Sununu Quits to Avoid Being Campaign Drag : Presidency: The embattled chief of staff is asked to remain as a Bush counselor until March. Transportation Secretary Skinner may replace him.

John H. Sununu, under fire throughout his three years as President Bush’s senior assistant, quit Tuesday as White House chief of staff, in an unexpectedly peaceful departure that ended a bitter Republican feud.

After being warned by Bush’s oldest son that sentiment was mounting against him, Sununu told Bush in a handwritten letter that, “as we enter the contentious climate of a political campaign, I believe it is in your best interest for me to resign.”

Bush accepted the resignation, effective Dec. 15, but asked the combative Sununu to remain as his counselor through a transition period ending March 1. During that period, the President’s reelection campaign will take shape, the State of the Union speech will be prepared and the fiscal 1993 federal budget will be drawn up.

There was no immediate announcement of a replacement. However, Transportation Secretary Samuel K. Skinner, a political confidant of the President, is said to be interested in the job. He had dinner with Bush in the White House family quarters Sunday night.

“I think the President would go along with that,” one source close to Bush said.

“Skinner is the key man. If he wants the authority and office of chief of staff, rather than being head of the campaign committee,” the job is his, said the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity. On the other hand, the source said, Bush may opt for a “low profile” chief of staff, while the campaign organization takes on greater authority. Longtime Bush adviser Fred Malek was also mentioned as a possibility for the job.

Sununu’s departure lifted one of the principal personnel problems with which Bush has been wrestling as he has addressed the political problems aggravated by the nation’s sagging economy.

Sununu had been a lightning rod for Bush’s critics among Democrats and Republicans since he and Bush took office Jan. 20, 1989. But pressure for the chief of staff’s departure has mounted in recent weeks while the President has struggled to recover his sagging popularity and to assemble a campaign organization--with many longtime political allies objecting to serving with Sununu.

In a direct warning to the chief of staff, George W. Bush, the President’s son, told Sununu during a meeting last Wednesday that prominent Republicans had concluded that he had become a burden on the White House.

GOP sources said that the younger Bush had stopped short of asking Sununu to step down but that his strongly worded message was designed to encourage a resignation.

Sununu, 52, presented Bush with a formal 4 1/2-page resignation letter, written on White House stationery, as Bush set out aboard Air Force One for a day of speeches on the economy, first at a Tropicana juice plant in Bradenton, Fla., and then at the Peavey electronics factory in Meridian, Miss. He had spoken with Bush in a rare Sunday evening meeting at the White House and then met with him in the Oval Office on Monday afternoon to inform him of his plans.

Bush wrote his response in longhand as he flew to Mississippi, telling Sununu: “It is with reluctance, regret and a sense of personal loss that I accept your resignation as chief of staff.”

Speaking briefly with reporters before he and Bush left Mississippi, Sununu said that he knows “the rules of the game” in Washington and that Bush “doesn’t need an extra political target that folks will be shooting at” during a campaign.

Asked in Meridian whether he had been pushed from the job or chose to jump, Sununu said: “. . . The President was kind enough to let me make the decision.”

After three years in which Sununu’s combative stubbornness had become the stuff of Washington legend, his sudden willingness to bow to outside pressure caught many detractors by surprise.

“Everybody thought he’d only leave kicking and screaming,” one newly admiring Republican official said. “Instead, he did what he had to do.”

Sununu started his powerful job with the reputation of a feisty governor--he had spent eight years as chief executive of New Hampshire--who had little experience in the ways of Washington.

He won Bush’s allegiance during the New Hampshire GOP primary in 1988, when he directed the Bush campaign to an aggressive victory.

In Washington, Sununu quickly made political enemies, aggravating many with his brusque manner and with what critics said was imperious treatment of members of Congress. Stories quickly began circulating of his rapier-like attacks on those with opposing views and his sharp criticism of fellow White House staff members.

In the hierarchy of Bush assistants and longtime advisers, Sununu sat somewhere in the middle: He held neither the clear-cut intimate position of a Bush friend from Texas, such as Secretary of State James A. Baker III, nor was he clearly a hired hand, as were other presidential assistants, with the exception of National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft.

He drew new criticism last spring, when it was disclosed that he had flown aboard Air Force jets not only on official travel, but also for political purposes and for such personal excursions as a skiing trip to Colorado and a dental visit to Boston.

In recent weeks, those close to Bush have reported that some of the President’s longtime political allies were refusing to accept key campaign posts in the yet-unannounced 1992 campaign unless Sununu was removed as chief of staff.

