No Right-On for Reagan

By GEORGE J. CHURCH

If anyone can mollify hard-line conservatives, it should be their idol, Ronald Reagan. That is what Chief of Staff Howard Baker thought when a handful of right-wingers who had been invited to the White House began leveling accusations that the Administration was selling out the contras in Nicaragua. Baker had arranged for the President to drop by and explain in person that his tentative backing for a Central American peace plan implied no lessening of U.S. support for the Nicaraguan rebels. But this time his remarks were greeted only with cold silence; visibly irritated, Reagan shrugged and walked away. Said Burton Pines, vice president of the Heritage Foundation and one of the visitors: "People who have been around the President say that was probably the most chilling reception he had ever had from his supporters."

It was certainly not the first time Reagan had disappointed his bedrock constituency. Throughout his presidency, staunch conservatives have sporadically complained that Reagan in action has never matched the ideological oratory that so thrills them on the stump. But as the silent tableau in the Roosevelt Room indicated, their dissatisfaction is plumbing new depths, which could make trouble not only for Reagan but also for the Republican aspirants to succeed him.

In the past, some of the conservatives' loudest complaints have focused on Reagan's failure to push hard on such social issues as abortion and school prayer. The President's nomination of Robert Bork to the Supreme Court has stilled some, but not all, of the gripes about domestic policy; conservatives now grumble that Reagan is abandoning his "economic bill of rights" and promoting a leftish, catastrophic health-insurance scheme. But, says Paul Weyrich, head of the conservative group called the Free Congress Foundation, "the real feelings are on foreign policy issues."

To moderates, Reagan's tentative endorsement of the peace plan signed in August by five Central American Presidents may have seemed grudging and tepid. But to the right it sounded like the crack of doom for any effort to save Nicaragua from Communism. Some conservatives are also aghast at what they view as the Administration's headlong rush into a missile treaty with the Soviets, and in particular by its retreat from strict verification demands. Says Patrick Buchanan, once Reagan's communications director: "We are better off with 574 missiles that can land on the Soviet Union than we are with a damn treaty."

Conservatives were further alarmed last week by a report in the Washington Times that Reagan had chosen Paul Nitze to head the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency. Actually, White House sources say no appointment is imminent; they speculate that the story was leaked in order to mobilize opposition to Nitze, who was once viewed as a hawk but is now thought by - conservatives to be too eager for a grand compromise with Moscow on strategic weapons. The right would prefer Edward Rowny, who, like Nitze, is a special adviser to the President on arms-control matters. Ronald Lehman, a member of the U.S. negotiating team at Geneva, is being talked of as a compromise choice.

The right still cannot bring itself to criticize Reagan directly. Conservatives will not accept the thought that the President, running for his place in the history books, is no longer absolutely wedded to their ideological agenda. Instead, they complain that the Administration more than ever is filled with mushy compromisers who will not let Reagan be Reagan. There is also suspicion about creeping "Nancyism," the First Lady's supposed efforts to have her husband become known as a peacemaker.

In this vision, the prime villain is the chief of staff -- indeed, almost any chief of staff. The far right had no love for James Baker and mistrusted Donald Regan, but it now thunders that Howard Baker is the worst of the lot. BRING BACK DON REGAN urges a headline in a recent issue of the weekly Human Events, over an editorial charging that "Baker and his merry crew, by filling the President with doubts about his capacity to lead and then spreading 'concern' about that capacity to the media, are emasculating his presidency." It adds: "If the President continues to embrace Baker's advice, he may yet end his eight years in office as the man who not only permitted the Soviets to establish a major beachhead on the American continent but also presided over the greatest increase in the welfare state since Lyndon Johnson gave us the Great Society." Responds Baker: "My responsibility is to carry out ((Reagan's)) wishes and policies."

The deepest reason for the ultra-conservatives' dismay may be a fear that time is running out. With only 17 months of his term remaining, Reagan in their eyes has yet to effect any permanent change in the nation's direction; Weyrich expresses a worry that "almost everything that President Reagan has accomplished can be swiftly undone by a single session of a heavily Democratic Congress." Even if a Republican successor is elected, the hard right cannot be sure that he will be able, or for that matter want, to carry the so-called Reagan Revolution to fruition. Its hero, Congressman Jack Kemp, ran fourth among Republicans in the latest Yankelovich poll for TIME. The leaders, Vice President George Bush and Senator Robert Dole, have never won the full trust of movement conservatives.

But the right is not as impotent as it feels; its activists dominate many a Republican primary and caucus. Bush and Dole are both maneuvering to allay their suspicions, in part by distancing themselves from Central American peace initiatives. Indeed, every one of the six Republican contenders has, to some extent, positioned himself slightly to the right of Reagan on certain issues. That may be necessary to win the loyalty of primary activists, but it may not be the best recipe for victory next fall.

With reporting by Barrett Seaman/Washington