Illness May Dim Outlook for President’s Programs

Even before President Reagan entered Bethesda Naval Medical Center for removal of a cancerous growth from his colon, his Administration was having difficulty maintaining its once-awesome control over the shape and focus of the nation’s political agenda.

Unlike his first term, in which Reagan and his aides masterfully steered a major defense buildup and huge cuts in social spending through Congress, his second term thus far has been characterized by stalemate and conflict over such issues as deficit reduction, tax reform, Central American policy and the MX missile.

Now, despite universal sympathy and admiration for him as he recuperates, the President’s medical problems seem likely to make those long-term political problems worse, not better.

The outlook for the remainder of his term appears as uncertain as the prognosis for the 74-year-old President’s health. The future of the Reagan presidency depends on “the speed and completeness of the recovery,” White House pollster Richard B. Wirthlin said.

Without Reagan at his resilient best, the chances diminish of reversing a perception on Capitol Hill that Administration policy-making is adrift.

Long before the cancer was discovered, members of Congress and some of his own advisers were complaining that Reagan was not paying enough attention to his programs on Capitol Hill and that his efforts to achieve a budget compromise and win congressional approval of tax reform might go down the drain.

“Utterly independent of the President’s health, there are serious problems because the White House has shown insufficient interest in the budget deficit,” Sen. Pete Wilson (R-Calif.) said. “And their preoccupation with tax reform ignores political realities that tax reform is losing rather than gaining momentum. We need to finish budget reduction very shortly or we will begin to see the kind of economic decline that undiminished deficits will produce.”

Wilson and other Senate Republicans have also complained that the White House has given them no guidance on the defense authorization bill--a crucial part of Reagan’s legislative program. Robert C. McFarlane, Reagan’s national security adviser, normally would brief Republican senators on defense legislation, but Wilson said he apparently was “spread too thin” to do the briefing.

A GOP Senate aide said the President’s leadership on national security matters in Congress has “foundered.”

‘Who’s in Charge?’

“The question is, who’s in charge?” the aide said.

The political problems are compounded by continuing controversy and friction--both on Capitol Hill and among Reagan’s own advisers--about the way Donald T. Regan, the President’s powerful chief of staff, directs the White House and deals with Congress.

The former Treasury secretary’s performance, some longtime Reagan loyalists say, shows that he lacks the political expertise necessary for the job and that he has no clear sense of legislative priorities. His failure to achieve a budget compromise with Congress, they charge, has in turn undercut the prospects for tax reform.

Although Reagan aides proclaim the President to be “fit as a fiddle” and “champing at the bit” to get back into action, an immediate change in the political picture as a result of his recovery seems unlikely. Realistically, the illness has resulted in “a hiatus and limits what the President might have done over the next month or two,” one key adviser said.

Public Dread of Cancer

An unspoken fear among Reagan aides is that the public dread of cancer could alter the popular perception of him as a strong leader, one of his most important political attributes.

William Schneider, resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington and political analyst for The Times, said he believes that the President’s illness will speed up the “lame-duck” process that affects all second-term presidents.

“When a President becomes a lame duck,” Schneider said, “his political effectiveness dissipates because he’s not expected to be around much longer to reward and punish. That usually sets in about midterm of the second term. But in this case I think it will begin to set in now.”

Although the President’s illness may not affect the outcome of the efforts to get a budget compromise through Congress before the August recess, advisers concede that a prolonged convalescent period--or a recurrence of cancer--could have a devastating impact on efforts to achieve tax reform, one of Reagan’s major second-term goals.

Emphasizing Chances

In commenting on Reagan’s illness, his advisers tend to avoid mentioning the possibility that the cancer has spread. Instead, they emphasize his doctors’ prognosis that the President has a greater than 50% chance of survival for five years or more. They say they expect him to return to a fairly full schedule after his August vacation in California.

“And my guess,” pollster Wirthlin said, “is that the President will come out of all this two to three weeks from now with an even higher level of esteem and job support than he had prior to the Beirut hostage situation.”

What is not clear is whether such a surge in popular esteem will translate into renewed Administration strength in the key battles under way on Capitol Hill. Treasury Secretary James A. Baker III and other aides have suggested that the President might benefit from a wave of sympathy, but Wirthlin disagreed.

