Reagan Reaffirms His Support of Meese

The White House, responding to the resignations of top-level Justice Department officials, reaffirmed President Reagan’s full confidence in Atty. Gen. Edwin Meese III on Tuesday, but support for the embattled official beyond the Oval Office remains questionable.

The resignations of Deputy Atty. Gen. Arnold I. Burns and Assistant Atty. Gen. William F. Weld already have resulted in calls from Capitol Hill for Meese to step down, and the attorney general remains unpopular with many among the senior staff at the White House.

Meese, under investigation for a number of matters by an independent counsel since last May, has refused to step aside, and the President has vowed repeatedly to stand behind him in the face of what Reagan has called a “lynch mob atmosphere” in Washington.

Nevertheless, the stunning resignations of two of Meese’s most senior assistants and their top aides are certain to put substantial pressure on the attorney general and to raise further questions about his ability to serve as the nation’s top law enforcement officer.

Other than his longtime friend Ronald Reagan, sources say, Meese has few allies within the executive mansion. Yet some critics of the attorney general believe that only one thing can force him to yield his office: pressure from First Lady Nancy Reagan.

“Somebody’s got to get to her to make this happen,” said a former White House official who has maintained ties to the First Family.

A member of the senior White House staff said that “a lot of people still feel the President wants him to hang in,” but there are suggestions around the West Wing, which houses the Oval Office, that Mrs. Reagan and White House Chief of Staff Howard H. Baker Jr. “would like something else.”

Still, White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater told reporters that “the President has confidence in the attorney general. The Justice Department has been functioning just fine, and I’m sure it will continue to function.”

When asked whether Reagan wants Meese to continue in his post for the remaining 9 1/2 months of the Administration, Fitzwater said: “You don’t address questions like that. The important point is, is he doing the job? Does (Reagan) have confidence in him? The answer is yes.”

The close relationship of Reagan and Meese, an association of more than two decades, has long been a sensitive subject at the White House. Baker, who built a reputation as a moderate Republican Senate leader and whose official ties to Reagan date back barely a year, in the past has privately indicated a reluctance to take on Meese--champion of some of the President’s most cherished policies and hero of many of Reagan’s most conservative supporters.

Indeed, when Baker received word of the planned resignations, according to a White House source, he was noncommittal, saying only that the officials should talk to Meese. If they were still unsatisfied after their discussion with the attorney general, Baker said, he would forward their resignation letters to Reagan--a step he took Tuesday morning, the source said.

Burns, the department’s second-ranking official, and Weld, in charge of all criminal division operations, were said by sources to have grown increasingly frustrated with Meese’s refusal to step aside and with the negative impact that the allegations against Meese have had on their effectiveness as top law enforcement officials.

Among other things, Meese has been investigated for his financial dealings and for his role in the award of a Pentagon contract to scandal-ridden Wedtech Corp., a small Bronx defense firm that now is defunct. His involvement in a controversial Iraqi pipeline project has led to the most serious investigation of the attorney general thus far.

Members of both houses of Congress reacted to the resignations by suggesting that Meese step aside pending the outcome of investigations involving him so that the Justice Department can be operated more effectively.

Most of those calls came from Democrats, but Sen. Strom Thurmond (R-S. C.)--a longtime ally of Reagan and Meese--said that he regrets the departures of Burns and Weld, adding that he is “greatly concerned about morale at the Department of Justice as indicated by the resignations.”

Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), who is seeking an explanation from Meese for the departures, said that “these resignations will further erode what public confidence remains in Meese’s Justice Department.”

Meese should step aside because there are “too many ethical clouds” hanging over him, Levin said. “For the sake of the Justice Department, he should have stepped aside long ago. There are too many ethical lapses for Meese to hang on.”

In the House, California Democrats on the Judiciary Committee, Rep. Howard L. Berman (D-Panorama City) and Rep. Don Edwards (D-San Jose), also called on Meese to step aside.

“It would be far more appropriate for the attorney general to step aside during the investigation (of his conduct) than to lose good people who represent his philosophy,” Berman said.

“There is something very strange and very wrong about an attorney general who is the subject of such an investigation to be acting in this capacity while it’s going on,” he said. “It’s just wrong.”