Drawing a Bead on Reagan

By Hugh Sidey

This is war. There are angry skirmishers in their tuxedoes riding the banquet circuit every night harassing Ronald Reagan about the planned visit to a German cemetery, aid to the Nicaraguan rebels, tax reform and whopping budget deficits. Embittered and defeated adversaries from old political struggles are gathering around new standards and firing fresh fusillades at the flag bearers of the Reagan revolution.

The antagonists even use the language of the battlefield. "Everybody's waiting in the trenches," said California Democratic Congressman Leon Panetta about impending votes on Capitol Hill. A White House aide sounded last week like a lecturer at a war college: "When we could pick where and when we wanted to fight, when we could direct set-piece campaigns in which we could mobilize all the White House resources, we never lost a major battle--tax cuts, budget, AWACS, MX missiles. In the past we used to fight one battle at a time in one House of Congress. Now we have three battles going at once [the budget in the Senate, contra funds in both the Senate and the House] and on their ground. It is high risk. And if we lose that aura of invincibility, we are in trouble."

Old soldiers have known all this since the beginning of time. Conquerors meet increasing resistance the farther they march; the more they win, the greater the burden of sustaining their triumphs. Old politicians have known this since Presidents began to have second terms.

Reagan's power is naturally diminished since he cannot run again. His trusted staff has dispersed, and even those still on the job are positioning themselves for that time in the next three years when they will move off into other work. Sometimes in these last days they have been reckless and sloppy.

The White House saw the combat coming several weeks ago when Reagan was vacationing in California. When he returned to Washington, he faced the two busiest weeks of his years in office. Almost every minute of his working time, said an aide, has been taken up with public speeches, private meetings and appeals to powerful interests to back him in votes on the budget and Nicaraguan aid.

There is still fight aplenty in the President, and his opponents know that. On some issues Reagan has not yet taken the field. When he gets back from his European trip in May, he will stump the nation for tax reform and more Government restraint. How effective he will be is an open question now. Everything he says and does will get even more scrutiny and less tolerance than in the past, as demonstrated by the German cemetery incident.

Watching the temperature mount in the Potomac Valley, one can see an instructive parallel from more than a century ago, when the South's General Robert E. Lee turned his forces east toward Gettysburg. In his great string of victories, Lee had almost always chosen the ground and the time of battle. But at Gettysburg he found his enemy there ahead of him and in the best position. Lee's stubbornness and his belief in his cause led him to attack despite the caution of those who wanted to slip away and fight the battle on their terms.

It has always been true of political leaders, as with generals, that their greatest strengths can in a twinkling become their greatest weaknesses. There is a fine line between boldness and recklessness, between perseverance and pigheadedness. Knowing just how much further he can push the Reagan revolution before risking the gains he has made is the greatest challenge before the President.

Robert E. Lee took a terrible toll of the enemy at Gettysburg. But he did not win, and the war was lost.