Softly, with a Big Stick

By WALTER ISAACSON

Weinberger preaches Reagan's gospel with stubborn charm

His longtime nickname "Cap the Knife" testifies to his reputation as a ruthless budget cutter. His anti-Soviet rhetoric is at least as bellicose as that of his Cabinet colleague Secretary of State Alexander Haig. Reflecting on the recent European visit of Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger, the West German newspaper Die Welt complained that he came across like "a Roman proconsul," and a top British defense official said, "He has a way of dropping grenades around the china shop." Another British diplomat softened that blow a bit by saying, "I'd call his performance one of stubbornness with charm."

Weinberger, one of the most visible members of the new Administration, does in deed coat his somewhat alarmist world view with the mellow affability that is the hallmark of Ronald Reagan and his California insiders. Says one senior Administration official who has worked with both the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense: "Haig worries about authority, while Weinberger assumes it. Haig is tense by nature, where as Weinberger is relaxed." As a result, the avuncular Weinberger has so far managed to avoid the four-star controversy that has surrounded his take-charge colleague at State.

Weinberger's calm confidence stems in part from his closeness to Reagan. Their mutual admiration dates from 1968, when Weinberger, a former state assemblyman and talk-show host, joined Reagan's California cabinet as finance director. In the current Cabinet, only Attorney General William French Smith has so firm a relationship with Reagan and his inner circle.

Weinberger, 63, has an unpretentious old-shoe style that makes him seem comfortably self-effacing--a description seldom applied to the high-strung Haig. Cap enjoys the exercise of power but seems bemused by its trappings. When security-conscious West German officials sent a limousine to take him to a secluded wood for his daily three-mile run one morning, he gently protested, to no avail, that he preferred jogging the streets near his hotel in Bonn. Later, he joked that the Germans had probably insisted he get out of town because his tattered jogging outfit was so indecorous. Unlike some of his predecessors at Defense, he has none of the arrogance or aloofness that so often offends Congress. Says one Capitol Hill aide: "It's awfully nice not to have a Secretary of Defense who puffs on a pipe and talks down at you from an intellectual perch." A senior military official at the Pentagon agrees: "Weinberger is the first good politician we have had on the third floor for quite a while."

Weinberger's attitude on competition with the Soviets is not reassuring to the European community. He strongly believes detente has worked to the strategic advantage of the U.S.S.R. As he told the NATO ministers: "If the movement from cold war to detente is progress, then let me say we cannot afford much more progress."That message was received coldly by the West Germans, who are the principal beneficiaries of increased trade and reduced tensions between East and West.

Arriving in Bonn a few days later, Haig had to tone down Weinberger's pessimistic assessment of the prospects for Soviet-American negotiations. Commented the Neue Ruhr Zeitung: "Haig repaired the china that was smashed a few days earlier by Secretary Weinberger." But Cap keeps smashing away. In Washington last week he told reporters that arms-control talks were contingent on the further reduction of Soviet troop levels near Poland. The State Department had to send messages to NATO capitals reassuring them of America's commitment to renewed negotiations. Haig publicly stated that Soviet-American talks are "under active consideration" and that an announcement would be made soon on resuming negotiations--a clear refutation of Weinberger's pessimistic attitude.

Weinberger, who has a lot to learn about the subtleties of diplomatic discourse, has a tendency to make casual and imprecise pronouncements that later have to be corrected by others. In his first press conference, he said that the U.S. might decide to deploy the enhanced-radiation warhead known as the neutron bomb. Haig quickly sent out cables saying that no such decision had been made. Discussing the presence of U.S. trainers in El Salvador, Weinberger offhandedly referred to them as "advisers"--a red-nag word with disturbing echoes of Viet Nam. This tendency to shoot from the hip has done nothing to ease tensions between Weinberger and Haig, which surfaced during the Secretary of State's ill-fated "I am in control" speech at the White House following the assassination attempt.

Weinberger insists that he is not interested in any dispute with Haig over prerogatives or authority. "I've got all the turf I want or could handle," he says. In fact, White House aides worry that Weinberger has yet to get a good grip on the country's massive but cumbersome military apparatus. Reagan aides are disappointed that Weinberger--now known to some as "Cap the Shovel," since he is dispensing the Administration's only budgetary increases--has not come up with any innovative overhauls of bloated programs to make the increased defense outlays more palatable. He has only managed to find $3.2 billion of savings in the proposed $359 billion budget for fiscal 1981 and 1982. Nor has he addressed the inefficiencies that result from lack of cooperation among the services, such as Army-Marine rivalry over command of the planned Rapid Deployment Force.

Weinberger may yet turn out to be a politically adept complement to Haig as a spokesman for the Administration's tough foreign and military posture. He has the bureaucratic and managerial talents to carry out Reagan's mandate to improve the country's defenses. But Weinberger has some distance to go. On several occasions he has compared his present job with his last Cabinet post, as Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare under Richard Nixon. As Cap puts it: "The difference is that at HEW you could afford a mistake."

--By Walter Isaacson. Reported by Roberto Suro/Washington

With reporting by Roberto Suro/Washington

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