The Republicans Bush's Brain Trust

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JAMES A. BAKER III

With Baker's resignation as Treasury Secretary on Aug. 5, George Bush finally has a peer in charge of his election effort. Baker can quell the jostling that left one communications director out of a job, several other aides squabbling, and Bush trailing in the polls. Baker's arrival as campaign chairman means that Campaign Manager Lee Atwater moves over, if not down. Richard Darman, Baker's trusted adviser at the White House and Treasury, gains ever more influence. Pollster Robert Teeter stays put, as does Chief of Staff Craig Fuller.

Baker, whose competence and political judgment are nearly flawless, is one Reagan appointee to emerge with his reputation intact, if not enhanced. He might have been touted as a presidential candidate himself if he had not been so close to the Vice President. Bush is the friend Baker turned to after his first wife died, the one he goes fishing with, the godfather to one of his children. Baker, 58, managed Bush's 1980 presidential campaign; he is the person most involved in Bush's vice-presidential choice.

LEE ATWATER

He likes to brag that he was the only white guy in Percy Sledge's backup band, but this nonpreppie protege of South Carolina Senator Strom Thurmond devised the strategy that knocked out Bush's opposition by Super Tuesday. Atwater, 37, is the type of tactical genius who can live without a friend but not without an enemy, and he is often blamed as the source when negative information about the opposition comes out. In a 1980 congressional campaign, Atwater planted the story that the Democratic candidate had been treated for depression. His candidate won.

CRAIG FULLER

An intern to Governor Ronald Reagan as a college sophomore, Fuller was brought to the White House in 1981 by Edwin Meese. For the past four years, Fuller, 37, has been running the West Wing for Bush as his chief of staff. He knows, or does not know, as much about trading arms for hostages as the Vice President. As cautious and bland as Atwater is aggressive and colorful, Fuller will make Air Force Two run on time and handle the minute-to-minute airborne decisions. Allied with Teeter, Fuller last May coolly forced out Communications Director and longtime Bush Associate Peter Teeley.

ROBERT TEETER

Bush's chief pollster, veteran of six presidential campaigns, he helped bring Gerald Ford from 30 points behind in 1976 to within a couple of points of Jimmy Carter. Low-key and relatively untouched by Potomoc fever, he has never moved from Ann Arbor, Mich., to Washington. Teeter's influence on strategy may wane as the aggressive Darman moves in on issues and as Roger Ailes mushrooms all over the place. Still, Bush entrusted Teeter, 49, with paring down the list of vice-presidential possibilities and screening the survivors. Teeter also supervised Bush's acceptance speech.

RICHARD DARMON