WASHINGTON - (KRT) - Urgently trying to quell a growing controversy, Mississippi Sen. Trent Lott gave broadcast interviews Wednesday to expand on his apology for saying America would not have so many problems if it had elected Strom Thurmond president in 1948, when he ran on a pro-segregation platform.

"The words were terrible and I regret that," Lott, the incoming Senate majority leader, said on the Sean Hannity radio show, a sympathetic forum in which Lott exuded contrition. "This was a mistake of the head and not of the heart. I don't accept those policies of the past at all."

It remains to be seen whether Lott's most recent apology, his third, is enough to quash the opprobrium generated by his comments last week at Thurmond's 100th birthday.

"I'm not sure all of his remarks rang true in the ears of black Americans," said Ken Connor, president of the Family Research Council, a socially conservative advocacy group. "I think the Republicans have a tough decision that they have to make and evaluate as to whether or not under these circumstances, Sen. Lott is the right voice to voice Republican values going forward."

Lott paraphrased one of his critics, Rev. Jesse Jackson, to express his regret. In 1984, when Jackson was a presidential candidate, he referred to New York City as "hymietown," a derogatory reference to the city's large Jewish population.

In his apology at the time, Jackson said, "Charge it to my head, so limited in its finitude, not to my heart, which is boundless in its love for the entire human family."

Lott's apology came at the end of another long day of complaints about his tribute to the South Carolina senator.

At the event Dec. 5, broadcast on C-SPAN, Lott said, "I want to say this about my state: When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. We're proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn't have had all these problems over all these years, either."

Lott expressed a similar sentiment at a 1980 event for Ronald Reagan in Mississippi, as he followed Thurmond to the dais.

The Republican leader said Wednesday that he was referring to Thurmond's strong record on national defense and economic development in South Carolina, not the anti-integration views that were the centerpiece of his Dixiecrat presidential campaign in 1948. Lott also said his comments were meant to compliment Thurmond in a lighthearted manner.

"I've always kidded Strom Thurmond about the kind of job he has done and what he has stood for," Lott explained. "I say, `You'd have made a great president.' He lights up."

Lott, who has served as Republican leader since 1996, said that he has tried during his political career to create opportunities for minorities in education and community renewal, as well as on his Senate staff. He said the segregationist policies of 1948 "were wrong then, they've been repudiated. We've moved so far beyond that."

And he attempted to dispel the impression that his life has been far removed from the lives of many African-Americans. "I'm the son of a sharecropper myself," Lott said. "I didn't grow up in a fancy neighborhood going to the country club."

Nevertheless, the criticism was inescapable Wednesday.

Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle called on President Bush to personally repudiate Lott's words, as did Democratic National Committee chairman Terry McAuliffe. Sources said the NAACP, which already has called on Lott to step down from his leadership post, was mulling whether to run a television ad critical of the Republican leader, though a spokeswoman denied it.

Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., a 2004 presidential aspirant, became the first senator to ask Lott to step aside as leader. "I simply do not believe the country can today afford to have someone who has made these statements again and again be the leader of the United States Senate."

Bush had nothing to say about Lott's tribute to Thurmond. Nor did House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., who was traveling in Portugal. His staff said he could not be reached but his office did quote him in a press release praising the Portuguese nation as "a trusted and valuable ally."

"I think Republicans ought to be speaking out, repudiating these remarks," said Connor of the Family Research Council.

The people who will decide whether Lott keeps his job are Senate Republicans. And in the decorous Senate, an apology is usually enough to put controversy to rest.

In an interview, Sen. Peter Fitzgerald, R-Ill., said Lott still has his support. "You need to be judged as a person on a lifetime of work, not on the few times you make public statements that are patently ridiculous," Fitzgerald said.

"If I thought there was something fundamentally wrong with Sen. Lott, I would not support him," he added.

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