George Bush: Mr. Consensus

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Hours before Bennett issued his ban, Bush tracked down Heritage Foundation president Edwin Fuelner by car phone and asked the conservative for help. In a confidential memo to the President three days later, Fuelner suggested that Bush could "retain the support of your gun-owning constituency" by changing the subject: propose the building of more prisons, hiring more prosecutors and enforcing existing laws. Bush sent the ideas to his staff, and when the Administration released its crime package two months later, the initiative followed Fuelner's recommendations down the line.

While Bush, like most people, makes up his mind gradually, his strategy is to wait until the last minute to tip his hand. Bush holds his cards so closely that his top advisers often do not know what he is thinking. By playing coy, aides say, the President hopes to prevent leaks, keep special interests and congressional coalitions from forming in opposition, and give his eventual decrees a thrust that White House announcements often lack.

In the case of clean air, Sununu carried the final options to Bush at Camp David to review each one and note the President's preference. "Nobody knew which boxes he was going to check that weekend," said a person involved. "Not Reilly, not Sununu, not anybody. Bush never showed his hand."

Sometimes Bush delays just to keep everyone guessing. In early July he postponed a final decision on a pay raise for Government executives until two hours before the planned announcement. That morning, he thumbed through a decision memo prepared by Gray and Darman. The memo barely camouflaged their impatience: pressing for the pay hike, Gray and Darman wrote, "We would like to confirm what we believe to have been your decision." They recommended raising the salaries of some 200 high-ranking federal employees to $150,000.

In a surprise move, Bush balked at the suggestion. In felt-tip pen, he scribbled instructions to pay the officials up to $124,400 instead. Aides scrambled to rewrite stacks of printed fact sheets as the announcement neared.

Once Bush finally decides, his aides seem to fall in line rather than make their complaints public. After all the trouble the President has taken to hear them out, Bush's Cabinet and staff, unlike Reagan's, feel obliged to support him even if they disagree. "You haven't heard much carping about this or that," says Commerce Secretary Robert Mosbacher, "because we do all our yelling ahead of time." Aides also know Bush is almost never willing to reconsider. "Once he's decided," says Peter Teeley, Bush's former press secretary, "you'd better have some bombshell of a reason why he shouldn't do it."

Bush seems to know his limitations as a decision maker, and has attracted advisers who can compensate for his shortcomings. White House aides say the President is adept at reducing policy questions to their essentials. But Bush rarely redefines an issue or proposes a novel solution. Instead, he relies heavily on counselors like Baker, Darman and Scowcroft, who, as a staffer put it, "see Door No. 3 when everyone else sees only Doors Nos. 1 and 2." Just before Bush decided to extend restrictions on imported steel, Roger Porter called on the President in the Oval Office and said, "I think I've got this figured out." Replied Bush: "I certainly hope so."