President

Richard Nixon’s congressman -- despite the president’s increasingly

frantic efforts to get rid of him.

Nixon had good reasons. Not only was the Birch Society far to the

right of the Nixon administration and regarded as a Republican liability,

but Schmitz, himself, was a caustic Nixon critic. On the eve on Nixon’s

departure to seek rapprochement with China, Schmitz told a Birch Society

audience that he wasn’t opposed to the president’s trip to China, “only

to his coming back.” He later called the visit “a surrendering to

international communism.”

These excesses cost him his seat in 1972, but he found a political

comfort zone by accepting the invitation of George Wallace’s American

Independent party -- somewhere to the right of King George III -- to run

for president against Nixon. None of this dismal history prevented local

Republicans from sending Schmitz back to Sacramento as their senator in

1978. There, a combination of character assassination in the guise of

humor and some serious personal problems finally ended his political

career.

His friends may have found Schmitz funny, but the objects of his

malice -- routinely Jews, Latinos, blacks and anyone who didn’t agree

with him -- weren’t amused. As we honor Martin Luther King Jr. this week,

some of us old-timers recall that Schmitz referred to him as a “notorious

liar” and told the California Senate: “I have other things to do than get

up on the floor and expose the real Martin Luther King, but I’m going to

do it if I have to” in killing a resolution honoring Dr. King after his

murder.

Schmitz’s arrogance -- which his friends described as principle

wrapped in humor -- was a considerable factor in creating the reactionary

image of what Newsweek columnist Stewart Alsop called “The Orange County

Bug.” That Schmitz legacy, over the years, has hardened into a stubbornly

archconservative Republican power structure that is causing growing

concern among local moderates who have seen Democrats picking up more and

more public offices from Republicans in California -- including several

in Orange County.

That’s why a blue chip group of local business executives calling

themselves the New Majority Committee -- and including such Newport Beach

and Costa Mesa heavyweights as Donald Bren, George Argyros and William

Lyon -- surfaced last year to push for more mainstream candidates,

particularly in the area of highly controversial social issues. The group

met instant and aggressive resistance from the long-entrenched

ideological conservatives led by Fuentes. The New Majority retired with a

bloody nose, but it will regroup and return.

Meanwhile the Friends of John will be digging in to turn back any new

attacks -- and the Democrats will gleefully continue picking off

Republicans in these parts. This may well be the final political legacy

of John Schmitz.

* JOSEPH N. BELL is a resident of Santa Ana Heights. His column

appears Thursdays.