Bush a team player

Press, 14 July 1981, Page 20

Bush a team player

By

ALEX BRUMMER

in “The Guardian,” in London

The American Vice-Presi-dent. Mr George Bush, is living proof that the job once described as not being worth a "bucket of spit" has come a longway since the days of Franklin Roosevelt.

In the five months at his post. Mr Bush has been as involved in the affairs of state — if not more so — than President Reagan himself. This is. a remarkable achievement for a man who, at the time of the midnight drama at last summer's Republican Convention in Detroit, was very much second choice. As the White House chief of staff, Mr James Baker remarked recently, “Everyone knows the President didn’t want to pick Bush . . . There was absolutely no understanding between them of what Bush’s role would be." His best remembered and praised performance in the job came at a moment when the American people most look toward their Vice-President for leadership. In the aftermath of the attempt on Mr Reagan’s life on March 30. Mr Bush was the voice of calm and reason, after the Secretary of State, Mr Haig, had contrived to calm nerves but, through his own nervousness, had given the impression of panic. As he appeared in the White House press room announcing Mr Reagan's successful emergence from surgery and his assurance that the Government would continue as normal, his soothing, sure manner conveyed to the public the impression that the ship of state was in sound hands. . >

But putting too much emphasis on this particular — with luck once in a vice-presidency — episode, obscures the importance of his role in the Administration. While the President is still in bed in the

morning — he never begins work until 9 a.m. -- Mr Bush is in his office at 7.30 a.m. going through the same C.I.A. briefing book which the President will receive later. He later joins Mr Reagan and his national security adviser, Mr Richard Allen, for a discussion of national security issues. As head of the White House's crisis management unit (a job won after bureaucratic feuding with Mr Haig), and the only official close to Mr Reagan. with wide intelligence and foreign affairs experience, his contribution at these sessions is considered vital. It was to Mr Bush that the President turned for the delicate mission of J getting to know Mr Mitterrand in France, before the Ottawa : Summit this month. What could .1 have been an inflammatory encounter, because of State; Department disquiet about the’ presence of four Communists in the Mitterrand Cabinet., passed off without too much rancour. United States concern was publicly expressed on the steps of the Elysee Palace but the talks were described as warm and productive. Diplomacy got the better of American paranoia about Eurocommunism. The vice-presidency has always been a stressful job. Although every President has promised to involve his Veep in government, it has never been a comfortable relationship. There has always been the feeling that the Vice-Presi-dent’s only role is to wait for the choice of' the people to die. Veeps have been sent to the far corners of the world but still kept away from the centre of power. It was Mr Carter who changed all this by bringing Walter Mondale into the innermost circle of his Government.

iHe put his Vice-President in (charge of Middle East policy to prevent feuding between different factions, and widely relied ‘on him for advice. It was a good foundation on which President Reagan has built. On the domestic front, where much of this Administration's 1 energies have been concenj trated, Mr Bush has been put i in charge of one of the legs of the economic tripod — the effort to get government off the backs of the .people. As head of the regulatory task force, he is responsible for sifting through thousands of regulations made .by government departments and deciding which are unnecessary. It was in relation to the black community that Mr Bush was given one of his most sensitive tasks. He was dispatched to Atlanta by the President to assess the financial and moral needs of police and community workers in a city stunned by the murders of 28 young blacks?' Indeed the arrest in Atlanta of Mr Wayne Williams, the man charged in the most recent Atlanta killing, is reported to have been partly due to Mr Bush’s personal intervention. Why has Mr Bush succeeded in winning Mr Reagan’s and the White House’s full confidence where others have failed? In the fashionable language of Washington, he has shown himself to be the .‘‘team player.” He has not sought exposure in the press. He has successfully courted the ruling troika in the ■' White House — Mr Edwin Meese, Mr James Baker and Mr Michael Deaver. Most important of all, he has buried his campaign view that Mr Reagan was in some way too old for office and running on a campaign of ‘‘voodoo economics."