A VETERAN OF ORDER AND PRECISION UNHOLSTERS HIS TROUBLESHOOTER

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000302450039-9
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 26, 2012
• Sequence Number: 39
• Publication Date: January 6, 1982
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/09/26: CIA-RDP90-00965R000302450039-9
ARTICLE APPEARED
ON
THE WASHINGTON POST
6 January 1982
STAT
Veteran of Order and Precision
Unholsters His Trou,bles oo erl
By John M. Goshko
Washington Post Staff Writer
A year ago, when William P. Clark agreed
to become deputy secretary of state, he did
so only out of a sense of reluctant loyalty to
President Reagan. Clark said he believed he
could serve the public interest best by keep-
ing the California Supreme Court seat from
which he hurled conservative, law-and-order,
dissents against the philosophy of the court's
liberal majority.
He also said he had misgivings about his
foreign policy experience, which he jokingly
noted had been limited to."72 hours in San-
tiago." Then, as has been recalled repeatedly
in the past few days",. the joke went sour '
when his Senate confirmation hearing turned
into a shambles of incoherent testimony un-
derscoring that he knew . almost nothing
about international affairs..
Yet, Clark was dug in at the White House'
esterda methodicall . ? : nnin: the task
of clearing, up the confusion left by the big-
gest shakeup of the Reajan one
_presidency,
that on Monday saw Clark replace Richard
V. Allen as the president's national security
affairs adviser with vastly expanded powers
that could make him- the most important
fi: ire in the administration's machine for
determun di . lomati defense and intel-
ligence policy. .
It's a long way from his former preoccu-
pation with the relatively parochial nuances
of the California legal code to the top ech-
elon Tot White House .decision-making. But
Clarks' success in traveling that road in less.
than -a year was only the latest demonstra-
tion of his ability to 'confound those who
have made the mistake of writing him off as,
a nonentity. ' , -
As a young man he was unable to com-
plete either college or law school because of
poor -academic performance. Yet, it was to
Clark that Reagan, then governor of Califor-
nia, turned in 1967 when he needed someone
able to sort out the chaos of the governor's
office and turn it into a smoothly functioning
organization. , .
Similarly, in his years as-a judge, Clark's
opinions, although highly conservative, fre-
quently won grudging praise from his adver-
saries on intellectual grounds.
Now the question is whether he will be
able to. turn in the same sort of performance
in his new job of trying to bring order and
precision ,to a national security, policy that
has been beset by intramural squabbling,
personality conflicts and charges that itlacks
clarity and direction. -
The question is especially interesting be-
cause, while the security adviser's post is
being vested anew with the powers it had in
past administrations, Clark comes from a
very different mold than 'most of the men
who held the job before him.
The best known previous occupants of the
'peel?McGeorge Bundy, Walt W. Rostow,
Henry- A. Kissinger, Zbigniew Brzezin--
ski?were academicians who sought to apply
their theoretical views to the shaping of var-
ious grand designs for a U.S. course in world
affairs. ?
By contrast, even Clark's strongest boost-
ers readily admit that, despite 11 months of
on-the-job training at the State Department,
'his education in the broad range of foreign
policy issues lags far behind the point where
he could aspire to a similar role.
? Instead, what caused Reagan to turn to
Clark were his abilities, as:an administiator
and, more importantly, as, a mediator and
conciliator who in his months at State de-
monstrated_ an -almost uncanny knack for
resolving or at least papering over disputes'
between his volatile boss, Secretary of State
Alexander. M. Haig Jr., and other ranking
administration officials.:.'
Clark did that by winning Haig's trust and
confidence, while retaining his credentials as
a member in high standing of the tight circle
of Californians?among them presidential
counselor Edwin Meese III,. White House
deputy chief of staff Michael K. Deaver and
Defense Secretary CasparW,Weinber-
ger?who. have been Reagan's closest politl
ical intimates since they served-in his guber-
natorial.admkistration.
At State, Clark was constantly on the tele-
phone to his old cronies at the White House
and Pentagon, running interference for Haig I
on policy and jurisdiction0, disputes and
smoothing, over the dust-upsthat frequently
erupted into headlines.
Now,, the president obviously hopes that
Clark will be able to transfer that ability to
the White House and get all the disparate
parts of the national security machinery
working in harmony. .
How Clark plans to do that is not clear.
Perhaps the best clue as to how he is likely
to proceed lies in his record at the State De-,
partment. -
In addition to serving Haig as a go-:
between with the White House, he cemented
his relationship with the secretary *rough a
willingness to take on any tasks that needed
top-level attention and to immerse himself in
the kind of crash-course boning up necessary,
to give him a reasonable familiarity with thei
problem. . -
A lot of that involved the sort of routine,
often tedious business?management, inter-
nal reorganizations, selection of ambassadors
and other personnel, legal questions?that"
rarely attracts much public attention but is.,
vital
vital to the day-to-day operations of the de-.I
partment,.
In the process, department officials
Clark probably learned more about the inner
workings of State and its relations with other
agencies than he did about substantive pol-
icy issues, and they predict that this knowl--
edge is likely to be of considerable value for
the coordinating part of his new job. _
On policy questions, Clark's record is less
clear. Haig sent him on a few modest diplo,
matic missions, largely as a learning exercise.,
But Clark also put his imprint on some oftl
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/09/26: CIA-RDP90-00965R000302450039-9
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/09/26: CIA-RDP90-00965R000302450039-9
Thi issues tackled by the administration in
its first year, and demonstrated what one
subordinate Wien. approach that is con-
servative in a pragmatic rather than an ideo.
logical sense."
Hi has been the main overseer of the ad-
ministration's evolving economic develop-
ment plan for .the Caribbean basin, super-
vised the shifting of the U.S. position on law
of the sea from identification with Third
World aspirations toward greater sympathy
with the interests of U.S. business firms, and
rode herd on the controversial effort to move
human rights policy away from the activism
of the Carter administration toward mo
quiet diplomacy. -1
On the surface, that list of assignments
might seem to suggest that Haig entrusted
Clark only with issues of secondary impor
tance. However, department officials agree
that Clark's influence and authority in policy
matters had been expanding steadily, and'
probably would have become very substan-
tial had he remained at State.
In a recent interview with The Washing-
ton Post, Clark described the division of re-
sponsibilities between him and Haig in this
way: "I have no priorities, 'and I. try to be Eil
utility infielder. More and more, my role in-
side the department is double-checking and
backstopping things that we're falling behind
on in all areas.
?
"My job 'is trying to avoid what Al call&
the grave error of the Vietnam era, when the.
government got so focused on one issue that
we lost sight of other things that were of con-
cern to both our friends and foes."
His words could turn out to be a descrip-
tion of how he intends to approach the se-
curity. adviser's job. What Keegan seems to
want is not a conceptual formulator of policy
in the eKissinger mold., but an.administmtor
who can double-check and backstop differ.:
ent initiatives to keep them on track and a
mediator who can iron out_ differences,
soothe ruffled feelings and keep people pull=
ing together as a team.
It's a function that Clark filled to. Ree...'
gan's satisfaction in the 1960s in California
and again at the State Department this past
year.
Now the resident obviousl is banldn
Clark's being able to do it again on a wiser
scale that will embrace the White House,
State, the Pentagon, the CIA and all those,
other comers of the federal bureaucracy that
collectively comprise America's national se-
curity machinery.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/09/26: CIA-RDP90-00965R000302450039-9