Barbs Feared Eroding President’s Ability to Govern : Iran Jokes No Joke to Reagan Aides

Discussing President Reagan and the Iran- contra scandal on network television recently, a comedian declared: “The question is not, ‘What did he know and when did he know it?’ . . . The real question is, ‘What does he know, and does he know he knows it?’ ”

And Johnny Carson quipped the other night that Reagan has issued new instructions at the White House: “From now on, he must be awakened from his nap whenever there’s an arms deal. Before that, the only thing you could wake him for was nuclear war and ‘Murder She Wrote.’ ”

Lampooning presidents has long been a staple for this country’s comedians. They jeered about Gerald R. Ford’s stumbling, Jimmy Carter’s toothy smile, Lyndon B. Johnson’s penchant for picking up his pet beagles by their ears. And Carson once described the 1976 Ford-Carter election as a choice between “fear of the known and fear of the unknown.”

Downright Savage

Further back in American history, the barbs were downright savage. Seizing on Abraham Lincoln’s long arms, cartoonists portrayed him as a baboon. Of John Adams, the nation’s second President, one wag said: “Whether he is spiteful, playful, witty, kind, cold, drunk, sober, angry, easy, stiff, jealous, cautious, confident, close, open, it is always in the wrong place or to the wrong person.”

But for Reagan, the current round of jokes represents a problem that is potentially no laughing matter. In response to the Iran-contra scandal, Reagan has declared that he did not know all that was being done.

That explanation has laid the President open to a kind of lampooning that stirs genuine concern among his supporters because it threatens to erode his ability to govern at a time when Reagan can ill afford such damage. The new crop of jokes raises questions about whether the President is in charge of the nation’s government--or is capable of being in charge--especially in the sensitive realm of national security.

What worries some Republican advisers, said one former Reagan aide who has maintained his ties to the White House, is the possibility, reflected in the satire, that “the President now is being viewed as an amiable old man rather than as a broad-stroke President.”

“If that type of thing becomes very broad-based, that could hurt,” said another Reagan adviser, Richard B. Wirthlin, a Republican pollster who regularly samples the President’s popularity and works closely with the White House.

“Clearly, the President is more vulnerable to being the butt of jokes now than he was three or four months ago,” he said.

“It’s important for him to be supported by the grass roots,” Wirthlin said. “There are going to be battles with Congress and he has a better chance of winning these battles if he has that support.”

The importance of maintaining an image of strength and control is particularly vital for Reagan now that he has only two years left in his final term and Democrats hold majorities in both houses of Congress.

Rep. Dick Cheney (R-Wyo.) knows the damage that can befall a President when humorists’ jokes about him begin to draw blood. He was Ford’s chief of staff, serving a President whose public image was interwoven with comedian Chevy Chase’s imitations of his stumbling.

‘Butt of Jokes’

“You have to be careful,” Cheney said, “any time you get to the point that a politician is the butt of jokes.”

The consequence of the widespread gags about Ford was that the President and his advisers were constantly on the defensive over his purported clumsiness, making it harder for them to promote Ford’s strengths as a chief executive.

Jabs at Reagan are not new; they were being made long before he reached the White House. A veteran adviser recalled recently that when Reagan ran successfully for governor of California in 1966, he was derided as “that dumb actor who had to memorize his lines.”

And Reagan has developed a matchless ability to deflect the arrows of political criticism with his own brand of self-deprecating humor. The President, soon to turn 76, seldom gives a speech without making a wisecrack about his age.

Larry J. Sabato, a professor of government at the University of Virginia, said that for now he believes Reagan’s affability will “insulate him from the corrosion of humor.” But he warned of the possibility that jokes about Reagan will take hold and create a common view that he is slipping.

‘Seen as Senile Grandfather’

“It would be devastating,” Sabato said. “He’d be seen as the senile grandfather at family gatherings, one to be humored but not paid attention to.”

Indeed, there is just such a sharp edge to much of the humor now being directed at Reagan.

Recently, for example, a network news show featured a selection of anti-Reagan comedy routines, many of which poked fun at him for supposedly being forgetful and oblivious to the events around him.

And in a recent scene on prime-time television, when a Reagan puppet arrived prematurely at a surprise party being organized by his wife, the First Lady reassured guests that it was no problem: Wait a few seconds, she told them. Then, turning to her husband, she declared, “Surely, you’ve forgotten it by now.”

The satire is even sharper away from network television. The “Capitol Steps,” a group of politically attuned lawyers and congressional staff members who perform at social functions and on college campuses, have modernized the African folk song “Wimoweh” to go like this: “In the jungle, there’s been a bungle, while Reagan sleeps tonight.”

Zero In on Defense

What gives such jokes their dangerous edge for the President is that they zero in on his “defense” in the Iran-contra scandal--that he was unaware White House aide Lt. Col. Oliver L. North was diverting profits from the arms sales to Iran to aid the Nicaraguan rebel armies at a time when U.S. military aid to the contras was banned.

They also suggest an unflattering explanation for why former National Security Adviser Robert C. McFarlane insists that the President authorized a crucial November, 1985, arms shipment by the Israelis to Iran, when the White House says that Reagan only learned of it after the fact:

The suggestion is that the President knew, but forgot about it.

Some Republican supporters say they fear that Administration officials’ representations of the inner workings of the White House have also contributed to Reagan’s vulnerability. In particular, they cite White House Chief of Staff Donald T. Regan’s depiction of himself as the central player in all White House activities--even as the leader of a shovel brigade that has to clean up after the President.

That perception was exploited in a Herblock cartoon in the Washington Post, in which an aide tells Reagan: “Here’s the deal--You’re just a dummy who never knows what’s going on or what you’re talking about.”

Great Affection

Said a former White House aide: “There’s great affection for the President, great respect, fondness and a hope that the President didn’t know more than he has said. But the problem--whether it is humor or biting criticism--fundamentally has more to do with the management style, and the management personality, of Don Regan, who has for two years taken control.”

According to this source, who spoke on the condition that he not be identified, Reagan has yet to express concern, “because Regan assures the President that he’s OK.”

Wirthlin, citing his own polling data, said “the one buffer that he holds against this kind of humor is that 79% of the Americans say they like him personally.”

“The American people judge Ronald Reagan not only on Iran, but on a lot of positive things: cutting taxes, unemployment and inflation. As a consequence, Americans are not really ready to buy the charge that Ronald Reagan is not a strong leader,” he said.