The Smooth Operative : Mike McCurry May Have Just What the President Needs in a Press Secretary: a Way With Words

This week an erratic White House decided upon someone the Washington press corps considers a reasonable man to be the President’s press secretary.

He is Mike McCurry, the 40-year-old spokesman for the State Department. And if the White House doesn’t change its course at the last minute, soon it will be his job to deflect the hostility aimed at Bill Clinton. Soon it will be up to McCurry to deliver a few well chosen words rather than the torrent that has spewed forth from this White House. And when Newt Gingrich dribbles toward the net for another slam dunk, it will be McCurry’s role to leap up and stop him.

According to White House sources, McCurry is expected to be named any day now to replace Dee Dee Myers, who White House reporters personally liked but were in the habit of bypassing because she was kept out of the loop. By the time the White House bothered to build her up it was too late. Her Valley Girl image--unfair as it might have been--also became a problem. Clinton apparently needed a person with a more forceful image to defend him, and build him up, particularly before male grown-up heads of households who don’t seem to like the President.

McCurry happens to be a male grown-up head of a household (he has two small children and a third on the way) and while he is a bit more educated, liberal and luckier than Mr. Middle Class America, he is perceived as the right guy for the front office at this moment.

Over the next 12 months before the Iowa caucuses, it will be up to McCurry to improve the White House’s relationship with the President’s other audience: In addition to the people who watch the 6 o’clock news, the President is under constant watch by reporters, editorial writers, columnists, pundits.

McCurry has long known these players; they like him; they say he’s affable and articulate; they like his sense of humor. And in a city known for taking itself seriously, McCurry isn’t just funny: He wields humor in Washington.

He is known as a smooth Democratic operative who has ascended even though he has walked away from more political disasters in his career than James Baker, the Republican strategist and former Secretary of State. McCurry worked in failed presidential bids for Ohio Sen. John Glenn in 1984, Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt in 1988, and Nebraska Sen. Bob Kerrey in 1992.

McCurry is like a crash dummy in a passenger seat--he survives.

“That is the mark of someone with considerable political skills,” said an admiring reporter. “But now comes his biggest test.”

Last week at the same time he was fending off speculation about the White House job, McCurry admitted that initially he had a lot of catching up to do.

“I don’t know anything about Whitewater,” he said. “I don’t know anything about the federal budget. I know a lot from previous jobs about domestic issues but I haven’t even followed the health care debate . . . I’ll have to get my head back into that stuff.”

Yet he talked confidently about what he has learned in almost two decades of dealing with reporters whether in Lebanon, N.H., or Lebanon, Beirut. And though he described Myers as his “good buddy,” and declined to criticize other Clinton advisers, he suggested this White House could benefit from those lessons.

“What the press hates more than anything else is if they think you think you can outsmart them or mislead them. The press has felt that way at this White House.”

In September, White House officials first floated the idea of McCurry working in the press office. McCurry wanted the front line job. But at the time, Myers resisted moving on.

“Spinning has become a pejorative word,” he said, “but really my strength is dealing with the daily story. I enjoy that. I enjoy gabbing on the phone with reporters.”

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Growing up in Redwood City near the San Francisco Bay area (his father, William, worked for the Centers for Disease Control), McCurry had considered becoming a reporter; he was editor of his high school newspaper, and a graceful writer, according to his mother, Rosemary McCurry. But his persistent interest was politics.

At age 14 he walked precincts for his social studies teacher who was running for city council. McCurry’s candidate (naturally) lost, yet it was an early moral lesson. “Two years later he ran again and won,” McCurry recalled. By then he was having his own political adventure: He was elected governor--the top post--of the Junior Statesman of America.

For college, McCurry turned down Stanford and Harvard to attend Princeton. Stanford was too close to home. Cambridge held too many distractions. Princeton’s tranquil setting was most appealing. When a job at a newspaper didn’t materialize his senior year, McCurry turned again to politics, writing press releases for Jerry Brown’s 1976 bid for president.

