CALIFORNIA ELECTIONS / GOVERNOR : Deliberate Wilson Relies on Experts, Longtime Aides

Back in the early weeks of 1989, it seemed as though U.S. Sen. Pete Wilson had consulted half the state of California about whether to run for governor. But Gayle Wilson still was not sure if her husband would make the biggest move of his political career.

Finally one night at the dinner table, she told Wilson that if he decided not to run for governor because he feared she might object, he would regret it and resent her for the rest of his life.

“If you want to do it, do it !” Gayle Wilson told her husband. “And it really was 100% go from there.”

Deciding to run for governor is hardly an everyday political decision, but the story is typical of how Pete Wilson goes about collecting information and making decisions. By all accounts, the 57-year-old senator pursues a process that is thorough, wide-ranging, painstaking in detail--and often frustrating to those who know him best.

There is no particular mystery about the process, developed over four years in the California Assembly, 11 years as mayor of San Diego and eight years as the junior U.S. senator from California. Wilson relies heavily on talented and loyal aides--mostly white and male--but also reaches beyond this coterie to a variety of experts. On occasion, even those closest to him are not likely to know which way Wilson will tilt on an issue until he announces his decision.

John G. Davies, a former law school colleague who often is described as Wilson’s oldest and closest friend, recalls that he was taken totally by surprise when Wilson decided to seek his first elective office in 1966.

“I was astounded when he told me he was going to run for the Assembly. I had no inkling,” said Davies, who received his political education with Wilson in Richard Nixon’s 1962 gubernatorial campaign and still counsels the senator on some issues, including helping screen potential nominees for federal judgeships.

But these days, there aren’t many surprises when Wilson finally decides an issue, Davies added. “The process is too gradual to contain surprise.” With a deep chuckle, almost a guffaw, Davies added, “He never moves fast enough.”

Those who have worked closely with Wilson talk about his demands for the facts--all the facts. “He comes not lightly to decisions. Therefore, he does not come lightly to changes,” said Robert S. White, the chief of Wilson’s 80-member Senate staff who has been with Wilson since 1966.

If he is elected governor on Nov. 6, associates say, there will be no elite “kitchen cabinet” of wealthy California businessmen such as counseled Ronald Reagan, and no eclectic circle of former seminary classmates and alternative-politics gurus who engaged in late-night gab fests with Jerry Brown. Nor would there be the sort of small, mysterious circle--some in Sacramento refer to it as a “black box”--that George Deukmejian seems to draw on for information and advice.

Wilson may touch bases with old chums and a few wealthy advisers--the Irvine Co.’s Donald L. Bren, for example, or San Diego savings and loan executive Gordon C. Luce. But they say he is more likely to call them to chat about local political trends than the nuts-and-bolts decisions of government, turning instead to professionals for expert opinion.

One biographical account of Bren, the reclusive Orange County developer, described him and Wilson as old Marine buddies and claimed that Wilson would not have run for governor without the proper signal from him. If so, that would seem to make Bren a potential power behind the throne.

But Wilson aides insist that Bren has no such influence over Wilson. Wilson said their relationship dates from the unsuccessful 1974 gubernatorial campaign of Republican Houston I. Flournoy. “That’s what it is: It’s a friendship,” Wilson said. He acknowledged that he might discuss a housing or planning issue with the billionaire developer but said he did that with Irvine Co. officials long before Bren took over the firm.

“If there is an inner circle, it’s a large one,” said Otto Bos, a former newspaper reporter who has served Wilson for 14 years in a variety of roles.

Bos is directing Wilson’s campaign against Democrat Dianne Feinstein for governor. Were there a club of Wilson insiders, Bos would be one of its charter members and gatekeepers. So would White and campaign manager George Gorton, who has been Wilson’s chief political sidekick since the first race for mayor in 1971 and is in over-all charge of the 1990 election effort. This, in a sense, is Wilson’s San Diego clique, those who have been with Wilson for 10 years or longer, going back to his days as mayor and even as a state legislator.

But when it comes to specific issues or problems to be solved, there is a much larger circle of advisers to which Wilson can be expected to turn.

The campaign has compiled a list of experts and advisers in various fields with whom Wilson consulted during his years as San Diego’s mayor. It contains 69 names, including some Democrats, and ranges from scientists at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography to a former school board member also identified as the president of the San Diego Catfish Club. This is not exactly an exclusive circle and is typical of the wide field of friends, associates and acquaintances of anyone who has been in politics and government for nearly a quarter century.

Bos said Wilson may have talked to as many as 200 people as he pondered whether to pursue the governorship so soon after his 1988 reelection to a second Senate term.

