How Reagan Stays Out of Touch

By Richard Stengel

Serene. Instinctive. Visionary. Determined. Eternally optimistic. Such adjectives are regularly used to form a word picture of Ronald Reagan. They are all true, as far as they go. But each has a less sunny flip side, like a photographic negative of the bright, familiar image. Serene: intellectually $ passive. Instinctive: unreflective. Visionary: oblivious to troubling details. Determined: rigid. Optimistic: detached from reality and unwilling to wrestle with complex issues.

The events surrounding the Iran arms deal reveal how disengaged Ronald Reagan is from the operation of his Government, a Chief Executive who is not only uninformed but chooses not to know what is going on in his name. For many close observers of Reagan, the surprise is not that his passive approach has got him into trouble, but that such a fiasco did not happen sooner.

The phrase "Reagan is not a detail man" is a mantra among Reaganites and suggests that he sees the big picture, that "details" are for smaller minds. Yet such detachment can prove dangerous. In preparation for the Iceland summit, Reagan did not study the history and nuances of America's arms-control strategies; instead he practiced ways to sell Gorbachev on SDI. To get himself into the right frame of mind, he read Tom Clancy's Red Storm Rising, a potboiler about a non-nuclear war between NATO and the Soviet bloc. On a political trip the day before he left for Iceland, Reagan passed his time aboard Air Force One chatting with Secret Service agents. He negotiated with Gorbachev on instinct. His approach could have led to the type of breakthrough that happens only when leaders sweep aside details and discuss the big picture. Or it could have ended hopes for a limited agreement on European missiles and the use of Star Wars as a bargaining tool. In retrospect, the latter may have occurred.

Reagan's election was a reaction to the micromanagement style of Jimmy Carter, who made it his business to know everything from the fine print in the Pentagon budget to who was playing on the White House tennis court. Reagan, by contrast, has practiced a kind of Zen presidency: the less he worried and prepared, the more popular and effective he would be.

Reagan's daily schedule runs him, he does not run it. He rises about 7:30, catches some of the morning talk shows, peruses the morning papers over breakfast and then at nine walks through the archway from the residence to the Oval Office. The briefing with his senior staff, which mainly concerns his daily schedule, lasts only about 30 minutes, and Reagan usually remains quiet, except for his trademark bantering. It is followed by a briefing from his national security staff that is usually even shorter. When National Security Council staffers prepare Reagan for a full-fledged meeting of the NSC, the President typically does not ask any questions about the topic at hand; instead he inquires, "What do I have to say?"

The morning often unfolds as a series of promotional events: a talk to the American Dairy Association may be followed by a photo opportunity with a championship athletic team. Once a week Reagan has lunch with the Vice President and once with the Secretary of State. During the afternoon there may be a briefing by the State Department, or a rundown of "talking points" for a meeting with a visiting head of state. For those encounters Reagan relies on index cards to remind him of what to say. On Wednesdays the President usually takes the afternoon off. On Fridays he packs up by three and departs by helicopter for Camp David. Otherwise he stays in the office until about five.

Reagan's reading is not heavy. He gets one- or two-page memos outlining the pluses and minuses of a policy decision. Foreign policy papers are usually kept to five pages. Old friends and conservative cronies have access to a special private White House post office box number and can send him clippings that they think might strike his fancy. That box number is the source of many of Reagan's familiar "factoids," snippets clipped from obscure publications.

Reagan is not notably curious. His aides say he rarely calls them with a question and that he knows in only a vague way what they actually do. He does not sit down with his advisers to hammer out policy decisions. He is happiest when his aides form a consensus, something they try awfully hard to do.

Only when it comes to his speeches is Reagan truly a hands-on President. His writers supply the substance; he adds the homespun parables. His attention to speeches reflects his own perception of his job: on many issues he sees himself less as an originator of policy than as the chief marketer of it.

Reagan's management style is a type that can be very effective, especially given the President's chronically sunny vision of what he wishes to accomplish, and it has helped redefine the public's ideal of political leadership. But it can work only if he is supported by a competent and active staff. During his first term, Chief of Staff James Baker protected Reagan from his woollier notions and helped put many of his ideals into practice. When Baker and Donald Regan pulled off their White House shuffle in January 1985, with a typically detached Reagan looking on like a bemused bystander, the new , chief of staff proclaimed that his primary goal was to let Reagan be Reagan. He has, and one consequence is that little attention seems to have been paid to what the President might consider nitty-gritty details -- at least until they add up to a crisis.

With reporting by Laurence I. Barrett and Barrett Seaman/Washington