DOWNGRADING THE NSC

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000301900072-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 24, 2012
• Sequence Number: 72
• Publication Date: March 6, 1981
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/09/24: CIA-RDP90-00965R000301900072-3
THE WASHINGTON POST
Acc-r
03 LUL 6 March 1981
Rowland Evans and Robert Novak
Downgrading the \SC
The clear loser so far in the back-
stage power struggle over national se-
curity policy waged over the past
month is not Secretary of State Alex-
ander Haig or presidential asaistant
Richard V. Allen. It is Ronald Reagan:
himself. , ' ?
In seeking to avoid conflict, President
Reagan unwittingly has reaped confu-
sion. How much confusion was reflected,
at a National Security Council staff
meeting when the new Soviet expert, Dr.'
Richard Pipes (formerly of Harvard),,
asked NSC staff director Allen: "What E
want to know is, what am I supposed to
be doing here?" '?
Amid the confusion of more than 30
interagency committees dealing with na-
tional security that are chaired by the
State Department, the president still has
no plan for crisis management The con-
scious downgrading of Allen to avoid the
NSC-State Department hostility of the
past and make Haig the self-styled
"vicar" of foreign policy has left the
president's interests unprotected ? and
vulnerable. ' -
The extent to which this has hap-:
pened became clear in an NSC staff
meeting when Allen was urged by his
assistants to obtain "rough draft" cables,
written in the State and Defense depart-
rnehts, before they are dispatched to
diplomatic posts abroad. Allen's reply
stunned his staffers. Reading cable traf-
fic was often boring and time-consum-
ing, he replied. - ? if -
In fact, Allen knows all too well that
cable traffic is the lifeblood of policy.
Under any of his predecessors, no cable
of significance was allowed to leave the
United States without first being cleared
by NSC staffers.
Allen's problem is not ignorance but
weakness. Haig, backed by the Reagan
dictum of State Department precedence
in policymaking, decided on his own not
to clear his cables with Allen. Reagan.
and presidential counselor Edwin Meese,
Allen's boss, almost certainly would sup-
port Haig in any showdown over cables.
To challenge Haig on cables, Allen fears,
would invite defeat. ?
Allen's separation from cable traffic is
a symptom of the threat to President
Reagan in a national security staff sys-
tem forced to cede its true function:
protecting the interests of the presi-
dent. Far worse, despite weeks of back-
biting over Haig's control of day-to-day
NSC staff work, the question of "crisis"
management has still not been decided.
That is shown by the fact that Vice
President George Bush has now become '
a possible Candidate for that important
role.
"Crisis" management is quick han-
dling of unexpected trouble such as the
Mayaguez affair during the Ford admin-
istration. Under every previous NSC ar-
rangement, Allen would supervise the
U.S. response, pulling together conflict-
ing strategies of the departments, as
Henry Kissinger and Zbigmiew Brz,ezin-
ski did in their day.
But Allen has been downgraded so far
by Reagan's dictum that, as one national
security specialist told us, it would be
"unnatural" for him suddenly to seize
the helm in a crisis. Since Haig is per-
ceived as having a parochial interest to
protect?his own department ?Meese
is known to be considering Bush as a
compromise.
But Bush would be most improbable
as a crisis manager, despite sometime
experience in intelligence (CIA direc-
tor) and diplomacy (ambassador to the
United Nations and China). He lacks
authority over the departments, is not
a full partner in the NSC committee f
system and is charged with numerous
political chores for the president in-
compatible with national security. The '
continuing inability of the White
House staff to resolve this question is a.
time bomb for Ronald Reagan com-
pounded by his own inexperience with
national security.
At one Reagan meeting with a visiting
foreign leader, Allen barely gained a seat
at the table. By such downgrading of his
national security assistant, Reagan has
insensibly downgraded a system of self-
protection 30 years in the making. This.
is the real source of trouble, not Allen's
well-publicized opposition to Haig's se-
lection of ex-Kissinger deputy Lawrence
Eagleburger as an assistant secretary of
state.
For the time being, Reagan must hope
that no sudden crisis arises. But insiders
predict that when the president realizes
the consequences of what he has done,
he will rehabilitate the NSC system.
That means granting Allen the authority.
he needs to coordinate national security
for Reagan while leaving Haig as the na-
tion's chief diplomat.
?
01981. Plaid &Ravage.% Inc.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/09/24: CIA-RDP90-00965R000301900072-3