TIME: Almanac 1990/1990 Time Magazine Compact Almanac, The (1991)(Time).iso/time/050889/05088900.049

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NATION, Page 22

Bless Me, Father

Bush seeks Reagan's approval, even as he edges away from him

By Dan Goodgame


    He is 64 years old and the leader of all he surveys, yet for
a moment last week George Bush looked like a schoolboy called
before the principal to discuss his report card. Perched nervously
on a beige sofa in Ronald Reagan's Los Angeles office, Bush held
the tip of his tongue between his lips, smiling thinly as the old
President blandly pronounced that the new President is "doing just
fine."

    Bush looked decidedly relieved when Reagan brushed aside
reporters' questions about the dilution of Reagan policies on Star
Wars and military aid to the Nicaraguan contras. "Well," Reagan
said cautiously, "having had for eight years some of the same
problems he's facing now, I'm not going to comment on that."

    Reagan's praise was faint, and the body language between the
two men, as ever, betrayed discomfort. Nevertheless, Bush's
advisers felt he had accomplished a major purpose of his visit: to
shore up his crucial and complex relationship with his predecessor
and, by extension, with Reagan's loyalists on the Republican right.
As Bush jetted last week from Chicago to San Jose to Miami,
pointing with pride to the accomplishments of his first 100 days,
he and his aides stressed their "continuity" with Reagan and felt
obliged to deny the obvious: embedded in their accomplishments are
subtle but distinct breaks with Reagan and the right. Among them:

    Star Wars. Bush and several of his top advisers view with
skepticism Reagan's expensive vision of a high-tech shield from
enemy missiles. The 1990 budget agreement cuts funding for the
program to $4.6 billion from Reagan's proposed $5.9 billion.

    Contras. Reagan hailed the rebels fighting Nicaragua's Marxist
government as "the moral equivalent of our Founding Fathers" and
sent them overt and covert military support. Bush and Secretary of
State James Baker, however, immediately abandoned the nigh hopeless
goal of supplying them with more guns and bullets and, instead,
struck a deal with Congress to provide continued food and housing
assistance, pending elections promised by Nicaragua's junta.

    Arms Control. At the Reykjavik summit in 1986, Reagan stunned
many of his advisers and allies by embracing the elimination of all
nuclear weapons, a move that would expose Western Europe to the
Warsaw Pact's overwhelming numerical superiority in troops and
tanks. Bush has expressed far less enthusiasm for nuclear-weapons
reductions and has suggested they may have to be conditioned on
cuts in Soviet conventional forces.

    The Budget. Reagan relished sending Congress what one senior
aide called "a go-to-hell budget" laden with domestic-spending cuts
patently unacceptable to the Democrats. Bush declared at his
Inauguration, "The American people didn't send us here to bicker."
He drew up a less contentious proposal and, by managing to persuade
congressional leaders to accept his overly optimistic economic
assumptions, struck a deal by mid-April.

    The Environment. Reagan, who was famous for asserting that
trees cause pollution, cut back on environmental protection. After
declaring in his campaign, "I am an environmentalist," Bush has
appointed a respected conservationist to head the EPA; called for
the elimination of chlorofluorocarbons, which harm the ozone layer;
promised action on a clean-air package and restrictions on acid
rain; and proposed adding a mile per gallon to federal mileage
standards for motor vehicles.

    Gun Control. Reagan opposed it. Bush, too, is against new
federal gun-control laws, but he responded to police and public
pressure for controls on military-style assault weapons by banning
the imported (though not U.S.-made) semiautomatic rifles.

    Bush's aides argue that these differences are a matter of
approach and attitude rather than intent. "President Bush has not
suddenly turned Democrat or liberal," says press secretary Marlin
Fitzwater. "He shares the same goals as President Reagan, but like
anyone, he has his own style." Bush also has a different hand to
play. His party does not control either house of Congress. He was
elected with no specific mandate. He lacks Reagan's gift for
rallying public support via television, and the budget crunch
leaves him few goodies to trade for political support. Says a
senior Bush official who also served under Reagan: "This
Administration can't afford ideological posturing."

    Chief of staff John Sununu adds, "We're less interested in
looking good than in getting results . . . and we're willing to
work very closely with Congress to get results." That is where Bush
uses tools Reagan never had: energy, intense interest and
background in the details of policy and long-standing personal ties
to lawmakers and other Washington insiders.

    The usual Bush method of dealmaking with Congress is to
straddle an issue and give something to everybody. Typical was last
week's decision to pursue development of both the mobile MX missile
and the Midgetman. Either one alone would serve the nation's
security needs, but both have strong supporters in Congress. This
method smacks of perfidious pragmatism to one of the few papers
Reagan is known to read and enjoy, the conservative weekly Human
Events, which bristles with articles critical of the new
Administration. "I do not think President Bush's concept of the
presidency can work," writes Patrick Buchanan, communications
director in the Reagan White House. "Americans care much more about
ideas and ideals than about `bipartisanship' or political peace."

    A more personal barb came from columnist George Will, who has
close ties to the Reagans. He noted archly that when Bush returned
from his February trip to Asia, he called to consult with former
President Jimmy Carter rather than Reagan. That may explain Bush's
eagerness last week to recruit Reagan for special diplomatic
missions to Asia and elsewhere.

    Meanwhile, another former Republican President, Richard Nixon,
urged Bush to stop his staff from contrasting his hands-on energy
with Reagan's well-known sloth and detachment. Bush, whose
politeness is legendary, was furious that anyone on his payroll
would blurt such disrespectful truths. One senior Bushman who had
also worked for Reagan felt obliged to write to Nancy Reagan (with
a copy to President Bush) denying he had bad-mouthed her husband.

    This need to look over his shoulder prevents Bush from taking
as much credit as he might for his early successes. "If they draw
too much attention to this approach of taking what you can get from
the Democrats in Congress," says a Bush adviser outside Government,
"they're going to attract more fire from the conservatives."
Instead, Bush will soon emphasize his toughness on two issues dear
to the right: his veto strategy to "hold the line" on the minimum
wage and his plan to build more prison cells. As a wry college
coach once put it, the trick is to keep the alumni "sullen but not
mutinous." A few outright partisan victories might help.