The Gentlemanly Sacking of Sawhill

A bureaucrat struggling for power in Washington has to tread a fine line: he must push his ideas vigorously, but not so vigorously as to offend those who have more clout than he. Federal Energy Administrator John C. Sawhill stepped over the line, and last week he paid the price. President Ford held a surprise news conference to announce Saw-hill's resignation, which Ford had requested the week before. It was the first public--though gentlemanly--sacking of a top official since Ford took office.

The episode cemented the power of Secretary of the Interior Rogers C.B. Morton as the nation's chief energy policymaker. Ford last month named Morton head of a new Energy Resources Council, and he explained Sawhill's ouster by saying that Morton had a right to name his own team of subordinate policymakers. The President then introduced its new members:

> Andrew E. Gibson, 52, an almost unknown shipping executive and former Government official, who will succeed Sawhill as head of the FEA at year's end. Gibson captained a World War II troop-and cargo-carrying Liberty ship when he was only 22, later became a senior vice president of Grace Lines, head of the U.S. Maritime Administration and an Assistant Secretary of Commerce. He is known as a no-nonsense executive.

> Robert C. Seamans Jr., 56, who will become head of the Energy Research and Development Administration, an agency to be formed by merging most of the functions of the Atomic Energy Commission with those of several other Government research offices. Seamans, an M.I.T.-trained physicist, was Secretary of the Air Force from 1969 to 1973; in that post he complained that he was not informed about the bombing of Cambodia.

> William A. Anders, 41, a former astronaut, who will take over what remains of the AEC (basically its safety and regulatory operations). He will succeed Dixy Lee Ray, 60, who has been the highest-ranking woman in the Administration. Ray will become Assistant Secretary of State for Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Matters--an office that was created in 1973 but never filled.

That there is no place for Sawhill on this team is no great surprise. Sawhill, 38, who took over FEA last May, pushed for stronger energy conservation measures than the Administration was willing to adopt; Morton tends to favor increasing U.S. energy production as an alternative way of reducing dependence on high-priced imported oil. Sawhill often bypassed bureaucratic channels to plug his programs directly in the White House and on Capitol Hill.

He won some battles: he successfully resisted pressure for quick decontrol of domestic oil prices. But in September he testified to a Senate subcommittee that the U.S. had no short-term policy for reversing the rise in world oil prices; the remark angered Henry Kissinger. Last month Sawhill sealed his doom. Disobeying White House orders to keep quiet, he went on television to explain his proposal for a 10-c--to 30-c--per-gal. federal tax on gasoline after the Administration had rejected the idea. Morton said last week that Sawhill was being removed for lack of "executive compatibility." Ford asserted that Sawhill will be offered a "first-class assignment" in the Administration, but no one seems to know what it might be.

The irony of Sawhill's downfall, in the words of one Administration official, "is that Ford will probably end up recommending many of Sawhill's proposals by next June." If the President is still unwilling to ask for a gasoline tax, he might possibly accept mandatory measures to discourage auto travel or tax credits for homeowners who invest in better insulation or storm windows. In fact, the Administration has little choice but to push conservation harder; there is not much chance of increasing U.S. energy production enough in the next three years or so to reduce the heavy drain that the high price of foreign oil is imposing on the U.S. balance of payments. Ford himself hinted last week that mandatory conservation measures may be necessary if the voluntary steps that he has urged do not fulfill his goal of reducing oil imports by 1 million bbl. a day.

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