“He’s not only liked by a lot of Americans, but by a lot of Democrats on the Hill,” Wirthlin said. “But given the political stakes on some of the issues being reviewed, those Democrats will look with a pretty cold, hard eye at the issues and at the votes they cast.”

Retirement Questioned

Behind the scenes, the President’s medical problems have also given rise to guarded discussions about whether he will choose to serve out the full second term. But his advisers insist that, even if his cancer recurs, Reagan would remain in office as long as he is capable of performing his duties instead of resigning and relinquishing the presidency to Vice President George Bush.

“If his operation presaged other things, you might ask if it means eventually he would want to retire,” said one associate who has advised the President since Reagan’s days as California governor. “I don’t think so--not as long as he’s healthy enough to do the job.”

Another longtime Reagan adviser agreed: “The President would want to utilize whatever time he has left that the Good Lord has given him to accomplish what he hopes to accomplish. His agenda isn’t complete or finished and, even if the prognosis turned decidedly pessimistic two or three weeks from now, he would be determined to continue to serve as long as he’s physically capable of doing that.”

This adviser said he has discussed Reagan’s condition with the President’s wife, Nancy, who has been described as “a natural worrier” who is distraught about her husband’s condition. But Mrs. Reagan is “taking the whole thing with tough realism and has given no thought” to the President’s relinquishing his office to Bush, the adviser said.

Regan Powerful

In the meantime, Regan has emerged as a still more powerful--and controversial--figure. He has acted as the sole liaison between Reagan and other advisers and assumed control of all decision-making papers presented to the recuperating chief executive.

Regan was the only official to visit the President regularly at the hospital and will head a small staff that will accompany him when he travels to his Santa Barbara ranch around Aug. 9 to begin a three-week vacation.

“None of this bodes well for the President and any hope he might work his magic on Congress the way he did in the first term,” said a former senior White House official who still advises Reagan. “Even before the President’s operation, Don Regan was trying to do everything without help from anybody. And nobody is planning strategy to deal with Congress. Regan is a disaster as chief of staff.”

Many GOP senators blame Regan for Reagan’s decision to abandon a Senate provision in its proposed deficit-reduction plan that would have eliminated cost-of-living increases in Social Security benefits next year.

Senators Felt Betrayed

The Republican senators had taken a political risk in going along with the provision to help Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.) push through a one-vote victory on a deficit-reduction package last May. They felt betrayed when Reagan disclosed that he had agreed with House Speaker Thomas P. (Tip) O’Neill Jr. (D-Mass.) to drop the provision if House Democrats would allow new defense spending commitments to grow with inflation.

Dole accused Reagan and O’Neill of “surrendering to the deficit.”

Rep. Tony Coelho (D-Merced), who runs the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, bluntly called Regan “a disaster” and contrasted him with Treasury Secretary Baker, who as White House chief of staff led Reagan’s highly successful congressional lobbying efforts in the first term.

Emphasis Questioned

“I don’t say he’s a disaster,” Wilson said of Regan. “But he has not given nearly enough emphasis to deficit reduction and too much to tax reform, and he may find he can achieve neither.”

Regan, sloughing off such criticism, insists that the tax reform proposal remains on schedule.

“It’s unfortunate that it’s gotten tangled up this way with the budget,” he told the U.S. Chamber of Commerce here. “But certainly one would have expected by the middle of July, having received the budget in February, Congress would have passed the budget resolution.”

With Regan having moved swiftly to fill the power vacuum caused by the President’s illness, Bush has found himself in the awkward position of having to make himself available to assume some of Reagan’s responsibilities without giving the impression that he is grabbing for presidential power.

It is an especially delicate balancing act for Bush, who is planning to seek the presidency in 1988 but who opposed Reagan for the 1980 Republican presidential nomination and is still distrusted by many in the party’s right wing.

But he has had considerable help from the White House, which has been playing down the vice president’s role and emphasizing that Reagan remains in charge. So far, Bush seems to have carried it off without ruffling any right-wing feathers.

After serving for eight hours as acting President during and immediately after Reagan’s operation, Bush quietly slipped back into the low profile that has characterized his vice presidency. And he assured reporters that the news about Reagan’s recovery was so encouraging that it’s “just as if the President were on vacation.”