Bush Will Resume Selecting His Cabinet

President-elect George Bush squeezed himself into the ceremonial role of vice president for perhaps the last time at the New York meeting with visiting Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev Wednesday, but he returns today to the work of assembling the rest of his Cabinet team.

Bush scheduled a two-hour meeting today with 50 leaders of his state campaign organizations and will receive from them lists of potential appointees to positions in his Administration, from Cabinet rank down, spokeswoman Sheila Tate said.

In another transition-related development, Tate confirmed that Bush last week offered former House Speaker Thomas P. (Tip) O’Neill Jr. the job of ambassador to Ireland, but the Democrat turned down the offer because of concerns about his wife’s health.

The President-elect and his incoming vice president also made overtures to prominent Democrats Wednesday: Bush conferred with House Speaker Jim Wright before flying to New York to take part in the meeting with President Reagan and the visiting Russian delegation. And Sen. Dan Quayle, plotting the path of his vice presidency, consulted with former Democratic Vice President Walter F. Mondale.

Bush’s meeting with the state campaign officials is part of an effort to broaden the pool of prospective appointees as the President-elect focuses on the remaining Cabinet and sub-Cabinet positions.

Only one top-ranking Cabinet post remains unfilled, that of secretary of defense. Bush aides said that former Texas Sen. John Tower remains the probable appointee, and an announcement on the position could be made this week.

Still remaining open, however, are the top posts at the departments of agriculture, energy, labor, health and human services, housing and urban development, transportation, veterans’ affairs and the Interior.

Will Offer Job Lists

The 50 campaign representatives will offer lists of regional job hunters who have contacts in a variety of fields, Tate said.

“There’s a real genuine desire to cross the Beltway,” said Tate, referring to the roadway encircling the capital, the figurative limit to Washingtonian vision. “We’re getting ideas from a wider circle, particularly women and minorities.”

Regarding the latter, Bush is scheduled to meet Friday with a group of black Republicans and later with Benjamin L. Hooks, executive director of the NAACP. Tate said that the meeting was scheduled at Hooks’ request.

The meeting with Wright took place at Bush’s behest, an aide to the congressman said, and marked the second formal visit between the two men since Bush’s election Nov. 8. Wright spokesman Wilson Morris said that the two men discussed Gorbachev and the New York luncheon.

Quayle’s simultaneous meeting with Mondale was at the vice president-elect’s request, part of a series of conversations the Indiana senator plans with former vice presidents. Already, he has met with former Vice President--and President--Richard M. Nixon, and he soon will meet with Nixon’s successor, Gerald R. Ford.

Jim Carroll, a spokesman for the vice president-elect, said that Mondale shared with Quayle a memo he wrote in 1976 about the functions of the vice president’s office.

After the session, Mondale told reporters that he had warned Quayle about being “trivialized” in the position.

“I believe he can do it, and I believe he wants to do it,” Mondale said. “He’s been elected by the people of the United States, and we all better hope that he does a good job.”

Quayle’s staff also announced Wednesday that Time magazine correspondent David Beckwith will serve as the vice president’s press secretary beginning in January. Beckwith covered the Bush campaign for the news magazine for more than a year.