Nation: Choosing for the Chairman

Old friends and old ways are helping Reagan select his Cabinet

At a meeting to discuss Cabinet appointments, one of Ronald Reagan's trusted friends turned to him and said how worried he was about the complexity of the task confronting them. A relaxed Reagan replied, "We were scared 14 years ago, but it turned out all right."

Indeed, Reagan's choices for the Cabinet, which will probably be announced next week, were being made by resorting to much the same system and many of the same people he had relied on to pick his top assistants when he was elected Governor of California in 1966. Says William French Smith, Reagan's personal attorney and head of the team that is considering the appointments: "Being involved in the 1966 appointment task force is a big asset to us this time."

The process by which Reagan is choosing his Cabinet is revealing of the man and his methods. He has entrusted the talent hunt to old friends with whom he feels comfortable and has given them a great deal of leeway. In Reagan's eyes, Smith is the ideal man to head such a committee. A successful Los Angeles lawyer—he could become Attorney General—Smith is respected by his peers for his intelligence and integrity, and for his ability to stand up to Reagan, when need be. A man who has served on dozens of corporate, educational and cultural boards, Smith is such an Establishment figure in California that Franklin Murphy, former chancellor of U.C.L.A. and now chairman of the Times Mirror Corp., jokes, "He has a subconscious desire to tithe."

Working under Smith is a group of 18 that includes Alfred Bloomingdale, the Diners' Club founder; Joseph Coors, the Colorado brewer; W. Glenn Campbell, director of Stanford's conservative Hoover Institution; Holmes Tuttle, one of the biggest Ford dealers in California and long a close associate of the President-elect; Anne Armstrong, Gerald Ford's Ambassador to the Court of St. James's; Justin Dart of Dart & Kraft, Inc., a multinational food and housewares corporation; Nevada's Senator Paul Laxalt, Reagan's key man in Washington; and Edwin Meese, Reagan's closest assistant, who will coordinate the shaping of domestic and foreign policy in the new White House.

Each participant at the sessions was given a top-secret notebook containing summaries of resumes gathered over the past six months by Pendleton James, a Los Angeles executive talent hunter and personnel director for the Reagan transition team. James had gathered about 70 candidates for Cabinet posts, listing their strengths and weaknesses. Explains Smith: "James' finished product was our raw material."

The first meeting was held in Smith's 47th-floor offices in downtown Los Angeles. In general, the group looked for the same qualities that might be found in the chief executive officer of a major corporation: proven competence, team work, experience and toughness. Since the participants had been dealing with one another for so many years, there were no personality clashes. Said one member of the panel: "It was like an after-lunch conversation at a private club. Everyone pretty much respected what the other guy was trying to say."