The Washington Blade; Friday, February 21, 1997
Lou Chibbaro, Jr.

Goosby is the former director of San Francisco General Hospital's AIDS Clinic and a former associate professor of clinical medicine at the University of California at San Francisco. He replaces Patricia Fleming, who headed the White House AIDS office since early 1995. The nation's two largest national AIDS organizations praised Goosby as a dedicated and talented physician, AIDS researcher, and government official, but said Clinton should appoint someone else as the permanent director of the White House AIDS office.

The two groups, the National Association of People With AIDS and AIDS Action Council, both located in Washington, D.C., urged Clinton to name a nationally recognized political figure who commands influence and respect with Congress and the American people as the permanent head of the office.

"As President Clinton turns his attention to filling this vital position," said Daniel Zingale, executive director of AIDS Action Council, "we urge that he consider high-profile figures such as Henry Cisneros, Jesse Jackson, David Kessler, Ann Richards, or Gen. John Shalikashvili."

Cisneros served as the U.S. secretary of housing and urban development in Clinton's first term. Kessler is the former head of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration who led an aggressive fight against the U.S. tobacco industry by seeking to declare nicotine a drug. Richards is the former Democratic governor of Texas, and Shalikashvili is Clinton's current chairperson of the military's Joint Chiefs of Staff.

A. Cornelius Baker, executive director of NAPWA, said NAPWA has a "great deal of respect" for Goosby. But Baker added, "We have said for a long time that the person who should get this appointment should be someone who can rally the nation and the government to action."

"AIDS is the leading cause of death in the United States for people between the ages of 25 and 44," Baker said. "The president has declared the fight against AIDS a national priority. We feel the person who heads this important office should be someone with the stature and national recognition to lead this fight."

Many of the nation's AIDS activist have called on Clinton to name a nationally recognized figure to head the AIDS office since 1993, when the president created the National AIDS Policy Office as a branch of the Executive Office of the President.

Clinton disappointed AIDS activists when he named Washington State public health official Kristine Gebbie as the first director of the office. When Gebbie resigned in late 1994, Clinton named Fleming, a longtime Capitol Hill staffer and later an official at HHS, as interim director of the office. A short time later, Clinton named Fleming permanent director, an action that angered some AIDS activists, including D.C.'s Steve Michael, an organizer of ACT UP Washington, D.C.

Michael has called for an AIDS office director with the political stature of someone like former U.S. Sen. and Connecticut Gov. Lowell Weicker. Michael this week called Goosby a "bland bureaucrat" who would become a "paper pusher" rather than a dynamic leader in the war against AIDS.

Other AIDS activists have speculated that the White House is viewing Goosby's interim appointment as a "trial balloon" to determine if Goosby has the political support needed for a permanent appointment to the AIDS office post.

One administration source familiar with the White House, speaking on condition of anonymity, said this week that Goosby "definitely" will not be the permanent director of the White House AIDS office. The source said the White House is actively considering others for the job and is expected to name a permanent director in the next three to six weeks.

The White House is "very much aware" of the desire of AIDS organizations such as NAPWA and AIDS Action Council that the president appoint a high profile political figure as permanent head of the office, according to the administration source.

Meanwhile, Pat Christen, executive director of the San Francisco AIDS Foundation, called Goosby a "compassionate, intelligent human being" with an "encyclopedic mind" on matters pertaining to HIV.

"The nation would be very well served by having him in this job," said Christen, who worked with Goosby during his years in San Francisco.

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