The Last Battles

If all goes as his doctors have forecast, Ronald Reagan will return to the White House from Bethesda Naval Hospital at midweek -- a month before his 76th birthday -- ready to face the challenges of his last two years in office. But with how much energy and effectiveness? The answer depends only partly on the outcome of the colonoscopy and prostate surgery scheduled for the President early this week. Even if those procedures turn out to be as routine as predicted and Reagan once again demonstrates his remarkable powers of physical recuperation, he faces a daunting task of political recovery. Almost immediately, he will have to map an agenda that might make the last quarter of his presidency something other than a period of lame-duck drift.

The job would be challenging for an untroubled Administration; it could prove insuperable for one embroiled in an Iran arms-contra funds scandal. For one thing, when the 100th Congress convenes this week, the Senate as well as the House will be controlled by opposition Democrats intent on pursuing their own agenda. But that difficulty pales before another: Reagan must try to reassert his leadership at a time when his own credibility and competence, and that of his staff, are being questioned as never before. The special investigating committees of the Senate and House begin probing anew into Iranscam this month; whatever they find, the President is unlikely to get much respite from a crisis that would sap the energy of the most vigorous Chief Executive.

It is possible, or so Administration optimists devoutly hope, that the crisis may actually prove helpful. The investigations, along with the need to deal with a Democratic Congress, just might bring out the pragmatist in a chastened President, causing him to listen to more moderate advisers and tilt toward compromises. But if he is to act rather than react, the President badly needs to put forward some bold new proposals. After six years in office, however, his Administration is showing telltale signs of creative burnout. Its early initiatives -- cutting taxes, pressing deregulation and launching an expensive U.S. military buildup, for example -- have been largely completed. White House strategists can think of very little that might restore a sense of drive and purpose. "We've accomplished a lot," says a staffer. "What's left is the merchandise that's harder to move."

The Reagan revolution "has pretty much run out of gas," proclaims Robert Byrd, majority leader of the newly Democratic Senate. A partisan comment, to be sure, but not very different from what the President's aides are saying. Early in December, the senior White House staff held strategy sessions to search for new domestic policy initiatives. "They could not seem to come up with anything," reports one participant. "Now that we desperately need to control the agenda, there is nothing left."