TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/070891/0708105.000

Text File | 1992-08-28 | 5.3 KB | 113 lines

                                                                                NATION, Page 26

THE PRESIDENCY

Why Bush Has Trouble Firing Sununu


By Hugh Sidey


    As one of Washington's pre-eminent power brokers slid
through the remote corridors of the White House last week, he
had three separate encounters with members of George Bush's
staff. Each of them whispered, "Where is Nancy when we need
her?"

    The Nancy in question is Nancy Reagan, who was credited in
1987 with using her well-shod foot to loft the self-important
chief of staff, Donald Regan, out of the White House. Her
husband, like virtually all other Presidents, had been trying
to avoid the distasteful task of firing a helper and friend
whose insensitivity was damaging the nation.

    A similar boot in the behind is now in order for Bush's
chief of staff, John Sununu. His abuse of public facilities and
trust and George Bush's presidency is just wrong. His apologies
and contrition are shams. Sununu has shot himself in both feet
and some other parts, has diminished a talented and devoted
White House staff, and has insulted the intelligence of Bush and
now the country.

    The evolution of this third-rate scandal has been
astonishing. What only a few weeks ago amounted to no more than
a few snickers about Air Sununu has turned into a reflection on
whether Bush has the guts to set his house in order.

    About 90% of the White House staff is in muted rebellion
against Sununu. Members of Congress with few exceptions are in
open contempt. The power establishment in the capital doesn't
want Sununu around. Some Republican Party donors are talking
about buttoning up their wallets if Sununu remains in office.
Having an abominable no-man in the presidential apparatus can
be a virtue, but there often comes a moment when firing the
fellow is even more of a virtue -- perhaps a necessity.

    As Bush fled Washington for Kennebunkport, Me., last
weekend, he was displaying his vaunted loyalty to subordinates.
But there is another side to Bush that emerges, albeit
reluctantly, when he thinks the national interest is being
harmed. It was Bush, as Republican National Committee chairman
back in the summer of 1974, who looked across the Cabinet table
at Richard Nixon and made it plain that he ought to resign for
the good of the country. It was Bush, as Vice President, who
summoned Regan to his office in 1987 and put the final pressure
on him to leave, enduring Regan's tirade but never yielding.

    Every day, managers across America must summon the courage
to let inept subordinates go, but somehow occupants of the Oval
Office seem unable to deliver the bad news. In 1958 Dwight
Eisenhower endured the turmoil surrounding his chief aide,
Sherman Adams, accused of taking favors from wealthy
industrialist Bernard Goldfine. Then one day Ike decided he had
to make "the hardest, most hurtful decision" he had ever made
and fire Adams. Even then he could not do it face-to-face. He
summoned Republican National Committee chairman Meade Alcorn and
handed him "the dirtiest job I could give you." Alcorn delivered
the word to Adams, his friend and fellow Dartmouth graduate.

    Try as they may, sometimes Presidents cannot pass that
unpleasant buck. When Nixon implored his old friend and
Secretary of State William Rogers to order the resignation of
White House aides John Ehrlichman and H.R. Haldeman, caught up
in the Watergate scandal, Rogers refused, telling Nixon he
should do it himself. There followed one of the age's grand
political soap operas, with teary meetings, prayers and
arguments. But Nixon did it. Later he would recall the words of
Britain's heroic Prime Minister William Gladstone: "The first
essential for a Prime Minister is to be a good butcher."

    Easier quoted than done. Jimmy Carter came down from his
meditations on Camp David's mountaintop in 1979 determined to
recast his stalled Administration by making a few changes in his
Cabinet. "I dreaded this duty," he wrote later. Carter softened
the task by gathering his Cabinet and asking them all to offer
their resignations for consideration as he reordered things. Bad
idea, he later admitted, after he had accepted the resignations
of Treasury Secretary Mike Blumenthal, HEW Secretary Joseph
Califano and Energy Secretary James Schlesinger. He should have
done it quickly and individually.

    Give belated credit once again to the unheralded Jerry
Ford. Having trouble with the strong-willed James Schlesinger,
who then was Secretary of Defense, Ford called him in one
Sunday morning in 1975 and asked for his resignation. Give
credit to Schlesinger, who refused to resign and insisted he be
fired. Ford obliged.

    It is a curious and somewhat ironic commentary on high
government that the designated roughnecks like Adams and Sununu
often end up as victims of the terrible swift sword that they
loved to wield so much. Adams by all accounts enjoyed laying
about in righteous fervor in the name of national interest. And
Sununu relished summoning the hapless Secretary of Education
Lauro Cavazos to his office and giving him the heave-ho for the
greater glory of Bush, who stayed away from the execution.
Perhaps the power these men are given breeds in some ways the
arrogance that leads them into trouble. There is only one man
who can correct it: the President.