After that he worked five years as press secretary for New Jersey Sen. Harrison Williams, remaining loyal even after he was ensnared in the Abscam scandal. Next, McCurry worked for New York’s Sen. Patrick Moynihan whom he credits for teaching him “you can be a political hack and still enjoy policy.”

Yet of all the men of politics McCurry has served, he spoke with the deepest admiration of Bruce Babbitt. During his quixotic presidential campaign, they traversed America together, candidate and adviser joined at the hip.

“He remains a hero in my life,” said McCurry. “He was intellectually honest, funny, a press secretary’s dream.”

He was also a lousy communicator. McCurry received some credit for giving Babbitt a remedial education in talking on camera. McCurry made him stop twitching. But Babbitt’s campaign bombed, and McCurry became spokesman for the Democratic National Committee.

There were tensions there between McCurry and party chairman Ron Brown who is now Commerce Secretary. A then-aide to Brown said Brown felt undercut because McCurry was more often quoted than the DNC chairman. Another former aide said Brown needed a communications strategist and felt McCurry was a conventional spokesman.

McCurry disputed neither criticism, but noted that despite a rocky relationship, he and Brown have no hard feelings: “We’ve ended up being pretty good colleagues.”

More surprising is that Clinton doesn’t hold a grudge against McCurry for his association with Bob Kerrey’s unsparing attack on Clinton’s draft record during the 1992 campaign.

However, before he landed at the State Department, McCurry was assured by Clinton adviser George Stephanopolous that they recognized his efforts for Clinton and for the party during the general election.

McCurry was also quick to recall that as DNC spokesman in 1989, when the presidential field was wide open, he had said nice things about Clinton to Arkansas reporters querying if their governor could make it to the White House.

“I tended to butter that side of the bread pretty well,” McCurry said.

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It had been a long day of traveling in China with Secretary of State Warren Christopher when McCurry and Tom Donilon, Christopher’s chief of staff, agreed to go to dinner with a reporter. But when they arrived the owner insisted he was closed, even after the reporter tried to impress him by introducing Donilon as an important American statesman. Then the owner saw Mike McCurry: “CNN!” he blurted out and let them in.

Of all the people who make pronouncements behind a podium in official Washington, the face at the State Department is perhaps the most widely recognized around the globe. His sound bites are flashed to far-off places; transcripts of his carefully crafted words are sent to 150 embassies worldwide; and, he is the only high-level spokesman who holds a briefing every day.

“It’s not a place to wing it because the slightest change in stated policy can have huge consequences,” said Margaret Tutwiler, who was James Baker’s spokeswoman when he served as Secretary of State.

Reporters who have covered him over the last two years rated McCurry as among the best to grip that podium. They praised him for cutting through the “diplo-babble” while still sounding authoritative. He kept them informed, even if it meant winking and nodding to let them know the party line shouldn’t be taken seriously. And usually off-the-record, he passed on the kind of details that gave their stories context.

But there are dissenters. A few in the State Department press corps have said McCurry sometimes has a short fuse and, if angry, pouts. But even most of them gave him credit for adeptly framing U.S. policy and more importantly: giving good quote.

Barry Schweid, the Associated Press reporter at the State Department for 21 years, said it helped that reporters knew McCurry had Christopher’s confidence.

“Mike is honest and accessible and doesn’t have that besieged mentality that many of his predecessors had,” Schweid said.

But it is easy to become besieged at State Department headquarters in Foggy Bottom.

On any day there are dozens of crises around the world and the voice of the State Department is expected to comment. On any morning McCurry must be prepared to explain a press report even if the first he knew of it was when he read the morning paper.

In the five hours between when McCurry’s arrival at work and the briefing at 1, he and his staff prepare by “tasking out” possible questions culled from the morning’s news. McCurry said it’s like preparing for a mammoth foreign policy exam. It seems more like a nightmarish game of Risk.

