Bush Expected to Keep Brady in Treasury Job

President-elect George Bush plans to announce his choice for Treasury secretary today amid strong indications that he has decided to retain longtime friend and adviser Nicholas F. Brady in the post, sources close to Bush said Monday evening.

As Bush neared an announcement on the second person to join his Cabinet, he had dinner Monday with New Hampshire Gov. John H. Sununu at a borrowed vacation home in Gulf Stream, Fla. Sources suggested that Sununu is now the top candidate to head the Bush White House staff.

And, as planning goes forward for the new Administration, U.S. officials said in Washington that Bush will meet with Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev in December, probably for lunch in a brief get-acquainted session, when Gorbachev travels to this country to speak to the United Nations. (Story on Page 6.)

Existing Policies

Bush, speaking with reporters on the sands outside his Florida beachfront vacation refuge, stressed that existing policies--rather than new initiatives--would be continued in dealing with the Soviet Union, Nicaragua and other foreign nations.

“Those who are looking for radical policy shifts won’t find them,” Bush warned.

Bush played down chances that he would meet with Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega as part of any Central American negotiations. “I would not jump at an opportunity to have a bilateral chat, meeting with Daniel Ortega,” he said.

Bush added that in his mind such a meeting would give the Sandinistas “a certain standing that I think is uncalled for.” Instead, he said, he would press the Nicaraguans to negotiate with their fellow Central American nations.

He also voiced tentative enthusiasm about reports that the Palestine Liberation Organization will more openly acknowledge the existence of Israel.

Of Bush’s dinner meeting with the New Hampshire governor, one source close to the President-elect--speaking on the condition of anonymity--said that “a very educated guess” was that “Sununu is going to be chief of staff.” That view was supported by two other sources close to the vice president.

Such a decision would leave up in the air the role of Craig Fuller, Bush’s current chief of staff and a co-director of his transition team. Speculation about the most senior jobs on the White House staff has focused on Sununu, Fuller and the other transition co-director, Robert Teeter, a Bush political adviser and poll-taker.

Key Role in Primary

Another Republican source, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said that while he expects Bush to establish a trio of senior aides at the top of the White House staff hierarchy, “you don’t put a governor” on only equal footing with other assistants. He predicted that if Sununu, who played a key role in Bush’s crucial victory in the New Hampshire primary last February, accepted a White House job, it would likely be as head of the staff.

Lining up staff members for the senior White House positions and for the top positions in the government’s economic policy agencies appeared to be Bush’s first tasks, and several well-placed sources predicted that these posts would be filled within days.

The likely nomination of Brady to continue in his post appeared “fairly firm,” one Republican source said. Another added that “I can’t imagine anything is going to move him from that position.”

But both sources said that the speculated appointment of former Deputy Treasury Secretary Richard G. Darman as director of the Office of Management and Budget is less certain.

Bush, meanwhile, asserted that he feels no “great pressure” to announce nominees for top posts in his Administration, and he pressed a lid of secrecy over his potential appointees Monday. But he said he would name at least one woman to his Cabinet and make good on his campaign pledge to place a Latino there too.

A week after he claimed the presidency, Bush said he had not yet decided what role his vice president, Indiana Sen. Dan Quayle, would take. Bush said he has not yet specifically defined the breadth of Quayle’s future duties. He said that the Indiana senator would head the nation’s space council but added that “it’s too early to resolve” other assignments.

And, as rumors about his decision continued to circulate, Bush dodged questions about whether he would appoint a trio of aides or one chief of staff to help him run the White House.

Bush bridled at reports that Secretary of State-designate James A. Baker III would assume a wide-ranging role that, in effect, would make him a deputy President. “You haven’t heard that here,” said Bush, standing beside his wife, Barbara. “He’ll have his hands full as secretary of state.

“I think everybody knows that he is a close confidant of mine and I value his judgment on a wide array of matters, but . . . I simply would look here for guidance on who is going to be calling the shots other than the new President.”

Baker, whom Bush announced as his secretary of state nominee the morning after his election, is the only Cabinet officer thus far named by the vice president. Bush refused to say whether Brady, another longtime Bush confidant, would remain in his post after Bush assumes the White House.

“There will be no Cabinet announcements from these sands here,” he said. “We may have some (announcements) this week but I just can’t help you on who the--can’t tell you. I haven’t confirmed that any particular one will come this week.”

Fuller told reporters that Bush is willing to undertake budget talks with congressional leaders even before his inauguration Jan. 20. “But the negotiation . . . over a budget is something that has to occur, first, after the economic team is in place, then probably after he takes office.”

In another personnel matter, a Soviet affairs expert in the government reported the suggestion that James H. Billington, the librarian of Congress, will be Bush’s nominee as ambassador to Moscow to replace career Foreign Service officer Jack Matlock. Billington, a former professor of history at Harvard and Princeton specializing in Russian culture, is fluent in Russian and well-respected by the Soviets.

Cathleen Decker reported from Gulf Stream and James Gerstenzang from Washington. Staff writers John Balzar and Robert Gillette in Washington contributed to this story.