The process included extensive private briefings in Sacramento by Deukmejian Administration officials, members of the Legislature, lobbyists and others, including onetime Assembly Speaker Robert T. Monagan, former head of the California Manufacturers Assn., and Kirk West, a former state finance official now president of the California Chamber of Commerce.

Actually, there was little need for Wilson to test the political waters because he was all but drafted by key Republicans who saw him as the one GOP leader with a chance to continue the Republican reign in Sacramento.

Rather, the briefings he sought were designed to assess the state of the state, to find out if the office was worth having--if California with all its growth and problems still can be managed by a governor.

In an interview, Wilson said he went to Sacramento in search of “a fairly candid and cold-blooded assessment. . . . And then I made a decision.”

“It was doable,” Wilson concluded. “Not easy, but doable. I decided change was needed and change could be effected and it was going to take someone who was willing to shake things up and that’s when I decided to do it.”

Davies believes that Wilson’s thoroughness is a legacy of his legal training.

“You don’t want to have unknown facts surface later,” said Davies. “There’s an abhorrence of that.” Yet, when deadlines and demands of government do not permit the luxury of unlimited study, Davies said Wilson is “perfectly capable of making an educated guess and saying, ‘We’ve got to go with it.’ But he doesn’t like it.”

Given the flood of information that swamps senators these days, Wilson puts a priority on someone who can cut to the heart of the matter. Wilson sometimes will assemble groups of contenders to hash out an issue, but that is time-consuming and is not done often. After that, the written staff memo, ranging from one to perhaps seven pages, is Wilson’s preference.

“If it is well-written, it actually saves time,” Wilson said. “If it is concise and really highlights the pertinent information, it spots the issue or issues, gives the background, what the question is before us, here are the options, here are the recommendations. That’s a good memorandum.”

Wilson then smiled briefly and added: “Assuming they’re making the right recommendations.”

Wilson’s background yields at least one case in which he may have wished there had been more questions asked, more fact-checking done. In 1973, the mayor’s office was advised that some old bombs had been found in a housing development built on a former artillery range. Wilson asked the Army to sweep the area to make it safe. He later was advised that several dozen rounds of spent ammunition had been found, but military officials urged that “due caution still be taken” as other shells could work their way to the surface.

In late 1983, after Wilson had moved on to the Senate, two young boys were killed when an old artillery shell they found exploded. The city eventually settled with their families on a $2.5-million liability payment. Some critics said that the Wilson Administration and the housing developers should have been more diligent in making sure there was no further hazard.

In an interview with The Times early this year, the senator commented: “I would have to say in hindsight, because a child died, not enough was done, I suppose. But at the time, I think that the mayor and the City Council, who had asked that the survey be undertaken, were probably entitled to rely on the assurance that was given.”

But there are few case studies about Wilson being ill-prepared for the unexpected, his aides say. On the down side, his immersion into facts, sometimes pushing political ideology into the background, and his relish for government policy have helped forge Wilson’s image as a passive technocrat rather than a politician who knows how to push the emotional buttons of voters. This is the sort of man who exhibits a sense of awe as he describes the U.S. Senate as “an intellectual candy store” because of all the sources of information at the disposal of senators.

But chief of staff White and others describe a different Wilson. They say he can be witty and engaging, launching into lively philosophical debates and sometimes telling old war stories from his Assembly days that he punctuates with uncannily realistic impressions of long-dead legislators.

“He is certainly willing to get into a discussion when you disagree with him,” White said. “We have some strong discussions.”

When Wilson was called on to remember occasions in which one fact or another tipped the balance on an important decision, he chose a case that was fraught with emotion. In this instance it was an intensely personal story rather than a compilation of the facts that made the difference.

The setting was the Legislature in 1967 and the issue was California’s controversial proposed abortion law, then considered one of the most liberal in the nation. This was a tough vote for a freshman Republican assemblyman and Wilson listened carefully to both sides of the issue.

Finally, a man Wilson did not identify came to him with the story of his daughter who had become pregnant and, in light of existing legal restrictions, performed her own abortion “in a very inept, amateurish fashion.” The parents learned of it only when advised by the family doctor that their daughter most likely could never have children.

Wilson said the incident convinced him that the question of abortion was so personal that government should not be involved and that severe restrictions would only encourage law-abiding citizens to seek “back-alley” solutions to unwanted pregnancies. He voted for the statute that greatly liberalized conditions under which abortions could be obtained in California. The law remains in effect today.

Yet Wilson opposes the federal government paying for abortions performed on poor women. He argues that privately funded abortions are available, so his vote against Medicaid is not limiting a poor woman’s access to abortion.