One day last week, for example, State Department experts prepared answers to 30 questions from 13 areas of the world from Chechyna to China, Ethiopia to Iraq; every answer was handed to him in large type in case he needed to read from what is called the “guidance.”

In the last hour before he met the press, McCurry demanded more nuanced information from his staff. He also, as is his practice, went to Christopher’s mahogany office for a quick discussion of the most sensitive areas.

McCurry questioned whether the guidance was correct that “human rights” was the most important aspect of U.S. relations with Turkey where terrorists had invaded Kurd communities. It didn’t strike him as right since the United States has other interests with Turkey as well. Christopher confirmed McCurry’s doubts.

“The press person has to be an even broker in presenting the policy,” McCurry explained later. “My main concern is to help everybody get it right.”

Back in Christopher’s office, McCurry was sitting on a red-and-white striped couch across from Christopher’s desk when the Secretary of State was asked what kind of job he thought his spokesman had done for him.

“Lousy,” said Christopher, looking up momentarily to see if his dry humor had sparked a reaction. “We’re doing everything we can to get rid of him.”

On the way back to the briefing room, McCurry carefully made sure the boss’ deadpan had come across.

“That’s was really a nice endorsement,” he said.

Just before he faced the lights, McCurry primped, smoothing his thinning gray/blond hair. Tall and solidly built, he was wearing a blue tie, a blue shirt and a blue suit. “OK, it’s show time. How do I look?” he asked his deputy Mary Ellen Glynn. She smiled as if she’s heard this question before, “You look great.”

McCurry usually starts each briefing by reading a humorous story from the wire service. Wednesday’s story, about a McDonald’s opening in Mecca, didn’t get many yucks. But the State Department reporters--some of the most serious and smart in Washington--are not an easy crowd.

The briefing was relatively routine, though McCurry did get testy when Schweid pressed him to confirm that on The Macneil/Lehrer News Hour the previous night Christopher had endorsed Russian President Yeltsin’s sending Russian troops to Chechyna. The Secretary hadn’t endorsed, McCurry said, he had “commented.”

“You can interpret what the secretary said,” McCurry shot back, “but he said what he said.”

*

Skeptics, not to say Republicans, are certain to ask: If Mike McCurry is the greatest press secretary in Washington, which most might assume the White House press secretary might be, why has Warren Christopher received some of the worse press in the Clinton Administration?

Why has Christopher been assailed for being unable to articulate a global vision? Why have numerous reports attacked him for turning to others to take the lead on tough negotiations? Why have there been several news reports that had him about to be ousted?

McCurry defended Warren Christopher’s record vigorously; he extolled his wisdom, detailed his victories. Yet he also admitted the bad press coverage was a source of great pain. But trying to remold the Secretary of State’s image, he concluded, would have been a fruitless exercise.

“Christopher is not a creature of the media age but he overcomes it by working enormously hard,” said McCurry. “He conducts contact with foreign governments exceedingly well. But the most important asset he has is his integrity and if you tried to coach him to act in an unnatural way you would compromise that integrity.”

McCurry also hinted that if American foreign policy has been hesitant or inconsistent these problems are not Warren Christopher’s alone.

“Christopher’s great gift is to take whatever is given to him, fold it up in his briefcase and try to make it happen around the world,” said McCurry.

Soon it will become McCurry’s task to do something similar--to take whatever is handed him, then package and pitch it from behind the White House podium.

And if he thought Warren Christopher was difficult to remake, McCurry will have his work cut out for him, reinforcing a core message that Bill Clinton might not stick to.

On Sunday morning, before he left for church with his wife Debra, and two children, Will, 4, and Marjorie, 21 months, McCurry said in a phone interview that he was certain he could work easily with the President.

“We have some things in common,” he said, referring to Clinton’s and his Southern roots--he was born in Charleston, S.C.--and their similar Ivy League educations. (Like the President, McCurry also attended Georgetown University, earning a graduate degree there.)

“When you’re involved in such intense work, either you very quickly establish a relationship,” he said, “or you don’t.”