Reagan's Cabinet: Mixed Grades

(8 of 8)

Edwards' task, therefore, has been mainly to push through deregulation and, as he once put it, "to work myself out of a job." But he has been uncertain about when and how to lift controls on natural gas and has a narrow grasp of the issues involved. His major initiative has been to support the troubled nuclear power industry, primarily by speeding up licensing procedures and pushing forward with the Clinch River breeder reactor in Tennessee, a $3.2 billion boondoggle whose principal beneficiary will be Senate Majority Leader Howard Baker. At best Edwards gets a C. That would hardly matter, unless, of course, the nation is hit with another energy crisis, which the shrinking department is totally unprepared to handle.

For Whom the Bell Tolls

Secretary of Education Terrel Bell, 60, also faces the thankless task of presiding over the disappearance of his own domain. A Utah educator who once was a strong supporter of a separate Education Department, Bell has won White House approval for his dismantling zeal. Says a presidential aide: "He has not been captured by the bureaucracy. He's made a positive impression by being the first Cabinet member to perform institutional hara-kiri."

More surprisingly, Bell has impressed many of those who strongly believe in saving the department. Says Thomas Shannon of the National School Boards Association:

"We give him high grades for intelligence and integrity. We think he's so good, we're working to save his job." In fact, of all the officers whose departments have been targeted for severe cuts or extinction, Bell has emerged with the most popularity. He has accomplished this feat despite the fact, as one teachers' spokesman puts it, that he is working for "the most anti-education Administration in this century." Bell, who served as U.S. Commissioner of Education under President Ford, hopes to turn his department into an independent, government-supported foundation, such as the National Science Foundation. This would give local school boards access to federal funds while avoiding tight federal control.

All of the A's he may have earned on his report card merely stand for adios, or perhaps au revoir. —By Walter Isaacson