Gayle Wilson, who supports federal funding for abortions, said she is “still working on him” to change his mind. “He said, ‘If you can show me a study that says poor women aren’t getting abortions because there’s no funding, then I’d be willing to look at it differently,’ ” Gayle Wilson said.

When Wilson broke into politics in California, associates say there were few women and minorities involved in key GOP positions. And with Wilson, it is apparent that friendships and associations tend to be long-lasting.

Shortly after winning his Assembly seat in 1966, Wilson was quickly welcomed into an Assembly leadership group of moderate Republicans. It was here that he formed a circle of friendships that remains today and may provide a pool for some key appointees to state jobs or judgeships if Wilson becomes governor.

“When Pete came in in ‘67, we were immediately attracted to him. He was a bright guy who obviously had some great future,” Former Republican Assemblyman William T. Bagley said in an interview.

In the nation’s capital, there is less unanimity about members of Wilson’s Washington circle. Nearly everyone mentions Sen. Warren B. Rudman (R-N.H.) and Judge Laurence H. Silberman of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals, a former Honolulu lawyer who became involved in Wilson’s 1982 Senate campaign.

Gayle Wilson cited Rudman and Sen. David Boren (D-Okla.). There are reports that Wilson and Vice President Dan Quayle were relatively close when Quayle represented Indiana in the Senate, but Wilson does not volunteer Quayle’s name as among the inner circle. Wilson did mention Rudman, and also Sen. Robert W. (Bob) Packwood (R-Ore.).

“He and I have had some knock-down, drag-out fights,” Wilson said of Packwood. “We’ve become pretty good friends.”

WILSON’S TOP AIDES Sen. Pete Wilson’s top staff aides are notable among other factors for their longevity with the senator, who is the Republican nominee for governor of California. Four of Wilson’s top aides have spent a total of nearly 60 years with him, dating back to his membership in the state Assembly in 1967. Here is a rundown of his top aides:

GEORGE GORTON, 43, of San Diego, is Wilson’s campaign manager with responsibility for overall direction of the campaign. He attended Munich University as part of an armed forces-University of Maryland extension program and is a political science and economics graduate of San Diego State University. Gorton, a political consultant, first worked for Wilson in his 1971 campaign for mayor of San Diego. He managed Wilson’s winning campaign for the Senate in 1982 and was the lead consultant when Wilson was reelected to the Senate in 1988. Gorton also has worked in the presidential campaigns of Richard M. Nixon, Gerald R. Ford and George Bush.

ROBERT S. WHITE, 48, of San Diego, has been Wilson’s top staff assistant since 1967 when Wilson was elected to his first political office, a San Diego seat in the state Assembly. When Wilson became mayor of San Diego in 1971, White went with him as chief of staff. He has been the top aide in Wilson’s Senate office in Washington since 1983, in charge of a full-time staff of about 80. White is a veteran of the U.S. Coast Guard and holds a bachelor’s degree in political science and journalism from San Diego State.

OTTO BOS, 45, is a native of the Netherlands whose family immigrated to the San Francisco Bay Area when he was 13. He graduated from San Francisco State University with a degree in journalism and history. Bos, a Vietnam veteran, covered politics and government for the San Diego Union from 1971 until joining Wilson as his City Hall press secretary in 1977. Bos went to Washington in 1983 to serve as Wilson’s Senate press secretary, returning to California several years later to lay the groundwork for Wilson’s reelection bid. As director of Wilson’s campaign for governor, Bos is in charge of the day-to-day operation.

WILLIAM D. LIVINGSTONE, 38, is press secretary for Wilson’s campaign for governor, working out of campaign headquarters in San Diego’s Old Town. Livingstone is a 1974 graduate, with honors, in film and television from Montana State University in Bozeman and did graduate work at USC. After various ventures in the film business and studies in foreign relations, Livingstone went to work for the Senate Republican Conference in 1981 and then became press secretary for U.S. Sen. James A. McClure (R-Idaho). He joined Wilson’s Senate staff as press secretary when Bos moved back to California in 1988 and later joined the gubernatorial campaign as press secretary.

LOREN KAYE, 34, of Sacramento, serves as campaign research director, as he did in Wilson’s 1982 campaign. Kaye also has worked in the office of Gov. George Deukmejian, most recently as deputy cabinet secretary. Kaye is the son of Peter Kaye, a veteran San Diego newspaperman who also served in Wilson’s first campaign for mayor.

ROSALIE ZALIS, 53, of Los Angeles, director of coalitions, is in charge of Wilson’s statewide organizational effort to mobilize women. She also serves as the campaign’s liaison to the Jewish community. Zalis has been a political writer and analyst specializing in foreign affairs and women’s issues. She was San Fernando Valley co-chair of the Reagan-Bush campaign in 1984 and the Bush campaign in 1988.

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