The White House: A Bad Case of the Perks

By Michael Duffy/Washington

George Bush assumed that John Sununu had learned his lesson. After revelations about the White House chief of staff's misuse of Air Force jets embarrassed the Administration, the President ordered Sununu to obtain a lawyer's O.K. before taking any more government-paid flights. Bush was trying to reinforce an ethical standard he had long stood behind: senior aides must avoid even the appearance of improper behavior.

If Sununu hadn't exactly been grounded, he had certainly been sent to his room. But Bush underestimated the depth of Sununu's ethical obtuseness and his zeal at finding a way around the rules. Like a rebellious adolescent, Sununu sneaked down the stairs, grabbed the car keys and slipped out of the White House. After all, the old man had only said, "Don't take the plane." He didn't say anything about the car.

Overcome by a sudden urge two weeks ago to buy rare stamps, Sununu ordered the driver of his government-paid limousine to drive him 225 miles to New York City. He spent the day -- and nearly $5,000 -- at an auction room at Christie's. Then he dismissed the driver, who motored back to Washington with no passengers. Sununu returned on a private jet owned by Beneficial Corp.

Bush was again forced to choose between two values he holds dear: loyalty to his staff and the pursuit of ethical purity. He tried to split the difference, defending Sununu's joyride as "appropriate." Bush even backtracked on his own ethical standards for the first time, saying, "You shouldn't be judged by appearance. You ought to be judged by the fact." This reversal steamed White House aides. Asked what Sununu would have to do to really anger Bush, a bemused White House official cracked, "He'd have to knock over a bank, I guess."

Bush, however, did order Sununu to clear all future corporate flights in advance with both White House lawyers and bookkeepers. The President acted shortly before the Washington Post printed a story claiming that Sununu, his wife Nancy and an aide had personally solicited rides on jets owned by companies that do business with Washington. White House counsel C. Boyden Gray had blocked three such requests, but sources told the Post that an aide to Sununu had misinformed Gray about the identity of a fourth benefactor. In a statement on Saturday, Sununu admitted that "some mistakes were made."

Delusions of grandeur are Sununu's biggest problem. He craves the challenge of public life but demands the perks of the corporate suite. His need for the trappings of power is so great that he chose to spend five hours enthroned in the back of a dark-windowed sedan rather than 45 minutes in steerage on the shuttle flight to New York.

Some associates say, however, it wasn't really a love of perks that sent Sununu by ground but fear of getting snickers from fellow passengers. Silly man: the unspoken code of the New York shuttle dictates that no one pays the famous -- or the infamous -- any attention.

Nor is it money that keeps Sununu from flying commercial. Though he often complained about being underpaid as Governor, he and his wife, who works for the Republican Governors Association, earned combined salaries of more than $150,000 last year. Moreover, Sununu has access to $250,000 in leftover New Hampshire campaign funds.

Already this year, he has dipped into the fund to pay for catering, printing and taxes. Now that two more of his eight children have finished college, he finally has, an aide remarked, "some discretionary income." What ails Sununu is a bad case of a strange complex that overcomes people who are enamored of perks: once they become used to expense-account living, they don't want to pay for anything, no matter how deep their pockets.

Sununu's addiction to perks is proved by his insistence that he needs to get out of Washington in order to talk with what he calls real people. As he said in Des Moines last week, "There are some folks who keep asking why I have to travel. The fact is that the Bush Administration really does love to spend time with folks who make up the heart and soul of the nation . . . Frankly, we'd rather listen to you than the self-styled experts in Washington." However, his definition of real people is curious: beyond the weekly Republican fund raisers -- or the session at Christie's -- Sununu rarely leaves his splendid cocoon.

It is easy to mistake Sununu's value to Bush as merely that of an unshakable link to the G.O.P.'s right wing. In fact, Sununu's real value is the role he plays as the President's enforcer, the "abominable no man," who acts as a lightning rod for the well-liked Commander in Chief. But Sununu's ethical lapses are now backfiring on Bush, causing the President such embarrassment that Sununu's future is in doubt. Some officials who never liked Sununu but balked at criticizing him feel less restrained now that he is under fire. Several of them suggested last week that Sununu does not realize how much damage he is doing to his relationship with his boss. Says one: "Sununu is self-destructing, but not out of his job. He's just self-destructing out of being influential with Bush."

Those who know the President best suspect that he has probably decided to jettison his deputy -- but not anytime soon. That would be too humiliating for both men. "He'll dump Sununu," says an official, "when there's a natural transition." But that might not arise until after the 1992 election.

With reporting by Barbara Burke/New York and Dan Goodgame/ Washington