In Washington’s Marketplace of Ideas, Think Tanks Are the Strongest Sellers

After a grueling presidential campaign that seemed increasingly empty of ideas, men and women from think tanks, presumably full of ideas, are ready for work in the next Administration.

One important legacy of the Reagan Administration is that think tanks have become a growth business. “The number of people has more than doubled since 1980, and the number of institutes has more than tripled,” said James Abellera, president of Think Tank Monitor, a consulting firm that tries to keep up with the tons of documents generated. No less than 65 are listed in the National Journal’s Washington directory, the Capital Source.

As the field expanded, the concept evolved significantly. Scholarly detachment lost ground to partisan marketing of ideas. The distinction between public-policy research institutes and propaganda mills has become increasingly blurred.

One model Washington policy think tank is the Brookings Institution, which dates back to 1916. On a budget of more than $15 million, Brookings finances research, sponsors seminars and conferences and publishes books and periodicals on public-policy issues. Considered a 1970s refuge for exiles of the Kennedy-Johnson administrations, Brookings was eclipsed in the early 1980s by more conservative think-tanks with ties to Ronald Reagan.

Many people expected Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, a blue-chip conservative tank, to supplant Brookings and other liberal institutes as a source of policy ideas for the Reagan Administration, but it didn’t turn out that way. Instead, Hoover found itself up against two strong competitors based in Washington--the scholarly, conservative-leaning American Enterprise Institute, and the aggressively partisan Heritage Foundation. The contrast between these two illustrates the evolution of think tanks in the Reagan years.

Judge Robert H. Bork, who returned to AEI this year to write a book about constitutional law, explained, “AEI is like an excellent faculty without students--the best possible arrangement.” Among his colleagues are Nixon-Ford economic adviser Herbert M. Stein, former U.N. Ambassador Jeane J. Kirkpatrick and neo-conservative founding father Irving Kristol. At least two dozen current or one-time AEI scholars, including former White House communications director David R. Gergen, held high-level Reagan posts. These are activist intellectuals, many of them neo-conservative Democrats, who 20 years ago might have been content to be on a college campus.

A non-conservative AEI fellow, political scientist William Schneider, explained, “The reason I am at a think tank is simple: Universities have become uncongenial to public-policy research. Academic disciplines have become narrow and specialized. I write for a general audience. You can’t do that at universities anymore. Think tanks have emerged to fill a function that universities no longer serve. I would imagine that’s why most people are here.”

But another reason is proximity to power, which also handicapped California’s Hoover Institution. Washington-based conferences and seminars offer frequent opportunities to mingle with government officials. In an increasingly result-oriented culture, that’s important.

Yet, while AEI supplied the most high-level staffers to the Administration, the upstart Heritage Foundation claimed the largest share of policy triumphs, thanks in large part to its introduction of an aggressive marketing style. Founded in 1973, with a $250,000 grant from Joseph Coors, Heritage carefully cultivated ties with Reagan and Edwin Meese III before the election. Its academic credentials were thin, but its slickly packaged volume, “Mandate for Leadership,” proposed 2,000 specific policy suggestions. More than half, including the 1981 tax cut and the space-based Strategic Defense Initiative, wound up on the Reagan agenda.

Heritage followed up with a propaganda blitz that transformed the idea of what think tanks can be. Traditionally, academic tanks along AEI and Brookings lines turned out thick volumes that were translated into excerpts for institution magazines like AEI’s Public Policy or the Brookings Review. Heritage introduced memo-length papers, called “backgrounders,” circulated by the thousands to key policy-makers, and followed up by inundating newspapers with Op-Ed pieces.

“Heritage can crank out a study in two weeks,” said Stanley N. Wellborn, Brookings spokesman. “We might take 18 months. Our studies tend to be more thoughtful and analytical--book-length.”

Heritage Research Director Burton Yale Pines said, “If a Heritage backgrounder can’t be read during a cab ride from Capitol Hill to Dulles Airport, we’ve failed.”

This style offends some. But Heritage has more than its share of admirers--even among Democrats who feel that their party’s agenda is bogged down. Alvin From, director of the Democratic Leadership Conference, a quasi-think tank serving a coalition of moderate Democrat officeholders and chaired by Sen. Sam Nunn of Georgia, said, “The lesson of the past 15 years of American politics is that the politician who defines the debate wins. Heritage is very successful in getting their words into the mouths of elected officials. That’s what Heritage brought to the think tank arena. Up until then, institutes produced long documents not geared to be made use of in a way to change the debate.”

A more traditionally liberal think tank emulates the Heritage aggressiveness--the Center for National Policy, chaired by former Secretary of State Edmund S. Muskie. With a staff of 10 and budget of about $1 million--compared with Heritage’s 135 and $15 million--CNP draws on outside resources; a wide range of hungry Democratic policy-makers are available to produce ad hoc position papers. CNP has pollster Peter Hart trolling baby boomers for policy ideas, has active programs on college campuses and is developing papers for the presidential transition. Another way to change the debate is to join a campaign staff, as Kirk O’Donnell, the CNP chief has done. He is a top adviser to Democratic nominee Michael S. Dukakis--and had earlier worked for former House Speaker Thomas P. O’Neill. “We’re on the cutting edge of issues,” claimed Amy Weiss, CNP’s communications director, echoing Heritage rhetoric.

Arguably, the most successful Democratic think tank in this year’s campaign has been the radical Institute for Policy Studies. Director Robert Borsage was Jesse Jackson’s senior foreign-policy adviser. IPS also crafted Jackson position papers, including platform proposals. The IPS line got little close examination in the primaries, but Jackson moved the Democratic foreign-policy debate so far to the left--on government activism and Soviet relations--that the party is still vulnerable on defense issues.

Dozens of think tanks in Washington and elsewhere have prepared policy papers for the next Administration. The Bush transition director, Chase Untermeyer, said, “I have certainly contacted some of them.” He’s made arrangements to get advance copies of the transition report prepared by the ad hoc American Agenda Committee, a bipartisan group co-chaired by former Presidents Gerald R. Ford and Jimmy Carter, and has been in contact with Brookings scholar Stephen Hess. Untermeyer also attended a recent conference of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a group that includes Henry A. Kissinger, Zbigniew Brzezinski and James R. Schlesinger. The CSIS proposals concentrate more on process than policy, to recommend, among other things, that the post of national security adviser be Cabinet-level.

Dukakis transition director Marcia Hale declined to be interviewed, but most political observers think the Democratic nominee would rely heavily on Cambridge, Mass., types for policy advice.

In one sense, the influence of Washington think tanks may have peaked. No one expects any one institute like AEI to field so many high-level players, nor will Heritage’s “Mandate III” set the agenda for a Bush Administration.

But as Untermeyer said, “These are the kind of people who have a tendency to go into government.” Think tanks serve to legitimate potential appointees.

“Presidents come and Presidents go, but what is important is who they choose to post,” said political consultant Roland McElroy. “You don’t want to start over every four or eight years with neophytes. Think tanks are really holding bins for employees of the next Administration.”