Heckler’s Departure

The Reagan Administration prides itself on never having fired a Cabinet officer. Indeed, the record book will show that even James G. Watt resigned. So did Jeane Kirkpatrick, Raymond Donovan and other high officials such as Anne M. Burford.

A ritual rule of thumb has developed whereby the more the President praises a Cabinet officer and protests that no one is being fired, the more imminent the Cabinet officer’s departure seems to be. So it was that the President praised Health and Human Services Secretary Margaret M. Heckler Monday as a valuable member of the Cabinet and protested: “There has never been any thought in my mind to fire Margaret Heckler. I don’t know where these stories come from. They are not true.”

Actually, what the President wanted to do was to give Heckler a promotion. He would take her out of an agency with a $330-billion budget and 145,000 employees and make her ambassador to Ireland. There are lots of big problems to solve in Ireland, a White House spokesman said. Heckler did not see it that way. “That’s a lovely position--for someone else,” she said.

But yesterday, as Reagan stoutly maintained that it was her decision to leave the Cabinet (other reports were “malicious gossip” and “falsehoods,” he said), she confessed she had been persuaded to move to the fast track in Dublin by the “great communicator.”

Conservatives have never liked Heckler, the former Massachusetts congresswoman who supported George Bush over Ronald Reagan in the 1980 Republican primaries. Her appointment in 1983 was thought to be part of an effort to win voter support from women--that she would serve largely as a figurehead. But Heckler is a scrapper. She wanted to be a Cabinet officer, not a token. She battled with the White House over an effective safety net for the poor and other disadvantaged people and the right to appoint key HHS officials. Of nine high-level vacancies in the department now, seven are held by “acting” appointees.

The Administration deserves some credit for its record of appointing women to high government posts. It has not done so well in keeping them, particularly those who exercise any sort of independence. It has not done well at all when it comes to the manner in which they have been forced out.