Changing of The Guards

By GEORGE J. CHURCH

Arguing with Caspar Weinberger was often likened to quarreling with a tape recorder. The Secretary of Defense never raised his voice and seldom even changed his words. In a smooth monotone, he would just say over and over that not a nickel could safely be cut from military budgets, that the U.S. must let nothing stand in the way of early deployment of a Star Wars missile defense. It was a style of argument and of thinking that irritated many; on budgetary matters it was sometimes said "Cap" Weinberger had a constituency of one. That one, however, happened to be his old California buddy, Ronald Reagan. Weinberger had such easy and informal access to the President that it seemed probable he would become the longest-lasting and most influential Pentagon boss ever.

But his resignation last week, when he was less than four months short of Robert McNamara's longevity record at the Pentagon, ensured that only the latter of these attributes will be his legacy. His departure comes at a time when his main accomplishments -- an unprecedented peacetime military spending program and the protection of the Strategic Defense Initiative from arms- control restrictions -- are under serious assault. But his reasons for leaving, as he explained them at a tearful Rose Garden ceremony, were personal rather than political. Jane, his wife of 45 years, is seriously ill; she suffers from cancer and arthritis and recently broke two vertebrae. Weinberger was determined to spend more time with her. Said the Secretary: "She has, for a long time, had this great discomfort, and it is time to do a bit more to fulfill those obligations."

His replacement, the able and agile bureaucrat Frank Carlucci, who became National Security Adviser in the midst of the Iran-contra revelations last December, has long worked with Weinberger and shares much of his commitment to a strong defense and SDI. But things will not be the same, especially in tone. Missing from the President's inner council will be one of the last of the true believers who came to Washington with Reagan in 1981.* Carlucci is neither as fervent in his opposition to compromises on military spending and SDI nor as likely to win his way through well-placed whispers

in the President's ear. In addition, Carlucci is being replaced by a man who is also known for his managerial dexterity but who may be even less of an ideological crusader: Army Lieut. General Colin Powell, the highest-ranking black to serve on the White House staff.

Aggressive and battle-hardened, Carlucci has one of the longest resumes in Washington, a collection of economic, ambassadorial and defense posts. He worked harmoniously with Cap for two years as No. 2 man at the Pentagon. He is universally described as tough; in his ten months at the National Security Council, he quickly purged the staff that plunged the Administration into the Iran-contra mess. But he has a reputation for being a bit more adaptable and pragmatic than the unbending Cap.

One important difference between the two may surface as early as the summit between Reagan and Soviet Leader Mikhail Gorbachev, which begins Dec. 7. After the two leaders sign a treaty eliminating intermediate- and shorter-range nuclear weapons, they will turn to a far more important issue: a potential agreement to reduce long-range strategic weapons 50%. The big stumbling block has been Soviet insistence that this cut must be linked to some kind of restrictions on SDI.

Weinberger has been in the forefront of the effort to deploy the first phase of a Star Wars system by 1992 (a plan to which even the President has not yet agreed), even if it means scrapping the 1972 ABM treaty. Any strategic agreement, he argued, must come "not at the cost of injuring, in any way, strategic defense or our ability to deploy it as soon as possible." Carlucci, in contrast, has indicated privately that there is room for compromise between the Soviet desire to extend the ABM treaty for ten years and the U.S. willingness to extend it for seven. Though he opposes negotiating a list of SDI research and testing restrictions to be honored until the treaty expires, he seems to believe some agreement may be possible. A compromise that would satisfy Reagan, however, is still difficult to envision. If Weinberger was the "Svengali of SDI," as he was sometimes called, the President was a most willing Trilby.

Weinberger's departure may help heal the bitter split between the Pentagon and Foggy Bottom, which was embodied in an endless wrangle between him and Secretary of State George Shultz. It was not a straight hawk-vs.-dove rift; while Weinberger was far more suspicious of arms-control negotiations than Shultz, he was notably more cautious on such subjects as the use of American military power overseas and retaliation against terrorist attacks. Indeed, the feud seemed to reflect personal strains as much as policy differences. Tensions between the two began 17 years ago, when President Nixon appointed Weinberger as Shultz's deputy at the Office of Management and Budget. In the Reagan Administration, their policies often clashed; the President's propensity to side with one, then the other, accounted for some of the erratic lurching in foreign policy.

Shultz was at first inclined to be suspicious of Carlucci as a Weinberger henchman. But Carlucci accompanied Shultz on an arms-control negotiating trip to Moscow last month, and the two found that they could work closely together. An aide to the Secretary of State describes Shultz as "quietly, very quietly ecstatic" about Weinberger's resignation.

Many in Congress probably feel the same way. Weinberger's proudest achievement was presiding over the Administration's $2 trillion buildup of U.S. military strength. But even while it was in progress, there were complaints that "Cap the Knife" -- a nickname Weinberger earned as Nixon's OMB director -- had turned into "Cap the Ladle," an administrator who okayed every wish list from each of the services without making tough choices between competing systems or developing any overall strategic concept. When the congressional mood turned to budget cutting, Weinberger alienated many influential legislators by refusing to identify anything that could be chopped out of his budgets. Last year the House Armed Services Committee would not even invite Weinberger to testify on Pentagon spending, an unprecedented snub.

Carlucci consequently inherits a mess. Several major weapons systems that Weinberger ordered are reaching a stage of procurement that will require major new spending. But Carlucci will not get the money; he will be lucky if he can persuade Congress merely to freeze Pentagon appropriations. If reductions are "draconian," says a source close to Carlucci, the new boss may be forced into "tossing out divisions, junking procurement programs, cutting back on operational readiness and all those kinds of fun things." At minimum, defense experts believe, Carlucci will have to scrap some programs; he may, for example, require the Army to put new engines on existing helicopters rather than spend $36 billion to develop an experimental light chopper.

Carlucci has got along well with Congress in a variety of jobs, and, as "Mr. Inside" at the Pentagon to Weinberger's "Mr. Outside" in the early Reagan years, he learned the nuts and bolts of the place to a greater extent than Cap ever did. Says Carlucci: "The Pentagon is familiar with my style. Mine has been one of more direct involvement in line management as opposed to ((Weinberger's)) style of working through staff." A White House aide says, "For the remainder of this Administration, management is what is needed." All over Washington, but perhaps in the Pentagon above all.

FOOTNOTE: *Only Samuel Pierce, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, is left from the original Reagan Cabinet.

With reporting by Barrett Seaman and Bruce van Voorst/Washington