An Army in Pinstripes and Guccis

By Hugh Sidey

Never has Washington seen such an army march down its old avenues.the soldiers clad in pinstripes and shod in Guccis. Not in all U.S. history have such unusual political alliances been formed as those now taking to the barricades against Ronald Reagan's budget cuts. From church basements and corporate boardrooms, tens of thousands of special pleaders, lobbyists and their experts have marshaled to do battle for their special causes. It is Chautauqua, the circus, a Greek drama of a thousand acts, running from dawn to midnight, from Capitol hideaways to the Pentagon.

The first thing that strikes one is the sameness of dress, manners and mode of all the combatants. Battles for poverty programs and corporate interests alike are camouflaged in three-piece numbers from Brooks Brothers and armed with computer printouts, artful charts and direct mail lists.

Lane Kirkland, the delightful panjandrum of labor, rides through the Washington nights in a chauffeured Chrysler limousine, often as not in a dinner jacket, almost always with his cigarette holder at a jaunty angle. He is the field marshal for the downtrodden, having assembled 185 organizations into a budget coalition to contend with Ronald Reagan, who does not smoke but who happens to wear a dinner jacket just as often and rides in a chauffeured Cadillac limousine.

Within the Kirkland coalition, the phalanxes of the National Wildlife Federation rub elbows with those of the National Low Income Housing Coalition, the Association for the Advancement of Psychology, the Center for Community Change, the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, and Omega Psi Phi Fraternity Inc. Then, too, there is the Food Research and Action Center, whose troops tramped up to the Hill to protest the proposed food-stamp cuts. FRAC, employing 25 lawyers, technicians and persuaders, gets two-thirds of its million-dollar budget from the Federal Government it is now attacking. Uncle Sam is once again caught beating himself over the head.

The picture of Nancy Reagan being knocked off balance by a loving orphan was in its way a subtle lobby for yet another cause, Foster Grandparents. Wonder of wonders, the group has escaped the ax. Jane Russell, whose cantilevered brassiere was the sensation of the movie era that also elevated Ronald Reagan, showed up to plead against changes in children's programs that she supports. Luscious Liz Taylor, newly svelte, and some weary turtles from the fifth-rate aquarium kept in the Commerce Department basement were enlisted to stave off the budget knife for their respective interests, the arts and sea life. The National Symphony fiddled through Rimsky-Korsakov last week to mellow members of Congress who must vote on endangered federal funds for the arts. Wherever one dines these days in Washington, there is, over the $50 (for two) lunches of shad roe or the $100 (for two) dinners of partridge, a whole new vocabulary. Men and women who used to cut deals, apply pressure and give each other the treatment now talk about safety nets, marginal tax rates and econometric models.

The great moiling confrontation is a testimony of sorts to the energy and health of our democracy. The danger, of course, is that the sum of all these special interests will ultimately transcend the national good, though at this point so many are clamoring, it appears that they all may fail.

A warning came last week from an experienced hand, Bob ("The Blowtorch") Komer, former New Frontiersman for John Kennedy, former Great Society warrior for Lyndon Johnson, former Under Secretary of Defense for Jimmy Carter. Said The Blowtorch, a man who is proud of his compassionate past and concerned about the perilous future: "If we don't first take care of the economy and our national security, there ain't going to be school lunches for anybody."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.