Already Ahead, Reagan Starts Fresh : First-Term Pluses Outweigh Minuses, but Troubles Threaten

Despite the bravado of campaign speeches, no American President is fully in charge. What he does is important--vitally important--but the fate of the republic is also governed by factors beyond his control, and by sheer luck.

Ronald Reagan had his ups and downs during his first four years in office; his critics charge that he was less in charge than most of his predecessors. But he begins his second term in unusually auspicious circumstances. In both domestic and foreign fields the country is better off, on balance, than it was four years ago.

The storm clouds are gathering, however, and he would seem to need an unusual combination of luck and wisdom to keep things from unraveling.

At present, inflation in this country is down. So are interest rates. And so, marginally, is unemployment. The gain in personal income during 1984 was the healthiest in 11 years, even after adjustment for taxes and inflation.

On the world scene the Soviet Union has been much more cautious than in the late 1970s, its hysterical anti-Reagan rhetoric notwithstanding. Now even the threatening rhetoric has abated.

Arms-control discussions are being resumed. Trade talks are under way. A new cultural-exchange agreement is being negotiated. Cooperation to prevent the global spread of nuclear weapons is being intensified. A North Pacific air-safety agreement is being drafted to minimize the chances of another incident like the Soviet destruction of a Korean airliner in September, 1983.

In this hemisphere Brazil and Argentina, the two largest nations in South America, have returned to civilian rule. Whatever the temporary cost in world opinion, our intervention in Grenada rolled back Cuba’s political and military influence in the Caribbean, and was met with joyful relief by Grenadans who had tired of their dictatorial Marxist government.

In Asia the Reagan Administration, after a clumsy start, has established a realistic working relationship with China. The Japanese have begun to recognize their responsibilities as a world economic power and member of the “Western” community, even though performance continues to lag behind promise.

In Western Europe the North Atlantic Treaty Organization has a lot of problems, but the Soviet Union’s edge in conventional, non-nuclear weapons has been narrowed a bit. European leaders, while sporadically nervous about Reagan’s handling of the U.S.-Soviet relationship, are impressed by his economic achievements and comforted by the image of greater American military strength.

Whatever one thinks of Jeane J. Kirkpatrick, who has been U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, the tough no-nonsense approach that she personifies has caused Third World recipients of American aid to think twice before assaulting the United States merely to score points with the Soviet Bloc and each other. They know that overblown rhetoric may be costly.

That’s the good news. But there is a downside. Economics is a murky science, and the experts are far from unanimous on just how solid--or how precarious--the present prosperity is. At the least, however, the President’s reluctance to tackle two fundamental problems head on--the yawning deficit in the federal budget and the frightening imbalance between imports and exports--adds up to a huge gamble with the welfare of the American people.

The growing focus on the homeless is a reminder that in any event a lot of Americans are being left behind in the computer-age brand of prosperity. The ranks of the long-term jobless include many laid-off blue-collar workers who have never been out of a job before.

Meanwhile, the massive inflow of illegal aliens continues. In Reagan’s first term his lackadaisical attitude toward the problem allowed opponents of immigration reform to carry the day. Only a determined effort the next time around will enable this country to regain control of its borders.

On the foreign-policy front the Administration’s policy in Lebanon has been disastrous. It is shocking that Americans can visit or live in Beirut only at great risk of being murdered or kidnaped. Meanwhile, the fundamental goal of a peaceful and stable Middle East is no closer to achievement than when Reagan took the oath as President the first time.

In El Salvador the Marxist-led guerrillas are not winning, but neither are they losing. The U.S.-supported contras in Nicaragua have demonstrated their ability to make life miserable for the Marxist-Leninists who dominate the government. But there is no good evidence that the ruling Sandinistas are any more prepared than before to share power with democratic political forces, or that the Reagan team itself will accept anything less than the military overthrow of the Sandinistas.

The Administration enters the renewed arms-control talks with high hopes and a pretty fair negotiating hand--but with serious, unresolved differences between the State Department and Pentagon civilians over how that hand should be played. If agreement cannot be reached within our own government, it’s hard to see how we can get far with the Soviets.

What marked Reagan’s first term most of all was a reluctance to set clear-cut policy goals--whether the subject was Central America or arms control or the budget deficit. The prevailing impression has been one of confusion rather than decisiveness and coherence.

The President, however, is described as entering his second term with bounce and optimism. And certainly the November election results, backed up by public-opinion polls since, suggest that the American people, too, are confident that successes will outweigh failures in his second term as in the first.

The challenge facing Reagan is to prove them right. And who knows? Perhaps he will. This is a fuzzy world. Maybe a fuzzy, catch-as-catch-can approach is as good a way as any of dealing with it, however much it discomfits people with orderly minds. Anyhow, we seem destined to find out.