A VETERAN OF ORDER AND PRECISION UNHOLSTERS HIS TROUBLESHOOTER

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