Regan to Bring a Blunt Style to White House : Incoming Chief of Staff Will Restructure Office

Secretary of the Treasury Donald T. Regan, who takes over as President Reagan’s chief of staff next week, has begun developing a plan to restructure the White House gradually to suit his own corporate style of blunt, no-nonsense administration while still serving the special political needs of the President.

Regan brings considerable assets to the White House, but also carries with him some notable deficits in terms of experience normally associated with a chief of staff.

Like the President, Regan is a man of tremendous self-assurance. He enjoys a reputation for decisiveness, energy and loyalty honed during four years at the Treasury Department and a spectacular career on Wall Street, where he rose to head Merrill Lynch, the giant brokerage firm. He is a 66-year-old multimillionaire accustomed to giving orders and getting quick results.

Sought Powerful Post

“I figured that, well, hell, I’m probably as well suited as anybody to do the job,” he said when asked why he went after the powerful White House post.

Perhaps, but among a few longtime Reagan confidants and students of the presidency, the jury is still out on whether the Treasury secretary’s vaunted strengths will, in the end, outweigh some shortcomings.

Even Regan’s staunchest supporters concede that he has relatively little expertise in three areas crucial to any President’s success: massaging Congress, packaging the President for the media and keeping his boss’s political constituency happy.

The departures of James A. Baker III, who is swapping jobs with Regan, and Deputy Chief of Staff Michael K. Deaver, the aide closest to the President who has announced his intention to leave in the spring, will create not only a rare power vacuum at the White House, but also a substantial void in congressional, media and political skills.

“Regan has to choose the right people to bring in with him; there’s no doubt about that. He has some very important decisions to make,” said a longtime Reagan adviser, who like most people interviewed for this story did not want to be identified.

Regan was described by an associate as “ebullient” last week as he held meetings with old Reagan hands and trusted intimates and began mapping a new restructuring of the White House. He is spending this weekend at his home near Mount Vernon, devising the organizational chart he will take to the White House.

‘A New Honeymoon’

“He’s excited about what he believes is a new honeymoon for the Administration at the beginning of the second term, with great prospects for major accomplishments in cutting the budget deficit and achieving tax reform,” the confidant said.

Regan has tapped several members of his personal team at Treasury to move to the White House, well-placed sources say, including Alfred Kingon, assistant Treasury secretary for policy planning; Christopher Hicks, now Regan’s executive assistant, and David L. Chew, deputy comptroller of the currency.

Although Regan has decided he wants those trusted aides to continue working for him, he has not yet selected their specific White House jobs, Treasury sources said.

“These guys fit in with the boss--he demands good staff work, but he also appreciates it,” one Treasury official said. “He tells you straight out what he wants, and then he expects you to go out and do it.”

Philosophical Soul Mate

But some skeptics contend that Regan will have to alter his brusque style in the new job. “You can’t just run the White House like you do a corporation,” a Reagan adviser said. “There are too many pressure points. A chief of staff giving an order doesn’t necessarily make something happen. Regan thinks he’s going to come in and kick ass, and it’s just not going to work that way.”

Still, Regan has a better chance to impose discipline on the White House than did his troika of predecessors--Baker, Deaver and presidential counselor Edwin Meese III--who together ran Reagan’s staff as separate fiefdoms.

Meese, nominated by Reagan to be attorney general, was a philosophical soul mate of the conservative President who often feuded with Baker and Deaver, two allies regarded as more pragmatic than ideological. But all three men brought special assets to the White House that Regan lacks.

Baker and Deaver particularly possess political acumen--the experience to realize which groups it is important to court with appointments to jobs, access to the President and other favored treatment, and, even more critical, the ability to steer the President into the right political moves so he will remain popular with the voters.

“The President has to keep his approval ratings up--that’s how he leads,” a longtime adviser noted, referring to the fact that Reagan’s ability to convert lawmakers always has derived principally from his skill at swaying the lawmakers’ constituents.

And this touches on the ability Deaver possessed that Regan most notably lacks: the know-how to take advantage of the President’s communicative skills and to best package them through the media. “I’ve always maintained he’s the one irreplaceable part,” a former presidential adviser said. But Deaver has announced his intention to resign in hopes of making big money in public relations.

