‘Instinct Good,’ Aide Reports : President Moving Ahead With Renewed Confidence

President Reagan, having been pilloried by his own Tower Commission seven weeks ago for failing to control his Administration, has regained his confidence and is displaying new determination to press ahead with his agenda for his final 21 months in office.

The President is feeling revitalized and “the instinct is good,” one well-placed White House official said as Reagan relaxed during an eight-day Easter vacation at his mountaintop ranch here.

“He’s getting all his fact patterns and making the decisions,” said the official, who observed the Reagan presidency through the triumphant initial years as well as the tumultuous months since the Iran- contra affair erupted.

There are indications that the public has not fully regained its old confidence in him.

A new Washington Post-ABC News Poll found that Americans, by a margin of 2 to 1, believe that Reagan is honest. But by the same margin they also believe he is not telling the truth about the Iran-contra affair. The telephone survey of 1,509 adults had a 3% margin of error. The poll, conducted April 9 to 13, put Reagan’s public approval rating at 48%, basically unchanged since March.

Reagan’s spirits, nonetheless, are clearly recharged. In public, he is back on the road, making speeches and answering questions. His aides are planning a busy spring and summer, designed to counter the renewed criticism the congressional hearings on the Iran-contra affair will ignite next month, and also to push his agenda on the budget, arms control and defense projects in the dwindling months of his tenure.

In the Oval Office, aides say, Reagan is taking pains to be more involved. When disputes arose among senior advisers over the instructions Secretary of State George P. Shultz would take to Moscow for his arms control discussions this week, Chief of Staff Howard H. Baker Jr. told reporters Monday, “the President made the decisions himself.”

And in private moments, Reagan was uncommonly cheerful--nearly “giddy,” one aide said, as he anticipated his vacation.

Even his sense of humor seemed to be returning.

Microphone Check

Warming up for his weekly radio address to the nation on Saturday morning in Los Angeles, the President began a microphone check just minutes before air time in serious voice: “My fellow Americans,” he said, “having had a bad experience in doing one of these voice checks and finding it in the press the next day, I’m not going to say anything.”

Then, his quiet chuckle could be heard. The joke he played was on himself, a reference to a controversy he stirred in a similar check in 1984 when he said into the radio microphone: “My fellow Americans, I am pleased to tell you I just signed legislation which outlaws Russia forever. The bombing begins in five minutes.”

‘Enjoying Himself’

Ensconced at his beloved ranch for his first vacation there since the Iran storm clouds darkened the Thanksgiving holiday, the President “obviously was enjoying himself,” Baker said.

As the President’s mood has lifted, the White House entourage has become less guarded.

When Baker’s predecessor, Donald T. Regan, was last in Santa Barbara with the President, he shunned contacts with reporters as details of the Iran scandal were just coming to light.

By contrast, Baker spent more than a half-hour with reporters on Monday, and planned more meetings later in the week--an example of what is jokingly being called the White House’s version of Mikhail S. Gorbachev’s campaign of glasnost , or openness, in the Soviet Union.

Reagan Less Distant

The President is also much less distant from reporters. It is no longer unusual when the President travels to find him pausing to respond to questions shouted by journalists gathered under the wing of Air Force One.

He has taken such questions several times in recent days. On occasion he has prepared for such encounters by first jotting down his thoughts on such topics as the budget or the Marine Corps sex-and-spying scandal, thus disclosing his precise views without going beyond the specific points he wants to make.

Such brief sessions do not necessarily make headlines--although they can. But they enable the President to make clear his opposition, for instance, to a Democratic victory on a budget vote in Congress.

Equally important, they present to television audiences the image of a President aggressively responding to challenges--contrasted with his winter of silence.

Looking Ahead

Baker and other senior White House officials have taken advantage of the relaxed atmosphere and less hurried pace in Santa Barbara to look ahead to May when the congressional hearings on Iran begin.

They met Monday with Richard B. Wirthlin, the Republican pollster, to review the President’s political standing, and have previewed programs on which Reagan would focus.

Although visits to the ranch are seen by Reagan’s closest advisers as important for him, because they give the 76-year-old President an opportunity to escape the confines of the White House, his schedule in coming months will leave little time for hours on horseback.

June will find him spending more than a week in Europe, in a series of meetings scheduled around the three-day Venice economic summit conference of the world’s seven leading industrial democracies.

Venezuela Trip

And White House officials, rebuffed in an effort to arrange a quick presidential trip to Venezuela in May for an anti-drug conference of Latin American leaders, are reworking their plans to schedule it in July.

During the same period, these officials anticipate a legislative calendar that will allow the President to focus public attention on issues other than the Iran arms sales.

Such things as the annual fight with Congress over the coming fiscal year’s budget and the politically touchy dispute over trade legislation loom ever closer on the horizon--presenting the President with the opportunity to once again draw for the public his view of a nation of free trade and reduced deficits.

“If you have an agenda moving in Congress, you keep moving on it. You don’t let it be dominated by any other issue,” a senior White House official said, reflecting the overall approach that he and his colleagues will seek to follow if the Iran affair returns to a more prominent position.