Ron Brown

Attorney General Janet Reno is right for the wrong reason when she says she will not yield to Republican calls for a special prosecutor to look into allegations concerning Secretary of Commerce Ron Brown. Mr. Brown has been accused of accepting a $700,000 fee to help lift the trade embargo on Vietnam.Ms. Reno said her reason for not appointing a special prosecutor was that there still would be an apparent conflict of interest if she, a co-member of the Clinton cabinet with Secretary Brown, selected the independent prosecutor.

Four local artists are featured at Resurgam Gallery in the seventh annual installment of Marks, Brookes, & Brown. The exhibit features floral oil paintings by Cissy Smith Marks, new oils by architect Paul Marks, watercolor and oil work from Claudia L. Brookes and craft work from Ron Brown, a wood-turner. The show has more than 100 new pieces. Marks, Brookes, & Brown opens today and runs through July 1 at the Resurgam Gallery, 910 S. Charles St. The opening reception is 4 p.m.-7 p.m. Saturday.

NEW YORK -- When Jesse Jackson spoke to the Democratic National Convention here the other night in a distinctly subordinate role, he was notably sparing in his praise of presidential nominee Bill Clinton. But he talked of the "genius of Ron Brown," the party chairman whose genius included squeezing an endorsement of Clinton from Jackson as the price of letting him address the party.It was a recognition of Brown's deft handling of the job he won 3 1/2 years ago amid expressed concerns that he would be a tool of Jackson, or of Ted Kennedy, or of black Democrats generally.

From the threshold at the entrance hall of Ron and Betty Brown's home in Southwest Baltimore, fireplaces can be seen blazing in three rooms. Crystal chandeliers, hanging from intricately carved plaster ceiling medallions, glow softly as scented candles flicker. Oriental carpets rest on floors of random-width Georgia pine, the planks reflecting the flames from the hearths. A grandfather clock chimes. "We want this home to feel welcoming," Betty Brown said, standing at the front door. The story of the Browns' house began in June 1975, when Ron Brown accepted a job in the office of city Comptroller Hyman A. Pressman.

WE ALL HAVE feelings. And while I have a thick hide, my feelings can be hurt.So I was really deeply pained when I got a call from the media spokesperson for Ron Brown, national chairman of the Democratic Party, and she said some of my recent columns have been the "most terribly unfair things" she has ever read.She was referring to my observation that it was really dumb of Brown and the party to pressure Mario Cuomo to either run in the New Hampshire primary or withdraw as a candidate.What hurt was not that she said the columns were "terribly unfair."

RON BROWN would have enjoyed the irony of it all. His death on a war-recovery mission to Bosnia and Croatia last week effectively ends Republican efforts to abolish his Department of Commerce and scatter most of its functions to oblivion or other agencies. Actually, the House proposal, a part of Speaker Newt Gingrich's "Contract with America," was already making little headway in the Senate, where it encountered a reality check among senior Republicans.What some of the young Turks in the GOP forgot or never knew was that the Department of Commerce was a creation of two Republican presidents, Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft, and that it achieved its greatest influence in the 1920s under a secretary who became president, Republican Herbert Hoover.

Washington -- ALMOST AS soon as he was elected Democratic national chairman after the one-sided presidential loss of Michael Dukakis, Ron Brown started pleading for his party to avoid a drawn-out and divisive fight over the 1992 Democratic nomination. In ways he never expected, he is getting his way so far -- and professes to be pleased about it.Even before President Bush's popularity soared sky-high with the swift military success in the Persian Gulf, all those Democrats most frequently mentioned as presidential prospects were keeping their heads down.

COMMERCE SECRETARY Ron Brown is missing in action, perhaps a victim of a plane crash as he was flying into Dubrovnik to talk peace, reconstruction and investment in a town devastated by the Yugoslav civil war. It was a signature mission for the highest ranking African-American in the Clinton administration. Since taking office he has traveled the world, aggressively pushing U.S. exports and sealing big contracts with American corporate bosses in tow.Mr. Brown reveled in the criticism and congratulations his high-profile actions provoked.

