That Shy Fellow on the Firing Line

By Ed Magnuson

After 6 1/2 years in Washington, the Reagan Administration is still scandalously divided on whether it really wants a new strategic-arms-cont rol agreement with the Soviet Union and, if it does, just what kind. Increasingly beset by congressional critics, the Administration last week was still struggling to define its policy toward South Africa's repressive white government. Ronald Reagan floats blithely above the bureaucratic battles, apparently unwilling to knock heads, bruise egos and decide the urgent issues. Many officials in the capital deplore the drifting and look for someone to blame. Rather than take on the popular President, some are taking their frustrations out on the man who, on critical security matters, is assumed to have the President's ear: John Poindexter.

Poindexter? Almost unknown outside the Washington Beltway, he is a shy, pipe- smoking introvert who became Reagan's National Security Adviser last December and has tried to remain out of public view ever since. Mostly, he has succeeded. A Navy vice admiral still on active duty, Poindexter, 49, sees his role in a limited way: as a staff officer, skillfully condensing the arguments of the quarreling Cabinet secretaries and their underlings, then presenting the various action options to the President. Unlike Henry Kissinger under Nixon and Ford and, to a slightly lesser degree, Zbigniew Brzezinski under Carter, Poindexter does not consider himself a virtual foreign-policy czar. He has neither the desire nor the personality to pressure other high officials into agreement. Instead, by avoiding the limelight, Poindexter believes he can effectively work out compromises among his large-ego clients.

For all his apparent detachment, Reagan apparently favors a low-profile National Security Adviser. None of his previous appointees (Richard Allen, William Clark, Robert McFarlane) was a forceful head basher, eager to humble a department chief, as Kissinger did with Secretary of State William Rogers. Unfortunately for Poindexter, however, the NSC post is still widely considered a power center with such multiple responsibilities as massaging, if not coercing the departments, dealing with key legislators on critical issues and helping to sell and explain White House policy through press contacts. Not surprisingly, the reluctant Poindexter has been criticized for failing to perform these tasks effectively.

Poindexter botched the handling of an admittedly difficult White House switch on SALT II in May: Reagan's tentative decision to abandon the unratified treaty's limits on various strategic weapons. The NSC chief allowed news of the change to leak from a critical forum: a meeting of NATO foreign ministers. He refused to brief the press on the matter, leaving a less expert White House spokesman, Larry Speakes, to fumble with explanations. Poindexter was also blamed for failing to get the nuances across to the President, who gave highly confusing answers to questions at a press conference.

A White House staffer complains that "Poindexter refuses to concede that explanation and promotion of policy is part of his job. At times, it hurts us." Poindexter, frankly admitting his weakness as a public spokesman, has told his aides, "I'm worried about that, but considering the things I do best, it doesn't make sense for me to change." He added, "I'm here to serve the President."

When Poindexter did finally decide to take a rare initiative with the press, announcing a South Africa policy review last month, the news captured front-page headlines, but he was bitten by both the White House and State Department. Speakes complained that the significance of the review was overstated and Secretary of State George Shultz considered the pronouncement premature. While allowing that Poindexter, who holds a Ph.D. in nuclear physics, has a brilliant analytical mind, his critics contend that he is such a poor communicator that he cannot brief the Great Communicator in the big- picture, skip-the-details style that Reagan prefers.

& The NSC has suffered some personnel problems under Poindexter, notably the loss to the State Department of Jack Matlock, a respected Kremlinologist. Another highly regarded key aide, Donald Fortier, has been seriously ill and was belatedly replaced last week by Alton Keel, an experienced bureaucrat who most recently excelled as the executive director of the commission that investigated the Challenger disaster. Overall, however, most observers feel that Poindexter has strengthened the staff since taking charge.

Despite the carping, Poindexter has many admirers in Government who point to his substantive successes. They cite his role in devising the Navy's bold interception of an Egyptian airliner carrying the hijackers of the Achille Lauro, his ability to overcome Pentagon qualms about launching air strikes against Libya and his role in getting Congress to renew military aid to contra forces in Nicaragua.

One Poindexter defender is White House Chief of Staff Donald Regan, who says, "He doesn't talk to the press as much as some of us, and maybe that's wise. But he's brilliant, thoughtful, reasoned and completely unflappable." Poindexter has had some problems dealing with Regan, but so do most White House aides. "You either grovel at Don's feet or have a confrontation," contends a friend of the NSC head. Admiral William Crowe, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, praises Poindexter's work as "absolutely superb" and lauds the fact that "no matter what happens, John just keeps puffing on his pipe. That's something in that job."

Perhaps so. But a few less puffs and more forceful words may be needed from the National Security Adviser as he faces a series of imminent tests. If the Administration cannot explain its South Africa policy more effectively, Congress seems ready to impose its own views. If there is to be another summit, the U.S. must decide where it is headed on arms control. Perhaps unfairly, the man who advises the easygoing President cannot afford to go too easy himself.

With reporting by David Beckwith/Washington