Balancing Act at the Top

By Dick Allen

Meese and Baker will try to make the new White House work

As Reagan considers organizing his Administration around an "executive committee" composed of key Cabinet Secretaries and other top officials, he poses three problems that would have to be solved if the complicated system were to work in the bureaucratic maze of the Federal Government that persists no matter which party is in power. First: Who will coordinate the work of the executive committee? Second: Who will coordinate the work of the White House staff--always a force of its own? Third: Will the two coordinators be able to work together without succumbing to the overt, or subtle, struggles for power so characteristic of internal White House politics?

Last week Reagan tried to dispose of the problems that would beset this or other organizational plans by giving top jobs to two of his most respected and talented staffers who, if anyone in his camp can, will be able to make a complicated system work. The more important post will be held by Edwin Meese III, 48, one of Reagan's closest aides since he was recruited by the Governor in 1967 in California. Meese will serve as counsellor to the President and have Cabinet rank. He will coordinate the activities of the Cabinet, the White House domestic policy staff and the National Security Council. He will also be a member of the NSC.

The job of chief of the White House staff will be given to James Baker III, 50, a prominent Houston lawyer who rose rapidly in the Reagan hierarchy after joining the campaign in July. Baker's appointment, notes Meese with some satisfaction, shows that "the senior White House staff is not going to be nine guys from California."

Unlike such White House Chiefs of Staff as Richard Nixon's H.R. Haldeman and Jimmy Carter's Hamilton Jordan, Baker will have scant contact with members of the Cabinet or other major Government agencies. That is what Meese will be doing, in addition to helping set overall policy. Baker's job will be restricted to directing the work of the assistants and aides to the President who actually work in the White House or in the neighboring Executive Office Building. Among Baker's duties will be supervising White House press and congressional relations. Like Meese, he will be an NSC member.

On paper, fine, but what will make the system work--if it does--is the close relationship between Meese and Baker. Neither man is overbearing or consumed with ambition. No matter how much pressure he is under, Meese never appears harried. No one can ever remember his losing his temper. With his cherubic countenance, Meese might have stepped out of one of those 1960s situation comedies on TV featuring a benevolent daddy figure. He has a calming but somehow commanding voice. He rarely asserts his own views, but waits for a consensus among Reagan's advisers and then presents the final decision to the boss. One example: it was Meese who heard all the arguments and then finally urged Reagan to debate Carter in what turned out to be a pivotal point in the campaign.

A graduate of Yale and the law school of the University of California at Berkeley, Meese has long been the aide that Reagan turns to more than any other for advice. During the primary fights, Campaign Manager John Sears tried to get Meese fired, only to be sacked himself. Ever since, Reagan staffers with a problem have been saying, "I'll have to ask Ed Meese."

One reason why an outsider like Jim Baker rose so quickly in the Reagan camp is that Meese is not jealous of his turf. Baker was esteemed for his abilities despite the fact that he had fought Reagan first as President Ford's campaign chief in 1976 and then as the director of George Bush's presidential effort. The revenge of Reaganites was to hire their most talented opponent. Says Baker, a smooth and seemingly imperturbable Texan: "They have made me feel very welcome."

A member of an old-line Houston family, Baker attended Princeton and the University of Texas Law School and became a successful attorney specializing in corporate law. After joining the Reagan campaign as a senior adviser without portfolio, Baker won influence with his carefully marshaled lawyerly arguments. He successfully made the case for cutting salaries and other personnel costs in order to spend more on media. He was put in charge of negotiating the debates with Anderson and Carter and coaching Reagan's winning performance.

Meese and Baker will start their new job from an ideal position: plenty of friends and few enemies. They will need those reserves of trust as they prepare to cope with the avalanche of problems that is soon to descend on them.

Five days before the election, Richard V. Allen's future as a member of the Reagan inner circle appeared to have ended. A Wall Street Journal story had accused him of leaking international trade secrets from the White House, when he was on its staff during the Nixon Administration, for the purpose of setting up lucrative consultantships for himself after he left the Government. Allen, 44, who had been Reagan's chief foreign policy adviser, denied the allegations but quit the campaign because, he said, he did not want the charges to become an issue against his boss.

But the silver-haired and immaculately dressed Allen suddenly reappeared in the Reagan entourage on Election Day. Now he is one of Reagan's three senior transition advisers, with prime responsibility for coordinating all the foreign policy advice that the President-elect receives. Reagan staffers say that Allen seems headed for a top post in the new Administration, perhaps even National Security Adviser.

Why the comeback? Said Reagan, after announcing Allen's transition assignment: "We find absolutely no evidence of wrongdoing." An appointment for Allen, an outspoken hawk, might also help placate right-wingers who view many of the people mentioned for Administration jobs as too moderate. . Dick Allen

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