Reading the Portents

By Hugh Sidey

The Presidency

Presidential transitions never run the way the people involved want them to run, or the way the nation expects. Politics and Government simply cannot be programmed like an IBM training course for junior executives. Which is to say the Reagan transition, with its arguments, leaks, hesitations, minor embarrassments, excessive personnel and plethora of reports, is doing pretty well.

The Cabinet is forming, and so is the White House staff. The Administration-to-be has established a beachhead in Washington, gathered a talent pool, decreed that ceremony will be upgraded and the Inaugural Parade shortened.

In this environment of presence without power almost everything gets exaggerated--hopes, doubts, people, events. More telling portents are those subtle rituals of deliberation, delegation, explaining and announcing that Reagan and his people are now conducting.

Almost every normal transition has provided a preview of the tone and method of the new Administration. Kennedy formed his Government in the sagging elegance of his Georgetown home and made casual announcements about his appointees from the frigid front stoop. Nixon installed himself on the 39th floor of New York City's majestic Hotel Pierre, and, as he chose the members of his Administration, the world waited far below.

Ronald Reagan really is behaving like a chairman of the board. He is remarkably removed from the daily hubbub of the transition. He is plainly not aware of many of the details about the process and just as plainly uninterested in knowing about them. But it is he who decides--from instinct, from experience and from his trust in his advisers who make the recommendations.

While Reagan made two forays out of his Pacific redoubt to remind the world of his smile and desire to work with Congress and other powerful people, he has talked very little. The flow of commentary on appointees, world events and national issues that Presidents-elect in other times have been lured into has been avoided. His image is compressed and contained, drawn deliberately and somewhat vaguely as the power that is felt behind the stage, emerging only for the big bows. That protected position also helps reduce wear and tear on a President who truly intends to change directions.

Preliminary recommendations from the Reagan transition task forces have sent a minor shock wave through the capital. For most of the past 40 years this city has been used to new Presidents' promising dramatic departures but actually only reassembling existing ideas and programs under new slogans. Already Reagan has been urged by his advance scouts to reconsider the proposed new MX missile system and seek a cheaper and more imaginative modification of our current missile arsenal. It has been recommended that upon taking office tie declare a national economic emergency; that he seek congressional authority for a series of radical steps to bolster the private sector.

Nobody is yet very sure if many--or any--such suggestions will actually be translated into Government action. But in addition to its conservative direction, there is the first faint hint that Ronald Reagan's Administration is willing to take risks in the hope of getting results. This is an approach that has not been tried very much in Washington in recent years.

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