Mr. Bratton is, as Mr. Buckley puts it, "the godfather of police practices which... have caused a sharp reduction in crime wherever those practices are exercised." Mr. Glasser and the ACLU have called for federal intervention on the grounds that some of these practices are racist. Mr. Bratton defends himself ably in this lively and informative

exchange. WB: "A lot of what I was about as police commissioner... was that over time we might be able to turn the attitude of police from seeing every black man they see in the street as a potential threat to them, to a situation where it requires much less police intervention in, particularly, minority communities, because there is a lot less crime and disorder happening. And then, over time, that might begin to have some impact on the issue of race in this country, because the most significant flashpoint between the races is police activity in minority communities...." IG: "It is fair to say that black people in this country, like white people, have a legitimate fear of crime and want there to be effective law enforcement." WFB: "They are the principal beneficiaries of it." IG: "But the fact is that many black people are as afraid of cops as they are of criminals. And that's a terrible thing."