Frank Carlucci: No One’s Errand Boy

In less than six years Ronald Reagan has had as many national-security advisers as the five preceding Presidents managed to employ during two decades. But in his fifth appointment, Frank C. Carlucci, Reagan may finally have got lucky. He has also set the stage for a decisive showdown on the future of his White House chief of staff, Donald T. Reagan.

Carlucci is the quintessential government insider. The list of his jobs places him near virtually every major center of power in the executive branch. His experience as a deputy is probably unprecedented: at the Office of Management and Budget, the Office of Economic Opportunity (before taking the top job), the Central Intelligence Agency, the Department of Defense. He has been a Foreign Service officer (Africa, Brazil), and an ambassador (Portugal) who successfully challenged Henry A. Kissinger’s State Department in support of Portuguese democracy.

In Washington parlance, Carlucci “knows where the bodies are buried.” This is a tribute to his bulldog grip on every bureaucracy that he has encountered. It also means that he has learned the lore of survival in the competition that marks the conduct of national government. That includes not getting mousetrapped into the kind of shenanigans that are now plaguing the Reagan White House. And it means not falling afoul of Congress, either through inadvertence or design--as was the case in putting covert operations at the NSC precisely to avoid the congressional oversight imposed on the CIA.

In a rarity, Carlucci also has earned the support of the three other key national-security officials--Caspar W. Weinberger, whom he served in two Administrations, plus William J. Casey and George P. Shultz.

The process of repairing the apparatus of national-security policy-making has thus clearly begun.

It is, however, just a beginning. The last four national-security advisers ran into difficulty in part because the Chief Executive has little aptitude and less ambition in foreign policy. Indeed, each of the National Security Council operations that led to the current crisis of confidence were related to issues--terrorism and Nicaragua--that are more about domestic attitudes than about foreign relations. Even in the one area in which President Reagan seemed to be leading--U.S.-Soviet arms control--it has not been clear since the Reykjavik summit meeting that he is prepared to do the detailed work needed to craft an agreement out of the confusion of his encounter with Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev.

Outside Washington, some eyebrows may be raised because of Carlucci’s service at the CIA during the Carter Administration. The point will be made that putting such a person in charge at the National Security Council sends the wrong signal when covert actions are at the center of debate. In terms of image, there is a point. Yet, measured against Carlucci’s reputation for integrity, it is of little account.

Nevertheless, he is already being sniped at. Stories appeared last week that Carlucci personally directed a covert operation in South Yemen that led to tragic failure. Yet this leak, which had all the marks of a high-level source, no doubt had a more important design than trying to limit his latitude in his new post. The point was to try to show that the Carter Administration also engaged in monkeyshines. Yet, on the evidence presented, this reputed covert action was done according to Hoyle.

Judging from his record, it is unlikely that Carlucci will be content to be a time-server. Cleaning house is clearly his first priority, if only to reassure the American public that something is being done. He is also likely to begin upgrading the quality and experience of the National Security Council staff, which has fallen to the lowest level ever. Fools cannot expect to be suffered gladly, or at all. Carlucci may not press his own ideas strongly on Weinberger and Shultz, but he will make the process conform to an exacting standard.

In the inevitable struggles for power that dominate White House politics, the role of the chief of staff has been thrown into sharper relief. In choosing someone of Carlucci’s tenacity and sense of purpose, Reagan may not have understood that he pitted Donald Regan against a formidable opponent--or perhaps he did.

The chief of staff boasted about his own central role in foreign policy, only to claim ignorance when the current crisis broke. Regan’s major role in foreign policy, unprecedented for a domestic adviser, had never been satisfactory. The flaws in this arrangement became obvious at Reykjavik, the most haphazard superpower summit meeting--and aftermath of explanation--ever conducted by the United States. With continuing revelations about misfeasance in foreign-policy-making because of an excess of domestic politics, Regan’s role in this area has become intolerable.

Under the circumstances, an Iranian adage is apt: Ten dervishes can sleep in one bed, but two kings cannot rule in one country. Carlucci has already said that he will have unimpeded access to the President. This seems a trivial point, but it separates a true national-security adviser from an errand boy. Provided that Carlucci perseveres--and he will--it thus seems that Donald Regan’s role in foreign policy, if not his tenure at the White House, is finished.