A Friend in the White House

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Michael Reagan drops a name and imperils a job

Michael Reagan embodies the entrepreneurial vitality that the new Administration reveres. He has sold clothing, boats and food. He has dabbled in gold mines and gasohol equipment. He asked to join his father's former radio syndication service and he tested the waters in politics. Last December the President's adopted son, 36, signed on as a vice president for marketing at Dana Ingalls Profile, Inc., of Burbank, Calif., a 35-employee aerospace supplier. Last week he said angrily he would abandon that career, after being criticized for using his father's name to seek defense contracts.

The younger Reagan's troubles began in March, when he telephoned several military installations—including Tinker Air Force Base near Oklahoma City, which supervises the maintenance of the President's plane, Air Force One—asking how to get on the "approved" list of contractors. He followed up the call with a letter that said in its second paragraph:

"I know that, with my father's leadership at the White House, this countries [sic] Armed Services are going to be rebuilt and strengthened. We at Dana Ingalls Profile want to be involved in that process." Though Reagan's pitch was not illegal, it struck at least one ranking bureaucrat as "a dubious sort of behavior." Added J. Jackson Walter, director of the Office of Government Ethics of Michael's name-dropping: "Why doesn't he just use a hammer?"

After the letter was first disclosed, in the Oklahoma City Times, White House Deputy Press Secretary Larry Speakes described Michael as "hounded by the media." Added Speakes: "I don't think the President has any problems with the way Michael is doing business." Then cannier heads prevailed. Later the same day Speakes announced that Presidential Counsel Fred Fielding would advise all four Reagan children on possible conflicts of interest, a procedure said to have been planned but not carried out before the President was shot March 30. Michael Reagan then bitterly announced that he would quit Dana Ingalls. He added he was "tired of having to explain his actions" to the media, and worried: "Now, wherever I go, peopie are going to be afraid to do business with me because they don't know if the press is going to come in." Then, in a characteristic flash of humor, he said he would follow his father's new advice: "Don't write any letters."

He may wish he had listened to his father sooner. A few weeks after the election, at a family dinner, the President encouraged his children to consider legitimate business opportunities but warned against exploitation. If they had any doubts, he said, they should check with a White House adviser. In office, however, President Reagan discontinued guidelines, adopted late in the Carter Administration, that discouraged members of the President's family from joining firms doing business with the Federal Government.