Who's in Charge Here?

Early in 1981, Under Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger, a veteran diplomat who had served every President since Eisenhower, commented that the Reagan Administration had the look of a coalition government. He meant an ideological coalition, and it has turned out to be an uneasy one at best, particularly where arms control is concerned.

The State Department, characteristically, is the stronghold of what might be called pragmatic traditionalists and Atlanticists, men like Eagleburger and Assistant Secretary for Europe Richard Burt, a former think-tank strategist and New York Times reporter. They believe that it is critically important to maintain close ties with America's allies and that it is still possible for the U.S. to sit down with the Soviets even as it stands up to them.

At the other end of the spectrum are the Pentagon civilians, who put more faith in fortress America than in the Western alliance and who tend to the view that the U.S. cannot really count on its allies and cannot really do business with the Soviet Union. They see it as self-deluding to think the West can compromise in the military rivalry. While committed to the deterrence of nuclear war, they pride themselves on being hard-headed enough to prepare for the possibility that ultimately this planet may not be big enough for both superpowers.

The paragon of this camp is Richard Perle, Assistant Secretary of Defense for international security policy. He has had more impact on the substance of U.S. policy in INF and START than any other official in the U.S. Government, an achievement that is all the more remarkable since he holds a third-echelon job. Part of his success is that he is as personally charming, intellectually brilliant, bureaucratically masterful and politically well connected as he is ideologically unyielding. He was for years Senator Henry Jackson's top assistant and the leading congressional staffer in the campaign against SALT. He maintains close ties to the right wing of both parties, and the Administration that Perle serves feels inordinately beholden to the right.

But Perle's near dominance of the arms-control process has another explanation as well. He has been able to fill the partial vacuum of experience, expertise and interest in arms control that exists at the highest levels of the Government, including the Oval Office. Not since World War II has American national security policy been presided over by a group with so little grounding and standing in the field. National Security Adviser William Clark is a transplanted

California judge and loyal Reagan staffman; Director of Central Intelligence William Casey is a seasoned businessman and an energetic Republican campaigner; Caspar Weinberger does not have the background in defense policy to match his zealous commitment to the goal of rearming America (which is one reason why he has virtually turned over the Pentagon's arms-control portfolio to Perle); if confirmed, Kenneth Adelman, the Deputy U.S. Representative to the United Nations, will be the least qualified director in the 21-year history of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency. He is a political scientist whose main prior experience was as an aide to then Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and as a strategic analyst at SRI International, a private think tank.

During the first year and a half of the Administration, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, all holdovers from the Carter period, found themselves in the uncharacteristic role of the leading moderates on defense policy. In league with the State Department, they blocked various moves to scrap SALT and INF altogether. The new Chiefs of Staff are unenamored of their civilian colleagues in the Pentagon, but they have also been somewhat cowed by them.

The closest thing to an old pro and card-carrying internationalist at the top is Secretary of State George Shultz, but his background is mainly in economics, and he has been preoccupied with other problems besides arms control. Also, he joined the Reagan team late. He does not seem eager to roll up his sleeves and do battle with his old colleague from earlier Administrations and the Bechtel Corp., Weinberger. Nor is it at all certain that he would prevail. This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.