Substance eludes Reagan ...

Press, 26 February 1983, Page 9

Substance eludes Reagan ...

... says ANTHONY LEWIS of the “New York Times" (through NZPA) Boston The United States is conducting a remarkable experiment in modern government. It is testing the effects on a great democracy of a vacuum at the Centre: of a Chief Executive who is scarcely informed on the substance of issues and shows no interest in being informed. That is what underlies all the current buzz about Ronald Reagan's problems. The word in Washington is that the Reagan Administration is “in disarray.” But it never was arrayed, except in the portentous imagination of the press. At the point of decision-making there was and is a President, with a seven-minute attention span, a President interested not in reality but in appearance, in slogans. Consider the two big flaps, domestic and foreign, in which the President is now involved: the mess at the Environmental Protection Agency and the choice of a director for the Arms Control ' and Disarmament Agency. There are ideological elements in each. But what is really striking in both episodes is how Reagan's unawareness of reality has damaged his own

interest. In filling the arms control job, the President had one paramount interest. That was to show that he is serious about reaching nuclear weapons agreements with the Soviet Union, to show a Congress that is rebelling on the nuclear issue, to show a worried American public, most of all to show our restive allies in Europe. Just how concerned the allies are could not have been missed by anyone even, marginally interested in the subject of arms control. European leaders had been signalling for months that they do not want to stand pat on Reagan’s “zero option” proposal on theatre nuclear weapons — the U.S. offer not to proceed with its planned deployment if the Soviets remove all of theirs. Vice-President Bush confirmed that on his European tour, bringing back the unsurprising word that our allies would welcome an “interim” agreement for fewer theatre weapons on both sides. That goes even for Reagan’s redoubtable friend, Mrs Thatcher. But it is a crucial subject for West Germany’s Christian Democratic Chancellor, Helmut Kohl, who faces an election early next month. All this called for Reagan

to pick a reassuring senior figure as director of A.C.D.A.. someone who would symbolise seriousness on arms control. And what did Reagan do? He selected someone with all the gravitas of a puppy dog. Kenneth Adelman. And when Adelman had worried the normally supine Senate Foreign Relations Committee enough to arouse resistance to the nomination, Reagan said he would fight for Adelman on the beaches and in the hills. The E.P.A. quagmire began with the refusal of its director, Anne Gorsuch, to give Congress documents on the toxic waste clean-up program. Perhaps at that stage there was an arguable claim of Executive privilege, be-

cause pending ’’cases were involved, although the Administration’s attempt to short-cut the usual contempt process for determining such claims was a lame legal device. But before long it was obvious that much more was involved than some abstract legal test of Executive versus legislative power. The stink from Mrs Gorsuch's agency became overwhelming. A President moved by informed self-interest would have seen (1) that this was a poor case to test Executive privilege, and (2) that he should reassure people concerned about toxic dangers. What did Reagan do? He told a news conference that he would “never invoke Executive privilege to cover up wrongdoing” — then took back that seeming concession while lawyers actually negotiated an agreement. And he tied himself more closely to Mrs Gorsuch by praising her “splendid record.” There is a sense in those episodes that Ronald Reagan is off in some dreamland, unconnected’ with what everyone else knows — including his own people. That image was confirmed in a "Time” magazine cover story last December on "How Reagan Decides.” An adviser to the President said it was hard to get

Reagan to concentrate on the specifics of a problem. "I have to prepare a script. Otherwise he will get me off the subject and turn what I have to say to mush. I have about six or seven minutes." A former aide was quoted by “Time” as saying that, when Reagan considers a policy adjustment “he will not go far into it because he is not really looking to make a decision. He is looking for lines to repeat when the time comes to sell. He thinks of himself not so much as the person who decides but rather as the person who markets.” A current subordinate said he doubted that the President had been in his principal advisers’ offices more than two or three times. "He does not know in any specific way what most of us do or how we do it.” None of this seems to affect Reagan’s political appeal. Indeed, a good part of that appeal may be the way he comes on as a bewildered ordinary guy, vulnerable, blundering at times but a shucks. And of course the President has the added advantage of being sincere. He may be the only person in this country who believes that his E.P.A. has a "splendid record." but he says it with the true sincerity of ignorance.