Go Ahead - Make My Day

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Defeatist is about the last word that anyone would apply to Reagan's attitude on any other issue. The President has begun his second term with a clear set of goals: shrinking the role of Government in the economy and reducing the deficit by slashing nonmilitary spending; simplifying but not --horrors!--raising taxes; stabilizing relations with the Soviets through arms reductions, but without giving up the MX or his Star Wars plan; preventing the spread of Communism, especially in Central America. His re- election sweep has bolstered his already high confidence that the public will support him.

Reagan also feels a new sense of urgency about translating these goals into reality. "He's got 3 1/2 more years to make his niche in history," observes Utah Senator Orrin Hatch, an ally and admirer. Others suspect there may be less time than that, perhaps only until the 1986 midterm elections, before the President's clout is vitiated by his lame-duck status. In any case, says one White House aide, "the advice we were given coming into the second term was 'Don't give in or they'll run all over you.' If we're not tough now, we'll never have a chance to be."

Reagan aides nonetheless insist that there has been no real change in the President. His beliefs, they say, are about what they always have been, and he is voicing them pretty much the way he always has, only more frequently, more publicly and with less filtering by the White House staff. Put another way, there is no new Reagan but there is a new Regan: Donald Regan, who swapped jobs with James Baker at the beginning of the second term to become White House chief of staff while Baker took Regan's old post as Secretary of the Treasury. In the White House, Baker often counseled compromise. Regan conceives his job to be one of making sure that the President's will literally becomes law. To see that this gets done the old Marine lieutenant colonel is shaping a hierarchical, spit-and-polish organization.

There are fewer tales of infighting and turf wars now than in the Baker days, and decisions come faster. "In the old White House," says a veteran, "people always had an interest in projecting their role in the decision- making process. It was a way of maintaining one's position in power. Under Regan, that is the best way to work your way out of a job." Remarks another aide: "Don watches the way the President is going and moves; Jim Baker might have tried to steer him somewhat."

Regan insists there is as much spirited debate as ever while the boss is making up his mind on policy. But the chief of staff is adamant that there be no debate whatever after the President's decision has been reached. And nowadays, at least in dealing with Congress, that decision is often combative. Regan has apparently encouraged his boss in that approach. To the staff, says one member, Regan "has maintained that we follow that macho line all the way through." But there is no doubt who is the original source of the line, and his last name is spelled with two a's. Says an adviser: "It's Reagan being Reagan."