Poindexter Named as Security Adviser : McFarlane’s Resignation Accepted by Reagan; Cabinet Battles Denied

President Reagan announced Wednesday that he has accepted the resignation of Robert C. McFarlane as his national security adviser and has appointed McFarlane’s deputy, Vice Adm. John M. Poindexter, to succeed him in the pivotal White House post.

The 49-year-old admiral is a career Naval officer with a sparse background in foreign affairs.

Reagan and McFarlane, in confirming earlier reports of McFarlane’s resignation, denied that it was prompted by personality clashes or turf battles with other Administration officials. But several Reagan advisers insisted that friction with White House Chief of Staff Donald T. Regan and Secretary of State George P. Shultz were major factors in McFarlane’s decision to leave.

Frustration Reported

In addition, these officials said, McFarlane was frustrated by continuing foreign policy disputes between Shultz and Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger.

“You don’t leave a job like national security adviser to the President to go into private business,” one White House official said. “You only leave a job like that if you have problems.”

The tough-minded McFarlane, praised by Reagan for the roles he played in the Geneva summit and in other major foreign policy matters, has been a powerful coordinator of the Administration’s foreign policy. His departure leaves Shultz as the Administration’s pre-eminent formulator of foreign policy.

It also leaves the White House without a strong foreign policy expert to mediate disputes between Shultz and Weinberger. Moreover, the way is now open for Regan, who has even less foreign affairs experience than Poindexter, to expand his growing interest in that area.

Under Poindexter, who is not regarded within the White House as a strong leader, the role of national security assistant is expected to shrink considerably. His foreign affairs experience is limited to 4 1/2 years on Reagan’s national security staff, while McFarlane served as a national security official in the Richard M. Nixon and Gerald R. Ford administrations and was a State Department official and a staff member on the Senate Armed Services Committee before joining Reagan’s national security staff.

Appearing at a hurriedly called White House press conference with Reagan and Poindexter, an unsmiling McFarlane gave no reason for resigning, although the President said he resigned because he was “eager now to move on to new personal and professional challenges.”

As McFarlane walked from the White House press briefing room, leaving Reagan and Poindexter behind to answer several final questions, a reporter asked: “Could you tell us where you’re going and what you’re going to do?”

“I have no plans and I don’t know,” McFarlane replied. “If you’ve got any leads, let me know.”

Members of Congress generally expressed disappointment with McFarlane’s departure. “He’s going to be missed at the White House,” Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.) said. “It’s going to change the working relationship a lot of us have” with the White House.

Almost Unknown to Congress

Poindexter is virtually unknown to members of Congress. When asked whether his appointment might mean a less pragmatic foreign policy, Dole said he knew nothing about Poindexter and added: “I don’t even know his first name, let alone whether it’s a tilt toward a hard line.”

Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.) has met Poindexter only a few times, a spokesman said.

In discussing McFarlane’s reasons for leaving, a White House official who has worked closely with him said he “is totally worn out--mentally and physically exhausted. The national security adviser is a tougher job than the secretary of state. The secretary of state has this massive worldwide operation to support him. . . . Being the national security adviser is like running the world out of a 7-Eleven store.”

This official said friction between McFarlane and Chief of Staff Regan had developed nine months ago, but he insisted “that’s past history.”

Other White House officials said relations between the two men have been strained since Regan took over as chief of staff last February and began exerting influence in foreign affairs. Regan made it a practice to sit in on McFarlane’s previously one-on-one briefings with the President. The chief of staff often was near the President’s elbow during meetings with Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev in Geneva while McFarlane occupied a more distant position, officials said.

‘Junior Henry Kissinger’

And, White House sources said, McFarlane has had problems not only with Regan and Shultz but also with presidential spokesman Larry Speakes and Communications Director Patrick J. Buchanan. Speakes and Regan sometimes have derided McFarlane as “a junior Henry Kissinger.”

