A Wall Twice Cracked: Can Reagan Survive More?

With William J. Casey and Robert C. McFarlane back on the front page--each in so sad a way--and the Tower Commission interviewing the President about the Iran- contra affair, it is hard to keep one vital factor in perspective: President Reagan’s seventh year in office was bound to be a letdown from the moment the Republicans lost the Senate, despite his hard campaigning last fall.

Trouble was assured by the state of arms-control negotiations after Reykjavik and by Reagan’s persistence in demanding defense hikes and domestic budget cuts without the salve of revenue increases. Lacking Republican Senate leadership to hold the fort on Capitol Hill, Reagan faces the worst prospect for positive congressional relations since his first inaugural.

During the seventh year, in any case, his Administration’s energy, to say nothing of his own, was sure to fade as key advisers slipped into the private sector and old policy feuds froze all action. Moreover, every month the politics of the 1988 presidential election will take a tighter hold on the attention of the media, the government, our allies and our adversaries. Those old enough to recall the problems faced by Harry S. Truman in 1951 and Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1959--and Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1939, before World War II broke out--have seen this before.

What the Iran- contra affair added was a heightened vulnerability to open disrespect, a likelihood that Reagan would be not just a lame duck, but one without feathers. Respect and ridicule are near neighbors; one can easily tip into the other if appearances so decree. That’s what this affair threatens.

Last May, I told a former student, who is now at the White House, that in “real time”--which for me meant 1950 when I last served there--the Korean War was still six weeks away. In late November (after the Iran- contra affair came to light), he sent me a card saying the war had broken out. Iran- contra could become as tough politically for Reagan as Korea was for Truman, but up to now the signs suggest not.

The Iran- contra business has cracked Reagan’s credibility in two places. One more crack will probably tumble the wall. He starts his seventh year with less room for mistakes in personal public relations than at any time since the assassination attempt of March, 1981. His credibility since then--the Teflon for his presidency, so to speak--derived in no small measure from his gallantry on that occasion. Now Lt. Col. Oliver L. North, the gung-ho Marine, and Donald T. Regan, the “chief” who wasn’t there, combine with Reagan’s own accounts to threaten the whole thing. It still seems rather formidable in public, but in Washington the cracks show.

What are those cracks? The first was Reagan’s own. Last November, on national television, he discussed his arms shipments to Iran and justified them in geopolitical terms--a search for influence with moderates in future regimes--explicitly dismissing as “coincidental” the release of two Americans (and hopes for more) held hostage.

Public approval of Reagan’s conduct in office immediately tumbled from 65% to 47%. It climbed back to 52% in December--and could go higher--but 10 points, or thereabouts, are probably gone for good. Imperfectly, this loss reflects widespread astonishment that Reagan, of all people, was sending arms to ayatollahs. Astonishment apparently was mixed with disbelief in his asserted reason. Trading arms for hostages seemed far more likely to have been his real reason--more concrete and also more in Reagan’s character--suggesting that he did not tell the truth. “They like me but they don’t believe me,” he is quoted as saying to Bob Dole (R-Kan.), then Senate majority leader. A good summary.

By the time Reagan supposedly said that, a second crack had appeared. Actually, this was someone else’s credibility loss, reflecting on the President: Donald Regan’s. Since early 1985, when he took the job of White House chief of staff, Regan bragged about his dominance atop a hierarchy of his own contriving. Now he insisted he knew nothing about the National Security Council staff’s intricate diversion of funds from Iranian arms sales to the Nicaraguan contras .

There followed an outpouring of “inside the Beltway” criticism, coupled with assorted calls from Reagan devotees for Regan’s head. These left the President apparently unmoved, or unwilling to take precipitous action--for Regan remains. And that situation creates the second crack.

For while it had been well known that Reagan was no detail man, a delegator to the nth degree, it was assumed that he took care to compensate by way of staff. So it seemed in his first term. But now it seems that the man Reagan later installed to police the details didn’t police them--and moreover took no rap. Such behavior by Regan reflected back on Reagan. That this President didn’t know was credible; that he excused his chief of staff’s ignorance was questionable. Or conversely, if Regan really didn’t know, then Reagan must have bypassed him to deal directly with North and Vice Adm. John M. Poindexter.

Damage from these two cracks remains limited. Reagan’s popular approval matches Eisenhower’s at the same stage in his second term and is twice Truman’s. Both credibility cracks have had more impact in Washington than on the public. But both are open-ended--crammed with possible developments; a host of congressmen and journalists now watch and wait. Who said what to whom, when? And where’s the money?

The nation can’t escape being informed. And even if there are no more damaging developments of note, there are plenty of things, both real and media-made, that could test the President’s credibility afresh. A third crack might suffice to turn affection for him into sheer embarrassment: They used to like me but they wish I’d go away.

At least a dozen not-unlikely events might serve as tests of Reagan’s credibility. Over and above any revelations from investigations into the Iran- contra business, a partial list would include a Sandinista trouncing of the contras, an Iranian victory over Iraq, a free fall of the dollar, a step-up in terrorist attacks against Americans.

In addition, there are media events that might set up more hurdles for the President and his aides to jump over, or perhaps stumble on, judging by their past record.

Television news seemed to set two such hurdles for Reagan recently, both involving the State of the Union address. The first was: Would he look or act “out of it”? That was a low hurdle and he cleared it. The second was: Would he come up with some dramatic initiative to “change the scene,” to offer a fresh vision? He didn’t. Historically, it was not to be expected that he would. (Witness Roosevelt, Truman or Eisenhower.) And managerially it was not to be expected that Reagan could, given policy splits in his Administration.

But TV commentators are not bound to take cues from history and management in framing their expectations; neither are viewers. So hurdles of this sort could be raised again--and indeed stumbling at the second one, as Reagan inevitably did, may have cost him something not yet measured in the polls.

Reagan’s three two-term predecessors also lost ground in Congress at their second midterm election. Thereafter they were on the defensive, wielding the veto, but with little else they could count on to further their agendas. F.D.R. gained essentially a second presidency with the coming of World War II. Truman and Eisenhower struggled through their seventh years with not much to show except Eisenhower’s vetoes and Truman’s unpopularity. So it will probably be with Reagan, more an Eisenhower than a Truman--though this hinges on events to come.

Actually, Eisenhower, managed to make himself “new” in the job his seventh year through a consistent stand on “fiscal responsibility” (holding down the budget) by using his veto. Reagan still has time to do the same with arms control (though barely time to get a treaty ratified)--or by a switch on deficits, becoming conciliatory instead of adamant and withholding vetoes as part of a deal.

Either way, while the “new” Reagan could scarcely eliminate the questions that beset the old, he could change the subject. His ability to regain ground exists for only the next few months. Thereafter, unless Reagan manages to do as Ike attempted, and upstage nomination politics with foreign summitry, he’ll start to fade away a year from now, like the smile on the Cheshire cat. And he will virtually vanish (barring foreign crises) from about the time Congress goes home to campaign, 18 months hence. New or not, credible or not, his days are numbered--and he acts as though he knows. For him, that’s new.