Three weeks ago, Bush set off actions that caused a precipitous drop in the stock market with a one-sentence comment--that he would like banks to lower the interest rates they charge on credit card balances. After reports circulated that Sununu had discussed the issue with the President and then inserted the remark in the Bush text, the chief of staff committed the unpardonable Washington sin of pointing an accusing finger at his boss. He said in a television interview that Bush had ad-libbed the comment.

“Important Republicans in this town were frankly astonished,” one prominent GOP source said Tuesday.

After that episode, the chorus of Bush allies calling for Sununu’s departure grew even louder.

In recent days, Sununu appeared to have been organizing a campaign to hold on to his job, even as close Bush advisers reported that he was on the way out. Even as the drama of his departure was being played out in private, a group of conservative Republicans in Congress called on Bush to retain him.

The public nature of the dispute was said by one Bush ally to have irked the President, who recognized the need to make the shift but would have preferred to delay until a replacement had been chosen.

Knowledgeable GOP sources said there had been hope within the White House that Defense Secretary Dick Cheney, who served as chief of staff in the Gerald R. Ford Administration, might now be persuaded to return to the job under Bush.

But Cheney was understood to have made clear that he was not interested.

One Republican close to the White House said that Skinner, who also met with Bush on Monday morning, could be offered the post as early as this morning.

“I think it’s Skinner’s for the taking,” another GOP source said.

Bush has turned to Skinner previously in times of domestic trouble, putting him in charge of Administration efforts to resolve the Eastern Airlines strike in 1988 and in coordinating federal disaster relief efforts after the San Francisco earthquake a year later.

Skinner, 53, has strong ties to the Republican Establishment in his home state of Illinois. He ran Bush’s 1988 campaign there and is a protege of former Gov. James R. Thompson. A lawyer and former U.S. attorney, he was Chicago’s mass transit chief before becoming transportation secretary.

An aggressive and ambitious politician, Skinner has earned a reputation in Washington as tenacious and hard-working.

In his letter to Bush, Sununu said that until recently he was “convinced that, even with the distorted perceptions being created, I could (make) a strong contribution to your efforts and success.

“But in politics, especially during the seasons of a political campaign, perceptions that can be effectively dealt with at other times can be--and will be--converted into real political negatives,” Sununu wrote. “I would never want to not be contributing positively, much less be a drag on your success.

“Therefore, as we enter the contentious climate of a political campaign, I believe it is in your best interest for me to resign as chief of staff to the President of the United States effective Dec. 15, 1991.

“I assure you that in pit bull mode or pussey (sic) cat mode (your choice, as always) I am ready to help,” Sununu said.

Thanking Bush “for the fun we have had,” Sununu said that the White House had been “an unbelievably ‘fun place’ to work.”

“You, the vice president, Scowcroft, (new CIA Director and former Scowcroft deputy Robert M.) Gates and I proved we could do very serious things well without taking the process or ourselves too seriously,” Sununu said.

Sununu, a mechanical engineer whose strongly held conservative views propelled him into politics, is the first person to resign under fire from the powerful White House job since Donald T. Regan quit in February, 1987, in the midst of the Iran-Contra scandal during the Ronald Reagan Administration.

Sununu, whose use of government aircraft and then of a White House sedan to attend a stamp auction in New York were said to be evidence of an infatuation with the perquisites of his office, told Bush that “the responsibility and authority (contrary to the legends out there) never meant as much to me as the chance to assist you to be (and to be recognized) a great President.”.

“It really has been great!!!” Sununu ended the letter, signing it “Sincerely and respectfully, John H. Sununu.”

Bush wrote to Sununu that for “professional reasons and for personal reasons,” he found it difficult to respond.

He said Sununu had played “a major role” in achieving the Administration’s goals, citing passage of clean air legislation, the Americans with Disabilities Act and the just-signed civil rights law. He also cited Sununu’s role in negotiating a budget agreement with Congress in 1990 that is now seen by some as hamstringing the Administration’s ability to fight the recession.

“Thank you from the bottom of my grateful heart for your distinguished service,” Bush said, signing the letter, “most sincerely from this grateful President, George Bush.”

Staff writer Douglas Jehl contributed to this story from Washington.

Profile: John H. Sununu

Born: July 2, 1939, Havana, Cuba.

Education: BS, MS, Ph.D., Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Career highlights: Founder, chief engineer of Astro Dynamics; president, J.H.S. Engineering Co. and Thermal Research Inc., Salem, N.H.; associate professor of mechanical engineering and associate dean, College of Engineering, Tufts University; member of New Hampshire House of Representatives, 1973-74; governor of New Hampshire, 1983-89; White House chief of staff, 1989-present.

Personal: Married Nancy Hayes, 1958; three daughters, five sons.

Quote: “My job will be what George Bush wants my job to be.”