Feb. 10 1989: Ron Brown was elected chairman of the Democratic National Committee, becoming the first black to head a major U.S. political party.

On March 15, 2003, SUSAN JANICE, beloved wife of David Bernard; devoted mother of Ron Brown; grandmother of Ashley and Brice Brown; and loving sister of Diane Carter. Services private.

Feb. 10 1989: Ron Brown was elected chairman of the Democratic National Committee, becoming the first black to head a major U.S. political party.

On March 15, 2003, SUSAN JANICE, beloved wife of David Bernard; devoted mother of Ron Brown; grandmother of Ashley and Brice Brown; and loving sister of Diane Carter. Services private.

TOWSON -- A man who implied he had a weapon tied up a clerk and emptied the cash register in a Towson Town Center store yesterday morning, police said.About 11: 45 a.m., a man entered the Sport Shop on the mall's ground floor, said police spokesman Bill Toohey. He browsed, took several items to the counter, then ordered the clerk to give him the register's contents. He took her into a back room, took her jewelry and bound her wrists with duct tape.The clerk freed herself a few minutes after he left, and called 911. The man is described as black, 5 feet 10 inches tall, 180 pounds, wearing a camouflage jacket and a black knit cap, Toohey said.

WASHINGTON -- President Clinton seems determined to make the same staffing mistakes in his second term that he made four years ago.He apparently intends to stretch out the process long enough so that everyone with a special demand can build up a head of steam inside one constituency or another of the Democratic Party. That is asking for trouble. The old rule in politics is that every decision on an appointment produces a dozen angry losers and one ingrate.Already the delay in choosing a new secretary of state to replace Warren Christopher has encouraged speculation about Madeleine K. Albright, the ambassador to the United Nations, which in turn has fueled a demand from activist women that Ms. Albright be given the job. If she isn't, the decision clearly will be seen in some quarters as evidence of the president turning his back on women after they gave him his winning electoral margin.

CHICAGO -- A united Democratic Party opened its national convention yesterday with a heavy dose of emotion and celebrity.The words and images from the podium, designed to send a message of moderation, were reinforced by Bill Clinton's campaign-trail criticism of Republican efforts to block gun control.Alma Brown, widow of former Democratic Party chairman and Commerce Secretary Ronald H. Brown, delivered a poignant tribute to her late husband, who was killed in a plane crash in Bosnia last spring.

There's nothing like a two-week assignment to justify catching up on mail and calls from readers. (You don't want to know where I was or what I was doing. Believe me. But I will give you a hint: From now on when I see a flush toilet, I'll genuflect to it.)I left for the assignment April 19. That Sunday, Perspective Editor Mike Adams ran a piece I did on why blacks feel the plane crash that killed Secretary of Commerce Ron Brown was a murder conspiracy. Predictably, some whites reacted as though I had personally accused them of killing Ron Brown.

Saddam was warned. He should have known what was coming.Shoot Erich Honecker! He is trying to flee East Germany.They couldn't decide whether this should be Bill's inauguration or Ron Brown's.On the strength of last season, they named a candy bar for Cal. Something is off in that timing.A presidential task force will advise Bill on which promises to keep.

WASHINGTON -- Ronald H. Brown was eulogized yesterday in an overflowing National Cathedral, given a last ride in a black limousine through the city he loved and then placed in his grave to the sounds of a 19-gun military salute and the sight of family and friends decorating his casket with fragile white lilies."

IT'S APRIL 3, another day in talk-radio land.Up in New York on megastation WABC, Bob Grant, one of the stars of radio talk, is discussing with a caller the fact that Commerce Secretary Ron Brown's plane has just plowed into a Croatian mountainside.Since it's Bob Grant, who believes in many things, including the First Amendment right to speak the outrageous, he comes up with this:"My hunch," he says of Brown, "is that he is the one survivor. I just have that on a hunch. Maybe it's because, at heart, I'm a pessimist."