Now Comes the Hard Part

By James Kelly

A mending President must confront some bruising battles

"It was, I must say, the most paralyzing pain. . . as if someone had hit you with a hammer." Thus did the nation's premier convalescent describe last week just what it felt like to have been shot in the chest. Admitting that the assassination attempt a month ago "still seems unreal," Ronald Reagan recalled that at first he thought he had been hurt only by being shoved into the limousine by Secret Service Agent Jerry Parr. "When I suddenly found I was coughing up blood, we both decided that maybe I'd broken a rib and punctured a lung." On the way to the hospital, he began having trouble breathing. "The more I tried to breathe, it kept seeming as if I was getting less air. You know that panic that you can get if you're strangling on something." Only after arriving at the hospital did Reagan learn that he had been shot.

The President recounted those scary moments in a 19-minute interview--his first since the assassination try--held with James Gerstenzang of the Associated Press and Helen Thomas of United Press International in the White House family quarters. Acknowledging that he still felt pain "constantly" in his chest, he assured the reporters that he was feeling a little better each day. Joked Reagan: "I don't think I'm going to hurdle any tables here in the room for a while, but really, the recovery is astonishing to me." As for would-be assassin John Hinckley Jr., who last week was taken from a federal prison in Butner, N.C., to Duke University Medical Center, in Durham, for four hours of medical tests, Reagan said: "He seems to be a very disturbed young man. I hope he'll get well too."

Though he may not have been hurdling any tables, Reagan was gradually easing himself back into his job. He placed two dozen or so calls during the week to Congressmen and others to lobby for their support of his economic program. Assisted by Speechwriter Ken Khachigian, he began drafting the address he will deliver this week to a joint session of Congress. He read briefing papers daily and even found time to dip into a book chronicling the physical ailments of previous White House occupants. He also met with eight Governors--seven Republicans and one Democrat, Forrest James of Alabama--for nearly an hour. One participant, Richard Thornburgh of Pennsylvania, said later: "The President in my view looks in fighting trim."

Reagan needs to be in the best of shape, since he now faces a number of possible skirmishes with Congress, any one of which could blow up into a major battle. The Administration faces a host of nettlesome foreign policy issues on which it seems not to have any clear policy: arms control talks, Middle East peace negotiations, relations with South Africa. These could explode at any time, but most of the problems confronting the Reaganauts are of the domestic variety. Foremost is Congressional passage of the President's economic package, but other issues may also prove troublesome for the Administration. Among them:

Farm Bill. In his budget-cutting fervor, Reagan has proposed slashing or eliminating entirely a bale of venerable farm-aid programs. For example, he proposes moderating commodity price supports for most farm products, abolishing some special programs like peanut acreage allotments, and pulling the plug on the Rural Electrification Administration. As chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee, Jesse Helms of North Carolina has junked the Administration's farm bill in favor of his own, more expensive version; the House Agriculture Committee, meanwhile, has endorsed a bill that, complains a White House aide, "totally disregards what Reagan wanted." The Administration may have no choice but to accept a more costly version of its bill.

Defense Spending. Congress is inclined to accept in principle Reagan's plan to increase defense expenditures, but there is considerable disagreement on specifics. Members of both parties are jousting with the White House over the price tags on the new F-16 and F-18 fighter planes and the advantages of ground vs. ship-launched cruise missiles. Battle lines are already being drawn for upcoming debates over the MX missile and a new B-l bomber. Even the Administration's proposal to reactivate two mothballed warships, including the World War II battleship New Jersey, has run into strong Senate opposition. Critics contend the ships simply are not worth the salvage cost.

The most serious dispute centers around the Pentagon's inflation estimate. Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger, backed by OMB Chief David Stockman, insists that inflation will fall much faster than most economic forecasters predict. Weinberger has jiggered his budget accordingly by adding billions of dollars worth of armaments. Yet many Pentagon backers in Congress are afraid that support for increased defense spending will quickly erode if Weinberger's economic forecasts prove too rosy and defense estimates start spiraling upward while Congress is simultaneously slashing domestic programs. Says Democrat Sam Nunn of Georgia, long an advocate of rejuvenating the military: "What is going to happen to the consensus built on defense when, six or eight months from now, this budget keeps going straight up?"

Foreign Car Imports. While diplomats in Tokyo and Washington politely fence over a "voluntary" import quota of Japanese cars to the U.S., support is growing in Congress, especially in the Senate, for a mandatory limit of 1.6 million cars annually (almost 1.9 million Japanese cars were sold in the U.S. last year). A dedicated believer in free trade, Reagan may soon find himself in a nasty squabble with Congressmen from big auto-industry states, especially if domestic car sales continue to sag.

El Salvador. After Congress grudgingly agreed to a modest increase of $5 million in U.S. military aid to that embattled country, Reagan ceased talking openly about drawing the line against worldwide Soviet aggression there. But any attempt by the Administration to send more arms or military "trainers" to Central America would run into fierce congressional opposition--opposition that is shared, polls show, by most Americans.

Clean Air Act. First passed 1970, the must be reauthorized this year, and Senators of both parties from northern industrial states are lining up behind Democrat Gary Hart of Colorado to fight for tougher restrictions on sulfur emissions, in order to reduce acid rain. The Administration will probably attempt to ease many of the bill's existing restrictions as part of its campaign against Government regulations which could lead to a pitched battle with Hart and his allies.

Voting Rights Act. The key provisions of this 1965 statute, which bars the use of literacy tests and other schemes that once blocked racial minorities from registering and voting, do not expire until 1982. Nonetheless, both supporters and opponents are already preparing for battle on whether the law should be extended. Republican Strom Thurmond of South Carolina is leading the opposition. He is counting on White House support, but Reagan has not yet decided what stand, if any, to take on the renewal of the law. The legislative fight promises to be a bruising one, since blacks, Hispanics and their supporters are already charging that a failure to extend the law would undo much civil rights progress of the past 15 years.

With political minefields like these littering Capitol Hill, it is not surprising that Reagan has requested a hold on legislation involving the emotional social issues that interest his conservative backers. Yet that tactical decision members might just be swept aside-- and by members of his own party in Congress unable or unwilling to wait. Indeed, Reagan may discover in the coming months that his efforts to reach a consensus in Congress on a variety of issues may be scuttled not so much by recalcitrant Democrats as by conservative idealogues on his own side of the aisle.

While the President continued his remarkable recovery, another victim of the assassination attempt suffered a setback. White House Press Secretary James Brady, who had been recuperating smoothly from a bullet wound in the head, suddenly turned groggy last week; doctors discovered that a buildup of air was pressuring his damaged brain. Dr. Arthur Kobrine first drained the air and then, in an operation that lasted 5 1/2 hours, found the source of the leak--a hole in the membrane covering the brain near the sinuses--and patched it with muscle tissue from Brady's temple. By week's end Brady was alert and talking again, though Dr. Dennis O'Leary, spokesman for George Washington University Hospital, cautioned that it would be several days before doctors could judge if the operation had been a success. His employer, however, was confident. Asked if he was going to keep the press secretary's job open for Brady, Reagan replied with a smile: "Oh, you bet."

--By James Kelly. Reported by Johanna McGeary/Washington

With reporting by Johanna McGeary

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