PAYING UNDUE HOMAGE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000504100012-2
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 20, 2012
• Sequence Number: 12
• Publication Date: December 15, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
Declassified in_ Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/20: CIA-RDP90-00965R000504100012-2
WASHINGTON POST
G 15 December 1985
MARY McGRORY
Paying Undue
Homage
' T WAS A week for kissing the
hem in Washington.
Several prominent people who
had been badly treated paid tribute
to their tormentors in public. It was
a reminder that in the shifting sands
of the capital city, one rock stands
firm: Honest anger is a luxury not
permitted those who wish to ply the
corridors of power.
On Monday, Robert C.
McFarlane, the president's
departing national security adviser,
who for months has been telling his
friends he couldn't stand the way
Donald Regan, the White House
chief of staff, was shoulderingitim
aside and acing him out, sprang to
Regan's defense.
A facetious question about
someone with "throw-weight
problems" - a reference to
Regan's aspersions on the interests
of women - was put to McFarlane
at the Foreign Policy Association.
McFarlane began to praise the man
who had made his life miserable.
"I think Don Regan has gotten a
bad rap," he said earnestly. He-vent
on to say how successfully the
expansionist chief of staff had
performed across a broad panoply of
problems. Regan is no sexist, he
volunteered, but aware and
respectful of contributions made by
women in government.
It was above and beyond the call
of duty - but perhaps not of
discretion. McFarlane wishes to
burn no bridges. If he is to be a high-
powered foreign-policy consultant,
he must not be seen as at odds with
the man who controls the traffic flow
into the Oval Office.
The next day, we heard from
departing Health and Human
Services Secretary Margaret
Heckler, another public official
with Regan's knife in her back.
Heckler had been serving happily
in her Cabinet job when, found
deficient in picking up Regan's
"signals," she was advised that
she was going to be sent to
Ireland as ambassador. She had
tears in her eyes the day that
Ronald Reagan called her sacking
"a promotion," a notion so widely
discounted that he felt called
upon to insist that the land of his
ancestors and hers was "not a
dumping ground."
Heckler is an object of much
sympathy among her erstwhile
sisters in the House, and the
Congressional Women's Caucus
held a farewell party for her.
Heckler did not forget on which
side her bread was buttered.
"I suggest a toast to the
enlightened man who made this
career possible for me, President
Reagan," she said, eagerly
obliterating 16 years in Congress
in her rush to pay her respects to
the boss of the man who did her
in, thus proving again that in this
city, one must never' forget the
hand that feeds.
Wednesday night, the trend
peaked. At the Sheraton-
Washington Hotel, Vice
President George Bush was the
principal praiser at a dinner
posthumously honoring William
Loeb, the terrible-tongued
publisher of the Manchester
Union-Leader, a paper of such
vitriol and distortion that for
many it constitutes a reason for
disqualifying New Hampshire as
the first primary state. Bush was
a favorite target of Loeb's
famous front-page, kick-in-the
stomach editorials.
B ush's genuflection was a
matter of enormous
interest to the right-wing,
to whom Loeb was the moral
equivalent o a Joseph u i zer;
the ress and the
conservative
mandarins gathered m -great
numbers to see how een e
would bend the knee to get the
nomination.
This exercise in self-
abasement was organized by Max
Hu el a New Ham shire
entre reneur, w o was riefly,
and stormi v, deputy director of
the CIA, and who now heads
spmething called "Project 88:
Americans for the Reagan
Agenda."
To celebrities abounded:
Eagle orum maven PTyliv Phyllis
Schlafly. evangelist Pat
Robertson, CIA director William
J. Case , Howard Phillips,
Richard iguerie and Patrick
Buchanan, who of by far the
biggest an an t ~e only c eers.
Rep. Jack Kemp, who
commutes to the Granite State
these days, was billed among the
hosts, but did not show: He was
detained on the Hill, where he
was busy undermining the
Reagan agenda for tax reform.
He sent his wife. So did Sen. Bob
Dole, another aspirant, and
Alexander Haig, who is toying
with a candidacy.
After a laudatory film which
showed Loeb as a sentimental,
soft-hearted, although "strong-
minded and strong-willed"
publisher, Donald Regan gave
Bush a patronizing introduction
as "a most effective and loyal
vice-president."
Bush did not spare the lashes
in his vigorous self-flagellation.
He humorously recounted the
numerous editorial insults heaped
on him by Loeb. He went on to
quote worse things said of him by
more liberal observers.
And then, in a strong "I-am-
not-a-wimp" initiative, he told of
his wartime experiences as a
Navy pilot. He called upon his
wife Barbara, to vouch for his
enthusiasm' for country-and-
western music. He carried it off.
The right-wingers felt their boots
had been appropriately licked.
Bush should just remember that
they never get enough of it.
Mary McGrory is a WashingttnrPost
columnist.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/20: CIA-RDP90-00965R000504100012-2