Regan never had been active politically before coming to Washington. By contrast, Baker, who oversaw White House political strategy, was a key player in four presidential campaigns for three different candidates. With Reagan barred constitutionally from seeking a third term, Baker as chief of staff had virtually disbanded the White House political office. Now, Regan is being urged strongly to resurrect it “and seems more than willing,” one of his advisers said.

Rollins May Return

The principal candidate for White House political director, according to several knowledgeable sources, is the man who last held the job: Edward J. Rollins, who left the White House in early 1984 to manage the President’s reelection campaign. Rollins, now making a lot more money as a private consultant, has let it be known he is reluctant to return but would do so if given significantly more influence than he had.

Baker also is particularly skilled at dealing with Congress--developing personal relationships with leaders of both parties and hammering out negotiated agreements. Regan, although he has had extensive dealings with Congress as Treasury secretary, never has developed the personal rapport Baker enjoys. Some congressmen have complained that Regan is too abrasive and arrogant.

Sen. Paul Laxalt (R-Nev.) and other presidential confidants have recommended to Regan that he recruit Reagan’s first chief congressional lobbyist, Max L. Friedersdorf, now vice president for government relations for Pepsico Inc. And Friedersdorf reportedly is interested in considering a return to the White House.

Moods and Body Language

Regan also faces a special problem: establishing an effective working relationship with the President--learning to read Ronald Reagan’s moods and body language, understanding his personal strengths and weaknesses.

Deaver, and to a lesser degree Meese, excelled in this from their long experience with Reagan in Sacramento. Baker also learned Reagan’s personal traits after some initial difficulty, one presidential adviser said.

“The President can be sitting there for two hours, not saying anything, and you will think he’s agreeing with you,” a longtime Reagan confidant noted. “But later he’ll go upstairs to (his wife) Nancy and say, ‘Gee, you know, there’s something about that I just don’t like.’ And that’s the end of it.”

The confidant added: “And you also have to learn how to get along with Nancy. You can’t ignore her. Some have tried.”

Regardless of the problems he has to overcome, “Regan is a very secure and confident person,” said a person who has worked closely with him. “He won’t worry about who sees the President and what the President is doing at a particular moment. In that sense, more people may see the President than before when things were screened very carefully.”

One Cabinet officer, speaking anonymously, complained about a “downgrading” of the Cabinet during Reagan’s first term and blamed this particularly on Baker, who preferred to develop decisions within a White House legislative strategy group. This person said most Cabinet members now are hopeful that Regan, as one of their former colleagues, will rebuild the Cabinet’s influence.

“The irony,” one presidential aide said, “is that somebody who has been out there having to put up with these egos in the White House now is coming in to take over.”

The new chief of staff, while consulting widely with others and signaling that any wholesale changes will be done gradually, has made it clear that he intends ultimately to install his own team at the desks closest to the Oval Office, choosing those who have demonstrated the personal loyalty and efficiency he values so highly.

Kingon, the assistant Treasury secretary, is a former editor of Saturday Review magazine. Hicks, an attorney from Texas, was a personnel official at the White House before he became Regan’s executive assistant last April. Chew was Regan’s assistant from 1981 until last April when he joined the comptroller’s office.

Two other aides who sources say may be chosen by Regan for White House service are Thomas C. Dawson, assistant Treasury secretary for consumer and business affairs, and Bruce E. Thompson, assistant secretary for legislative affairs.

Kemp-Roth Tax Cut

Thompson drafted the legislation for the 1981 Kemp-Roth tax cut--named for Rep. Jack Kemp (R-N.Y.) and Sen William V. Roth Jr. (R-Del.), his then-boss. The legislation ultimately became Reagan’s prized 25% reduction in personal income tax rates. “It was Bruce’s baby,” said a member of Roth’s staff. “He can handle the substance, the style and the politics.”

Regan’s fans and skeptics alike agree that he is also a man of substance who fully understands the details of economics, budget and taxes--issues that will be at the forefront of Reagan’s second term.

Regan is far less familiar with foreign policy, as were Baker, Meese and Deaver initially. And this should enhance even further the power of national security adviser Robert C. McFarlane, who already has become one of the President’s most trusted inner-circle aides.

Regan says he is undaunted by the prospect of political maneuverings both inside and outside the White House. “At age 25, I had 900 men under me in battle, “ he said recently, speaking of his World War II experience as a Marine officer. “If you don’t think that seasons you for combat in Washington later in your life, you’re crazy.”