Sharpening Up the Long Knives

For the Republican Party, the season of long knives has already begun. Ronald Reagan this week will huddle with his closest advisers in West Los Angeles to settle on a long-range strategy for taking over the party's creaky national machinery. Stiff opposition will come from other Republicans with presidential ambitions, most notably former Governor John Connally of Texas, as well as liberals and moderates who fear that Reagan's move would cripple the party by narrowing its base.

Gotta Run. But Reagan is farthest ahead of all the surviving G.O.P. hopefuls in the maneuvering for party power following the Ford defeat, and last week supporters began sounding out his strength with Republicans across the country. At the same time, several G.O.P. conservatives have called him with offers of support. Said Mike Deaver, Reagan's chief of staff during this year's campaign: "They all tell him, 'You gotta run again, you gotta take over the party, we gotta get this thing organized.' " Reagan, for his part, has not been playing his Reluctant Ronnie role. Says one recent visitor, Stanford Professor Martin Anderson, a Reagan issues adviser: "I found him in a far more combative and interested mood than he was in before this election year."

Reagan plans further chats with a dozen or more stalwarts this week before he decides how--and how far--to move for party control. At the moment, he has two ultimate goals. First, he wants to place more conservative Republicans on Capitol Hill in the 1978 mid-term elections. Second, he hopes to either make a third run for the presidency in 1980--a possibility debunked by some associates because of his age (now 65) but taken seriously by others--or pave the way for an ideological lookalike. In preparation for both drives, Reagan will probably use his surplus from this year's campaign (about $1 million) to finance a conservative political-action committee.

The chief question that he must decide soon is whether to try electing one of his supporters as Republican National Chairman and risk a damaging intraparty bloodbath or to settle for someone acceptable to other factions. The post is now held by lowan Mary Louise Smith, who was selected by Gerald Ford after he became President in 1974. But she is expected to follow tradition and resign voluntarily, probably at next month's executive committee meeting. Her successor would then be named at the full Republican National Committee meeting scheduled for January.

Broad Tent. With fewer than half of the 150 members of the Republican National Committee in his camp, Reagan's ability to force a new chairman on the party is questionable. Some of his advisers are preaching caution in any case. Said one: "My concern is that whatever is done be done in such a way that it doesn't look like a conservative purge. The Republican tent has to be broad." But others are urging Reagan to be more aggressive. Said Lyn Nofziger, Reagan's longtime political aide: "We don't want to sit out here and pull strings. But if the party picks a new chairman, we would hope for somebody who is more than just acceptable to Reagan. I don't know why it's always the conservatives who are supposed to swallow hard and compromise in the interest of party unity. Maybe it's time for [New York's liberal Republican Senator Jacob] Javits to swallow hard."

Reagan's most active opponent so far is conservative John Connally, who makes no secret of his disdain for the Californian. Connally regards Reagan as too old to run for President again and believes he is selfishly seeking publicity only to promote the newspaper columns, radio commentaries and speaking engagements that earn him more than $350,000 a year. Connally turned down Ford's offer to become party chairman after the Republican National Convention. But he would take the job--if he were allowed to continue his lucrative Houston law practice. Meanwhile Big John has other plans to keep himself in the public eye and increase his chances for the G.O.P. presidential nomination in 1980: he is assembling a staff of some aides, including a speechwriter, in preparation for a series of speaking engagements around the country to begin after the first of the year.

Moderate and liberal Republicans will meet informally in a location still to be decided next week to work out strategy for what some expect to be a tooth-and-nail fight with the conservatives. Michigan Governor William Milliken, who is organizing the skull session, believes that a takeover of the G.O.P.'s national machinery by the Reaganite right wing could only narrow the party's constituency; he argues that to survive nationally, the Republicans must broaden their base of support, as the party did in his state. Said he: "This is the reason we have won so many statewide races even as a minority party."

But aides are advising Ford to stay out of the fight and settle into a new role as an elder G.O.P. statesman--or party peacemaker, if the opportunity should appear. Said James Baker, who managed Ford's campaign: "The President ought not to get involved in the nitty-gritty [of a long fight], but I do think he and Governor Reagan and Governor Connally should agree on a consensus choice [for chairman] who is not tied to anyone's presidential ambitions. If we go through a bitter contest for control, we won't be able to make a comeback in the congressional elections of 1978, to say nothing of the presidential election in 1980."

Big Money. One possible compromise candidate is conservative Tennessee Senator William Brock, whose chief liability is that he was defeated for reelection. Some of Ford's Western supporters are suggesting Bryce Harlow, an ex-Nixon aide who is now Procter & Gamble's Washington vice president, but he has declined the post in the past. Other possibilities are John Sears, who managed Reagan's campaign but is considered more of a pragmatist than an ideologue, and Baker, who has described himself as philosophically closer to Reagan than to Ford.

Several other Republicans are interested in the job but are probably too closely tied to one wing of the party or another. They include outgoing Washington Governor Daniel Evans and Wisconsin G.O.P. Committeeman Ody Fish, who both supported Ford, and Utah Republican State Chairman Dick Richards, an early Reagan backer. Among the more remote possibilities for the job is Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. "Rummy" is one of the very few Ford Cabinet members who openly talks of a future in elective politics (see box page 24). But at 44, with scant savings and three children in school, he is more interested in taking a lucrative job in private industry and making some big money for a few years before deciding when and where to run for high office on his own.

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