Advocates for the disabled are asking President Bush to apologize on behalf of the nation for programs operated by North Carolina and 32 other states that sterilized as many as 65,000 people before ending in the 1980s.

"The federal government had to know something about it if 33 states were doing this," said Keith Kessler of Dale City, Va., who sent a letter to Bush this week of behalf of the Disabled Action Committee, an advocacy group that publishes a national newsletter.

In his letter to Bush, Kessler wrote that governors in North Carolina, Oregon and Virginia have apologized for sterilization programs in their states.

Gov. Mike Easley apologized last month in response to a series of stories in the Winston-Salem Journal that provided details about North Carolina's program for the first time.

Sterilizations nationwide were carried out as part of the eugenics movement, which made exaggerated claims that mental illness, genetic defects and social ills could be eliminated by sterilization. In North Carolina, children as young as 10 were sterilized under a state program often characterized by coercion and flawed intelligence testing.

By the 1960s, the program was mainly targeting young black women. The North Carolina program sterilized more than 7,600 people between 1929 and 1974 and was the third largest in the country, after California and Virginia.

Three sterilization victims profiled in the Journal all said that a presidential apology is needed, as well as some form of compensation.

"It (an apology) would mean a lot, but also, what are they going to do about it?" said Nial Cox Ramirez, 56, of Riverdale, Ga., who was sterilized in 1965.

Since Easley issued his apology, victims and legislators have demanded that the state do more.

"I will be doing everything that I can to make sure that this kind of practice ceases and desists and will not happen again," said state Rep. Larry Womble, D-Forsyth.

Womble said that hearings on the state's sterilization program and reparations to sterilization victims are options to consider when the legislature reconvenes later this month.

Skip Alston, the president of the state branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, agreed. He said that the state NAACP has put the issue on its legislative agenda.

Alston also has talked to several black legislators about taking up the issue.

"They're very supportive," he said.

Alston also said that the NAACP plans to hold public hearings around the state as part of its own investigation into the program.

Womble and Alston support the push for a federal apology, as well as U.S. congressional hearings on sterilization programs in other states.

One member of Congress from North Carolina isn't certain that federal hearings are needed.

"My first take on it is that this is really something for the states to look at and the media to open up," said U.S. Rep. Richard Burr, R-5th.

"I'm not sure about any federal review of what went on, with something that was really driven by the states," said Burr, who added that he might feel differently if it turns out the federal government helped pay for sterilizations.

If federal money was spent, Burr said, a congressional investigation might be appropriate "so that we could get some kind of accounting for people on what did happen (with federal support)."

He said he thought that what went on during the eugenic sterilization movement "could not happen today."

Newspapers in Virginia and Oregon have also investigated their state's sterilization programs.

"I think it's just going to keep snowballing," Kessler said.

Before the president apologizes, Kessler said, congressional hearings are needed.

"They would have to be awfully blind or deaf or just plain out of the loop (not to know)," he said.

Victims are "scattered throughout the United States," he said.

The Disabled Action Committee decided to ask for a national apology because people with disabilities were among the 65,000 victims, he said.

Kessler doesn't ask for reparations in his letter. He just wants to make sure that similar programs don't happen again, he said. "If we don't learn from our mistakes, we're doomed to repeat them."

He is not worried that his chances of a presidential response may be slim.

"I never say never," said Kessler, a quadriplegic.