The Organization Man

The walls are bare in the large office on M Street except for a print of a Norman Rockwell portrait of Ronald Reagan. On a conference table lie nearly 100 letters in careful rows, waiting for signatures. On the desk is a picture frame, but instead of family photographs (wife and three children) it contains a schedule, neatly filled with appointments, six days a week, beginning with a daily 7 a.m. planning meeting with top assistants and ending often at 8 p.m. Next to the schedule is a clock.

The office is the headquarters of the Reagan transition team, and its sparse, precise furnishings reflect the personality of its occupant: Edwin Meese III, 49, whose affable manner and Teddy bear frame belie the analytical mind that for 13 years has made him one of Reagan's most trusted advisers. Now, as No. 1 aide to the President-elect, Meese is coordinating Reagan's transition to power.

In Washington, Meese has functioned as smoothly and effectively for Reagan as he once did in the smaller political arena of Sacramento. He is accessible to politicians, reporters, Carter Administration officials--anyone who matters in the capital. He has a self-effacing lack of interest, rare in Washington, in the trappings of personal power.

Meese chairs most meetings of Reagan's top advisers. He jots down the often conflicting views in his ever present spiral notebook and later distills them into well-reasoned, easily digested, single-page memos or brief oral reports to Reagan, just as he has been doing since 1967, when he first joined the Governor's staff. Says Edward Thomas, Meese's chief aide: "He can hash out a complex issue until it can be stated as simply as A, B, C. It puts the Governor right at ease." After Jan. 20, Meese will perform much the same role as coordinator of the inner circle of Cabinet-level officials.

Because Meese rarely interjects his own views into discussions and his memos are objective, he is accused of having no political ideas of his own, a charge that he emphatically denies. Meese calls himself a "practical conservative," meaning that he favors less Government but is not bound to a rigid anti-Government ideology. "I have a lawyer's sense that your purpose is to serve your client," says Meese, a former prosecutor. "My service to Ronald Reagan is to see that he gets objective advice and to filter out my own personal viewpoint. But the idea that I don't have any particular philosophical viewpoints is baloney."

Meese never seems harried and rarely seems to mind when staff members interrupt him. Reports TIME Correspondent Walter Isaacson, after observing Meese in action: "Every time his door opened, there was a staffer sticking his head in with a brief request. 'Sure, no problem,' Meese says over and over.

Scheduler Chuck Tyson wants to put an item on the agenda for Reagan's visit this week. 'Let's go over it,' Meese says, putting on his glasses. Then he spots an old friend wandering in the hall. 'Jim,' Meese calls out, grabs his arm and introduces him around. Every conversation starts with a pleasantry. Often a visitor, who has carefully planned the quickest way to say what he needs to say, is disarmed."

All very low key, all very businesslike. But the man whose passion is organization relishes horseplay in his private moments. For example, he does a first-rate imitation of George Washington trying to talk and straighten his wooden dentures at the same time. It is an act that will play well on tense White House evenings.

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