Thornburgh Viewed as a Realist Seeking a Consensus

“Anyone using drugs had better look over your shoulder,” said Atty. Gen. Dick Thornburgh, “because there might be a law enforcement official there to present you with your share of the bill of the cost of drug abuse and trafficking in this country.”

Thornburgh, named Monday by President-elect George Bush to continue as the nation’s 76th attorney general, said that he regards “the introduction of the notion of user accountability,” by imposing penalties on drug users, as one of the most significant tools contained in the drug bill signed by President Reagan last week.

However, tempering his hard-line stance with a dose of realism, Thornburgh acknowledged in a recent interview that there is no four-year or eight-year solution to the nation’s drug crisis.

“We’re not talking about eliminating drug abuse or trafficking” in that time period, Thornburgh said. “That’s a characteristic of long-term cultural change that has to occur in a society like ours. You’re talking about progress in containment and making sure that the ante is being upped for people who choose” to use drugs.

“It may be realistic to talk about a decade of progress, which would put you in a much better position to maybe shoot for the turn of the century” for realizing a drug-free America, Thornburgh said.

This blend of tough enforcement and what seems to be pragmatic goals typifies a public official who honed prosecutorial skills as U.S. attorney for western Pennsylvania and assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s criminal division and then mastered the political ropes in two terms as Pennsylvania’s governor.

‘Hands-On Manager’

The portrait of Thornburgh that emerges from interviews with him, with several key aides who served him when he was governor and who followed him to Washington last August and with Capitol Hill sources is that of a “hands-on” manager who favors consensus over confrontation but will not avoid a showdown.

The interviews with Thornburgh and his aides took place before Bush notified him Saturday that he wanted him to stay on and were conducted in the context of what the next attorney general would face as major challenges.

In August, Thornburgh succeeded Atty. Gen. Edwin Meese III, who resigned under a storm of criticism. An independent counsel’s investigation recommended no criminal charges against Meese but concluded that he had probably violated conflict-of-interest and tax laws.

In announcing Thornburgh’s selection Monday, Bush cited his “record of unquestioned integrity and a commitment to upholding the highest ethical standards.”

Although he contends that his ideological credentials as a conservative are solid, Thornburgh and his top aides come across as pragmatists who avoid the kind of strongly ideological statements that Meese and his lieutenants so relished.

Worked Well With Biden

“He’s very political in the best sense of that word,” said a senior Democratic staff member of the Senate Judiciary Committee. In the Senate’s final month, this aide noted, Thornburgh worked well with Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.), Senate Judiciary Committee chairman, on a pornography bill, a backlog of judicial appointments and the rest of the key panel’s agenda.

From the start, Thornburgh and his executive assistant, Robert (Robin) S. Ross Jr., emphasized that there was to be no doubt about who the department’s manager was and that the agency would speak with “one voice,” as Ross put it. Thornburgh thus made no secret of remonstrating with subordinates who resisted his decision to compromise with Congress on creating an inspector general for the Justice Department.

And it was Thornburgh who authorized the department’s chief spokesman to publicly express his displeasure with the FBI for supporting a gun control provision that the Administration opposed.

Murray Dickman, a non-lawyer who served in two executive positions under Thornburgh when he was governor and now handles management issues for him, said that he found things at the Justice Department “decentralized a lot more than we’re used to.”

Dickman said Thornburgh realizes that “the budget really determines policy and not the other way around,” and he added that he expects the attorney general to “get much more intimately involved” in the department’s budget than Meese did.

In Harrisburg, Dickman recalled, Thornburgh devoted the month of January to presiding over meetings on the state budget, a practice that gave him insights into running the state that were hard to come by any other way.

Ross and Mark Richard, a deputy assistant attorney general in the criminal division, both forecast that the increasingly international nature of crime and the need to deal with it across national boundaries would receive top priority under Bush’s attorney general.

Ross, expressing what he said was “a personal view,” said that the Justice Department needs a component--perhaps an entire division--focusing on international affairs. “The globalization of the economy has led to the globalization of crime,” Ross said.

Richard, noting that Thornburgh had ordered a review of the Justice Department’s ethics regulations soon after taking office, said “it is clear (that the next attorney general) will take a hard look at ethics, the codes of conduct and the articulation of such codes to be sure” they are understood throughout the department.

Other department sources, citing Thornburgh’s record of vigorous prosecution of white-collar crimes, predicted that securities fraud and possible wrongdoing that could have contributed to the current savings and loan industry crisis will draw special attention under him as attorney general.

Thornburgh, who has emphasized “enforcing the civil rights of all of our citizens” as a priority, is seeking to win back the confidence of blacks, who were sharply critical of Meese and William Bradford Reynolds, his counselor and civil rights division chief.

But he said that “I just don’t know enough” when asked if the civil rights problems currently plaguing the FBI are systemic or aberrations. “My expectation is that it is not systemic,” Thornburgh said.