Poor Management, Strong Ideology Cited : Meese Nomination Raises Both Fears, Expectations

Edwin Meese III, who awaits virtually certain confirmation by the Senate to be U.S. attorney general, has generated both greater fears and higher expectations than any nominee for the nation’s top law enforcement post in at least two decades.

The skeptics, questioning Meese’s administrative competence, cite what they describe as his bottomless briefcase, in which paper work is said to disappear. They contend that Meese, one of President Reagan’s top three White House aides during his first term, has a track record of appointing assistants who are high on ideological commitment but low on practical knowledge.

His supporters expect him to push more vigorously on the social issues, including abortion and school prayer, than his predecessor, Atty. Gen. William French Smith. And they predict that Meese, a former Alameda County prosecutor with an unflagging support for law enforcement, will forge strong ties with law enforcement agencies across the country.

This much is sure: Meese, whose nomination has been pending before the Senate for more than a year while the Senate Judiciary Committee, an independent counsel and the Office of Government Ethics investigated conflict-of-interest charges and other allegations against him, will take command of a department that has shifted dramatically during Reagan’s first term.

Under Smith, for example, the department began to oppose school busing and job quotas as civil rights remedies and to relax antitrust barriers to corporate mergers. Only Smith’s low profile and nonconfrontational style--qualities that even Meese’s supporters acknowledge are in short supply with the attorney general-designate--prevented these 180-degree turns from exploding into major political issues.

And it is a department that is ripe for more change. Five of the 11 assistant attorneys general are serving in an “acting” capacity--most of them as caretakers until Meese recommends full-time appointees to Reagan--and J. Paul McGrath, assistant attorney general for antitrust, has announced that he will leave April 1.

Beyond that, Carol E. Dinkins is expected to step down soon as deputy attorney general, and Solicitor General Rex E. Lee, a key policy-maker and the government’s chief advocate before the Supreme Court, is likely to leave at the end of the court’s current term.

Francis M. (Bud) Mullen Jr. is leaving next month as administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration. And there is a question about how much longer FBI Director William H. Webster, now in his eighth year as head of the bureau, will stay on the job.

“It’s practically a whole new department, much like the start of a newly elected President’s first term,” noted one former Administration official who has worked with Meese. “That’s why the major wait-and-see point about Ed is the kind of people he chooses to come to Justice. One of his weak points has been the people he picks.”

‘Hidden Land Mines’

A former policy-maker at the Justice Department added: “You want people who are loyal to you but sufficiently independent of character so that they will tell you what they think even if you give off vibes of getting angry or not wanting to hear it. If you get someone who doesn’t meet that ideal, there are all kinds of hidden land mines in Justice that can blow up with a great deal of noise.”

Meese’s reputation as a poor manager has the department edgy. An official who has worked with Meese said: “He has a good and quick mind, but he acts on what is put before him with a large dose of instinct. Articulation of long-term goals and the means to accomplish them is not the sort of things he spends time on.”

Meese’s seeming commitment to conservative ideology is also worrying some department officials. One said that Smith, a well-credentialed political conservative, consistently opposed the expansion of governmental powers even when used for such conservative causes as stopping abortion.

Meese had no such compunctions, said another former official who worked with him. “It always looks easier to do something from the White House than from Justice,” he said.

Right-Wing Reputation

However, some officials contend that Meese’s reputation as a right-winger has been overdrawn.

“Ed is not all that ideological,” said one official who had frequent dealings with him. “But when the right started portraying the White House as filled with dreaded pragmatists, Ed took on the colors of the true believer, the one conservative in the house. I can remember one meeting where he referred to the more conservative side on an issue as ‘know-nothings,’ but I don’t think he’d do that today.”

Other officials say Meese will not necessarily follow the same ideological path at the Justice Department that he pursued in the White House.

“You don’t know what a person will be like until he actually puts the attorney general’s hat on,” one said. “A lot of people have tried to grow in that job, so you have to set aside things they have done before.”

Wide Range of Issues

Meese will have plenty to do in his new job: There will be new efforts to reform immigration laws, and the Administration will be asked to take a position on them; his department will be seeking the get-tough provisions, such as restoration of the death penalty and limiting habeas corpus appeals, dropped from last year’s sweeping criminal law revision; and it will be expected to take an official position on the sensitive question of whether to guarantee equal pay for persons in “comparable” jobs.

But cases involving two individuals important to the Reagan Administration--Labor Secretary Raymond J. Donovan, who is on leave while under state indictment in New York, and Teamsters Union President Jackie Presser, the President’s most powerful labor supporter whose prosecution for labor fraud has been recommended by federal prosecutors in Cleveland--may prove to be the most sensitive issues that Meese confronts in his first days.

Several department officials believe that Meese will handle those by taking no part in them because of prior contact with both men.