Mr. Optimism Meets the Skeptical Fourth Estate

By Thomas Griffith

Newswatch

Once an actor becomes successful, he naturally looks for the kind of roles that suit him best. When an actor is President, he looks for a way of getting across to the public best. Obviously, facing sharp reportorial questioning isn't Ronald Reagan's favorite way.

He only calls a press conference when he has to, and last week he felt he had to. Too much has been building up. He might ignore a querulous press corps, but not the beginnings of a national feeling that a number of things were coming unstuck. His press conference was only his fifth as President, fewer than any other President in the past 50 years. Of course, such infrequency gives the Washington press corps fewer self-important opportunities to appear on national TV as vigilant public defenders. But some among them also extol press conferences as an inspired device to require more frequent public accounting by the President. The public, caring less, may feel it sees enough of the President on the evening news, and in this belief would be wrong.

Reagan is the most successful President yet in the adroit use of "photo opportunities." (Some White House photographers, however, are getting complaints from their editors, the New York Times reports, about too many unvaryingly smiling pictures of Reagan even when he is announcing budget cuts.) At a photo opportunity, the setting is always favorable to him: the President striding toward his limo, or about to talk to an important guest, generously pausing to answer a reporter's question. A wave, a smile, a one-liner: just what the networks need. The great thing about such scenes is that though Reagan may have memorized what he wants to say to a question he knows will be asked, the line can be charitably judged as offhand in phrasing and thought, something that isn't really a formal statement of policy. And therefore frustrating, not alone to reporters, but to anyone who hopes for a clearer reading of the President's mind.

Now, having to retreat from his promise of a balanced budget by 1984, finding the recession worse than his economists had anticipated, and being unable to silence his quarreling foreign policy makers, offhandedness was not enough. Among columnists, critics were getting sharper and sympathizers uneasy, often a portent of troubles to come. Anthony Lewis called the conduct of foreign policy "a national joke"; William Safire regretfully accused Reagan of losing touch with reality. Like many survivors of Nixon's Washington, Safire was concerned about a tendency, new to Reagan but not to Presidents in general, to blame the press when in trouble. Reagan is remarkably free of sustained vendettas, yet his one-liner about the Haig flap was uncomfortably reminiscent of the bad old days: "Whoever wrote that report not only was blowing smoke, they were doing a disservice to this country."

The problem of the press has been very much on the President's mind of late. At Haig's urging, Reagan even telephoned Columnist Jack Anderson from Camp David to persuade him to withdraw a report that the Secretary of State had "one foot on a banana peel." At times Reagan denied there was dissension in his Administration ("Sometimes I wonder if there is such a thing as an unnamed source"). But of course it was Haig himself, and not a reporter, who said Haig had been subjected to nine months of "guerrilla warfare" from inside the White House. Frustrated by the story, Reagan told reporters: "I could appeal to your patriotism." At his press conference, he lamented that sometimes "the District of Columbia is one gigantic ear" and added: "I think it behooves all of us to recognize that every word that is uttered here in Washington winds up, by way of ambassadors and embassies, in all the other countries of the world. And we should reflect on whether it's going to aid in what we're trying to do in bringing peace to trouble spots like the Middle East... or whether it's going to set us back." (What is said in Washington does quickly reach other capitals, but not because ambassadors simply pass on what appears in the papers; they keep their own close watch on government and make their own assessments.)

In strong criticism from a sympathetic supporter, Columnist Safire examined three reasons why Reagan should, in Safire's words, try to deny reality: "The first is that he is the legendary good schnook, who reads inflammatory lines unaware of their content. . . The second is that he is assuming the shiftiness of office and is now willing to mislead the public by blaming the press .. . The third--and the likelihood--is that he is falling into the trap of believing what he wishes were true."

Safire's third thesis was much in evidence at the press conference. There the President sought to deflect his questioners while showing himself a man of peace and unswervable on the economy. The questioners were polite but persistent. When Reagan said that his remarks to a group of editors on the possibility of nuclear war had been taken out of context by those not present at the lunch, he seemed startled when Bill Plante of CBS suggested otherwise: "Mr. President, in your exchange with the editors--I happen to have the transcript--I'd like to read what you said." That was not Reagan's only uncomfortable moment. A press corps professionally conditioned never to clap or boo gave way to spontaneous laughter when Reagan asserted: "There is no animus, personal animus, and there is no bickering or backstabbing going on. We're a very happy group."

It is not Reagan's press conference style to reel off impressive-sounding statistics as did Kennedy, Nixon and Carter (who often sounded like schoolboys crammed for a test with answers they would quickly forget). Reagan sells his programs with simplifications, homilies and examples. And optimism: "I always tend to be optimistic," he said at one point. He proved his optimism when a question arose about "disarray in foreign policy" (a newly revived Washington cliche that was born in the Carter days). Said the President: "I think our accomplishments have been rather astounding... our allies--I don't think we've ever had a stronger relationship than we have with them in Europe." In meetings with heads of states "in every instance... they have responded with statements to the effect that they had better relations than they've ever had before with our country." Was this just seller's enthusiasm, or in spite of all evidence to the contrary, did Reagan really believe it? Had he reached such conclusions as a result of his genuine hospitality as host along with his known reluctance to get into contentious details? An astonishing insight into Reagan's attitude, this was the most disquieting and lasting impression of his fifth press conference. An insight like this never emerges from a photo opportunity.

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