Officials said McFarlane had tendered his resignation at least twice in the past and withdrawn it after receiving assurances of greater access and influence with the President. This time, the resignation was accepted.

At the White House press conference, Reagan said he accepted McFarlane’s resignation “with deep regret and reluctance.”

He praised the 48-year-old former Marine lieutenant colonel for his 30 years of public service and cited his “impressive list of successes” as national security assistant:

“His key role in the preparation for the Geneva summit meeting and his contribution toward greater stability in East-West relations; his unending efforts which have helped strengthen the Western alliance; his service in the Middle East as my personal envoy at a most difficult time at a great personal risk; his key role in carrying out our counterterrorism policies, as exemplified by the TWA hijacking incident and our recent operation leading to the apprehension of the hijackers of the Achille Lauro.”

First in Academy Class

Reagan also praised Poindexter, saying he has already made “important contributions” in carrying out Administration foreign policy objectives and pointed out that he not only was graduated first in the Naval Academy’s class of 1954, but also was brigade commander, “an achievement rarely duplicated, and I know of only one other, and that was Douglas MacArthur at West Point.”

Instead of answering questions about his resignation, McFarlane opened his press conference appearance with a statement declaring that the Reagan presidency had brought the country back from a state of decline to one of economic and military strength and said he had been “deeply grateful” for the opportunity to serve Reagan.

When reporters asked McFarlane why he was leaving and mentioned reports that personality clashes and turf battles were involved, he remained silent. But Reagan interjected that he could answer “with full confidence that he endorses what I’m going to say--you have all been misinformed about that. The reason that has been given is one in which, after 30 years in which this country has been his first priority, he feels a responsibility, that I think all of us feel, toward his family.”

Directing his question to McFarlane, a reporter asked: “But were there problems with Mr. Regan, sir?”

Leaning forward and scowling, McFarlane declared: “That’s nonsense.”

No Problems Anticipated

Poindexter, who like McFarlane answered only a couple of questions, said he anticipates no problems with Regan.

“Don and I are good friends,” he said. “I’ve known him since he was the secretary of Treasury. And with regard to the last question about access to the President, Don Regan told me that yesterday, that I had direct access. So it won’t be a problem.”

Reagan, apparently at the urging of Regan and Shultz, hurriedly settled on Poindexter to blunt a drive by conservative forces in the Administration who had begun drumming up support for former Sen. John Tower (R-Tex.), a member of the U.S. arms negotiations team in Geneva.

“Tower was being pushed very strongly and had a lot of support on Capitol Hill and from the Cabinet level and some from the White House,” a senior White House official said. “But Shultz wanted Poindexter.”

At the State Department, Shultz summoned reporters to the press room and declared: “I am delighted, and I welcome enthusiastically the President’s appointment of John Poindexter. . . . In experience and professional qualifications and dedication and progressive outlook, I strongly second the President’s personal decision that there is no finer or more able person for the job than Adm. John Poindexter.”

Called ‘a Weak Deputy’

A national security expert who served as a top official in the Ford Administration said he was “distressed” by the appointment because “Poindexter was a weak deputy and will be a weak national security assistant, and this is a major step toward a muddled foreign policy.”

“It shows the President still believes in Cabinet government in foreign affairs,” he said. “It’s a perfect choice for Regan, Shultz and Weinberger, but not for the President. There will be no one to help the President mediate foreign policy disputes.”

However, Robert G. Neumann, former ambassador to Morocco, Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia and head of Reagan’s transition team for the State Department, called Poindexter “a good manager” and said: “If that’s the principal purpose of the job, he will do it well. This is very much a President’s job. The President decides who he wants. I suppose this is a matter on which Regan, Shultz and Weinberger agree.”

Bill Quandt, a Brookings Institution fellow and a National Security Council staff member in the Jimmy Carter Administration, said: “One might ask why, knowing the trouble Bud (McFarlane) had with Regan, Poindexter would want the job. In foreign policy terms, it suggests that Shultz is even more than ever the dominant player.”