Baker Resigns as Chief of Staff : Cites Wife’s Health; Duberstein to Take Over as Top Reagan Aide

Howard H. Baker Jr., the former Senate Republican leader who became President Reagan’s chief of staff during the height of the Iran-Contra scandal, resigned his White House post Tuesday, citing his wife’s poor health.

He will be replaced by Kenneth M. Duberstein, his chief deputy, who formerly served as Reagan’s liaison officer with Congress.

Baker, 62, said that his plans to leave, which he first raised with Reagan several months ago, were prompted primarily by his desire to spend more time with his wife in Tennessee and reflected no disagreement with the President.

Caretaker Capacity

But seven months before the end of the President’s second and final term, Baker’s departure appears to mark the inexorable transition of the Reagan White House to a caretaker capacity as national attention is increasingly focused on the campaign to choose the next President.

Duberstein, 44, is an energetic New Yorker who helped push some of Reagan’s key legislative programs through Congress during the President’s first term. He returned to the White House after 3 1/2 years as a lobbyist to become Baker’s deputy after the former Tennessee senator was hired on Feb. 27, 1987.

Duberstein was described by one Baker associate as someone who “can juggle 10 balls at once and catch them all before they come down.”

Notwithstanding his organizational talents, his chief job is “basically caretaker,” said one former top White House official. The task in Reagan’s final months in office is to avoid errors and “take him out with a little style,” the former aide said.

Baker’s resignation, and Duberstein’s elevation as Reagan’s fourth chief of staff, takes effect July 1. However, Baker said he will not accompany Reagan to Toronto on Sunday for the annual economic summit conference of the major industrial democracies.

“Sen. Baker has been a close friend and adviser who has guided my staff deftly and effectively for the last 16 months,” Reagan said in a written statement. “He held a steady hand in the operation of the White House while the Iran-Contra investigations were being conducted and his wise counsel fostered the spirit of cooperation in which those issues were presented to the American people.”

‘Steady Force for Peace’

The President also praised Baker for his work at Reagan’s summit conferences with Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev in Washington last December and in Moscow earlier this month. The chief of staff was “a steady force for peace in helping to move our negotiators toward” the U.S.-Soviet agreement eliminating the superpowers’ arsenals of land-based medium-range nuclear weapons, the statement said.

Reagan described Duberstein as “an outstanding manager and skilled strategist (who) has given me firm and effective counsel.” He said his new chief of staff--a position that does not require Senate confirmation--”will lead the White House staff as we head into the home stretch.”

That was a job Baker originally had declared he would fulfill, having once told reporters that he would be around “to lock the door and turn out the lights” when Reagan left office.

“For personal reasons he has asked that he be excused from that commitment,” White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said.

During a photo session at an Oval Office meeting with Italian Prime Minister Ciriaco De Mita, Reagan was asked if Baker’s departure signals that the lights indeed are being extinguished on his Administration. “No,” he said, “that means, I think, a little change has occurred.”

Baker’s wife, Joy, 59, has been under medical care frequently throughout his White House tenure and was hospitalized recently in Tennessee. Baker said in an interview that she is being treated for “severe and chronic” back pain caused by “a nerve problem” and must undergo daily physical therapy. She also has been treated for emphysema. In addition, he said that his 86-year-old stepmother, Irene Baker, has been hospitalized since Sunday because of abdominal pains.

Fewer Reasons to Stay

With the completion of the summits, there were fewer compelling reasons for him to stay on the job and away from home, Baker said.

“I’m leaving because it’s a good time to leave,” he said. “I may just take it easy for a while.”

His resignation is the second by a top White House official recently, following that of Communications Director Thomas C. Griscom.

In the interview, Baker said that, while he would accept the Republican vice presidential nomination if it were offered by George Bush: “I do not want that to happen; I do not expect that to happen, and I’m doing nothing to try to produce that.”

Seated in his corner office just a few paces from the Oval Office, he said: “Glory and power is a marvelous thing in moderation, and I’ve had all the glory and power I can handle for the moment.”

Flood of Praise

The change at the helm of the 325-member White House staff caught Washington by surprise, and brought a flood of praise for Baker, who has been a popular figure here since he arrived 21 years ago as the first Republican senator from Tennessee since the post-Civil War Reconstruction era.

“He’s done a superb job,” said Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.). Senate Majority Leader Robert C. Byrd (D-W.Va.) said that Baker “did much to help to calm and quiet and make things more serene there. He has performed a great service not only for the President but also for his country.”

Baker was recruited as chief of staff while the White House was awash in scandal after the revelation of the Administration’s secret sale of arms to Iran and the diversion of proceeds to the anti-Sandinista rebels in Nicaragua.

Disclosure that Baker had been offered the job prompted then-Chief of Staff Donald T. Regan, who was under intense criticism for his handling of the affair’s aftermath, to angrily announce his own resignation.

Rebuilt Staff Morale

As Reagan’s top aide--an unlikely role for a former elected official with such extensive service in Congress--Baker received generally high marks for rebuilding morale and calming tensions among the staff. The respect he had earned as former Senate Republican leader also helped the Administration repair some of the damage to its relations with Congress caused by the arms scandal.

In many cases, White House officials said, Baker served as the President’s chief counselor while Duberstein assumed many of the day-to-day functions of running the executive branch.

The easygoing Baker was criticized for management lapses, with one member of the National Security Council staff, speaking on the condition of anonymity, complaining:

“He didn’t get much accomplished and it was at least partly his own fault. He seemed to see his role as being a caretaker. He didn’t take chances. Duberstein may actually turn out to be less of a caretaker than Baker was.”

Cites Achievements

In his interview with a small group of reporters, Baker said that the White House objectives he achieved were:

--”To see that (the President) came safely through the Iran-Contra affair” and that Reagan was not “immobilized” by the congressional investigation, as Richard M. Nixon had been during the Watergate hearings.

--”To see that we didn’t miss any opportunities in foreign policy (and) arms control,”