The

By Hugh Sidey

The question has taken root in the power circles of Washington. It is thrown up at every White House briefing. Congress, like a hungry dog with a new bone, is jubilantly chewing on it. The question will echo down through George Bush's remaining years of stewardship and on into history unless he has some miracle up his sleeve or gets a little of Ronald Reagan's luck. So far, he has not had an oversupply of either.

Did a moment come and go last week in which raw U.S. power should have been used quickly and decisively? It is one of the oldest and most difficult questions in the two centuries of the American presidency. Almost every occupant of the Oval Office has had to answer it at some time. In our age, Jimmy Carter hesitated on Iran and was dumped. Ronald Reagan's boldness in Libya and Grenada elevated his presidency.

Bush has been hailed for his restraint in the troubles besetting the Soviet Union, China, Poland, Hungary and, earlier, Panama. But there has always lurked the probability that sooner rather than later, U.S. muscle would be needed to subdue a tyrant. In the minds of many, a doubt has lingered from last year's presidential campaign over whether Bush had the heart to use power. The explanations of inaction from his Secretaries of State and Defense and his White House staff have echoes of almost every sad incident of our times, going back to Pearl Harbor. Bush's caution will probably not displease the bulk of American people now. But history sorts out the facts and is a harsher judge, not influenced by popularity polls.

"The oldest rule in the exercise of power is that if a nation tells the world it wants to get rid of a corrupt government, as the U.S. did in Panama, that nation had better have the means and the will to carry it through once an opportunity develops." So spoke old cold warrior Richard Helms, former director of the CIA, last week.

That the situation in Panama was confused and information inadequate is nothing new for such incidents. Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, a crisis manager of considerable success, claims that in almost every crunch there is never enough information and always uncertainty, and the final decision must frequently ride more on a President's intuition than his briefing books. That is what leadership is all about.

"We were not sure what was happening, but I felt something had to be done" was the way Gerald Ford explained his recapture of the cargo ship Mayaguez in the Gulf of Thailand in 1975. "Let's do it" was Reagan's simple command that sent F-14 pilots aloft on a risky mission in the Mediterranean that apprehended and forced down the Egyptian airliner carrying the hijackers of the cruise ship Achille Lauro.

So far, the facts seem stacked against Bush. But he has not had his day in public, and his command process is more secretive than that of any recent President. We know that young Panamanian officers responded to U.S. pressure to rid their country of Manuel Noriega, that we were aware of the plot, involved to some undetermined degree and that a few yards away were some of the 12,000 trained and armed American troops stationed in Panama. Does opportunity ever knock so hard?

Did Bush know? Was he too preoccupied with his busy White House schedule, not attentive enough to this festering problem? Was it a time when intuition should have prodded him to act?