Road Ends, Drive Carefully

By Hugh Sidey

The White House crews spruced up the Oval Office in the President's absence.

When he came back to headquarters last week, his walls had a fresh, subtle ivory tint, there were new white sofas around the fireplace, and Franklin Roosevelt's six cane-backed chairs had been re-covered in rust-colored leather. Ronald Reagan entered Phase 2 of his presidency in style.

He will need it all and a good deal more. Comes now the time when the old hoofer's original script has been exhausted, when the newness has faded, when the mischief makers in Washington and the world have sized him up. The procession of events and the demands of his nation have marched beyond anything he had thought about and planned for when he was a lecturing TV celeb and a candidate who could sum the world up with "Let's reduce taxes, strengthen our defense and get the Government out of your hair." Comes now the time when Reagan must originate, improvise and try new tricks if he is going to keep the act alive. Nothing ever works out just the way a President wants.

It happens sometimes sooner and sometimes later. Franklin Roosevelt had no idea when he was taking his oath of office in 1933 that in a hundred days he would remake the U.S. Government. John Kennedy, enamored of foreign affairs, suddenly had the civil rights storm breaking around his head, and instead of Nikita Khrushchev he was trying to figure out Police Chief Bull Connor and his Birmingham dogs. Maybe Richard Nixon, the old Commie fighter, could see down the road three years to the day when he would be in Peking toasting his Chinese enemies and then in Moscow talking about limiting nuclear weapons. The better bet is that what was only a wistful glimmer suddenly became irresistible opportunity in the swirling tides that carry Presidents into uncharted waters.

History bears good witness to the fact that successful Presidents gained their stature not so much by doing what they promised but by improvising wisely when they faced the inevitable surprises. Thomas Jefferson plunked down $15 million cash for the Louisiana territory, doubling the size of the U.S., something he never anticipated when he was designing a government for the 13 colonies. In the four months between Abraham Lincoln's election and his assumption of power, all hope for a peaceful solution to slavery vanished, and when Lincoln arrived in Washington, his task was to fight a war.

Ronald Reagan, it is now plain, cannot cut taxes as he has and buy all the military hardware he wants. His silver tongue has not won the hard hearts of Wall Street. Older Americans, who adored Reagan as one of their own battling inflation, are ready to claw him to death if he threatens Social Security and other entitlement programs, which must be cut if he is to restrain federal spending.

Comes the time when a canny President clings to principle at the center but on the edges begins to sculpt new ideas and responses. Those are already churning in the back corridors of the White House. There is the proposal that Reagan rally the nation this fall behind a banner of sacrifice. There is the discovery that out of 17,000 air controllers on the payroll, 3,000 were not needed and 3,000 more were doing clerical work for which special training is unnecessary. Reagan is likely to launch a vast effort to cut civil and military personnel.

There is more ferment than ever before about the need to re-examine the meaning of war in today's world. The idea of massive nuclear exchange with the Soviet Union has received perhaps too much attention. The ability of the U.S. to deal with new, high-tech weapons of conventional warfare--and new kinds of economic and political confrontations--has been neglected.

Now is the time when Reagan must be ready to turn away from some pet campaign promises and gently sidestep some of his narrow-minded supporters. He must glimpse the onrushing world in its true colors and use his wisdom to solve problems, heedless of politics and sometimes even of pride.

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