Ronald Reagan a ‘dilettante President’

Press, 2 September 1981, Page 16

Ronald Reagan a ‘dilettante President’

NZPA-Reuter New York President Ronald Reagan works only two or three hours a day on affairs of State, “Newsweek" magazine has alleged, quoting White House aides. In an article headlined “Disengaged Presidency,” "Newsweek” quote unnamed Presidential advisers as saying of Mr Reagan: “He probably spends two or three hours at most on real work." One of the aides said, “There are times when you really need him to do some work and all he wants to do is tell stories about his movie days.” Eight months after his taking office, journalists were also disenchanted by the “dilettante style” of Mr Reagan’s Presidency and his "apparent unfamiliarity with some issues before him.” But the White House Deputy Chief of Staff, Mr Michael Deaver, defended Mr Reagan’s part in recent

defence and Budget debates, saying that critical defence decisions were the President's personal responsibility. “People suddenly begin to ask how plugged in he is.” the Cabinet Secretary, Mr Craig Fuller, said. But other aides quoted in the magazine joked about an earlier report which said that Mr Reagan worked six hours a day. “That wasn’t a day in the life (of the President). That was a week in the life.” “It has never been a question of his work capacity or his It has always been a question of his interest level," said another presidential adviser. The “Newsweek” article accused the senior presidential adviser, Mr Edwin Meese, of acting “President Meese" and stopping White House press briefing out of fear that “gaffes” would be made because of official

ignorance on main issues. “Newsweek" said Mr Reagan went to his office at 8.45 a.m. and always left at 6 p.m. He took Wednesday afternoons off to go horse riding. The magazine summed up by wondering: “Is Reagan so disengaged from the daily routine of Government as to be — in the words of one correspondent — little more than a figurehead President?” ' ■

Jet crashes A 24-year-old United States Air Force pilot apparently stayed with his disabled jet to steer it away from a residential area, and died when the craft crashed near a highway, according to officials and witnesses. His parents lived in the subdivision. Amy White, whose house was near the crash, said that the plane “would’ve hit my house if he didn’t manoeuvre that plane." An Air Force spokeswoman would neither confirm nor deny reports that the pilot might have been buzzing his parents’ house when the crash occurred.—Summerville. S. Carolina.