The Endless Transition

A MEMBER of former President-elect Reagan's ill-fated Defense Department transition team--the one whose chairman was ordered never to show his face in the Pentagon again by the Secretary of Defense, and whose report apparently beat a hasty path to the circular file--was ruminating the other day about the nation's leadership change, in particular about the effectiveness of the Reagan transition effort. For four months, a government-in-exile rapidly deployed itself in Washington, seizing an office complex at 1726 Massachusetts Ave. NW, spending money, filling memos and churning gossip at a frightening pace, appointments filtering out somewhat less frequently. Yet when January 20 rolled around, with all the frenzy of freed hostages and an inauguration, only a few of the hundreds of succabinet posts in various government departments had been parceled out to loyal Reaganites; most slots remained, for the time being, in the hands of previous occupants, or just empty. All in all, not exactly according to plan. Or, as the previously mentioned former aide wryly put it: "We didn't hit the ground running, did we?"

The aide's sentiments were not unique. The process of creating from scratch and then attempting to implement a blueprint for wresting control of a massive bureaucracy from the clutches of hostile (Carter) forces posed both political and logistical problems. For every department, agency and office an analogous transition team arose to pinpoint key issues for the incoming administration to tackle, and personnel to be discarded or retained. For three months, personnel director E. Pendleton James played keeper of the Book of Lists (and boxes of resumes), while a Council of Elders held intermittent Judgment Day caucuses. The result: a tiny trickle of cabinet appointments, announced by a press spokesman rather than the president-elect himself, in stark contrast to Richard M. Nixon's one-shot televised extravaganza and the rapid-fire selections of John F. Kennedy '40. Christopher C. DeMuth '64, lecturer in Public Policy at the Kennedy School of Government, who worked both on Nixon's transition and on Reagan's Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) transition team, attributes much of the delay this time around to strict conflict-of-interest requirements for prospective appointees and to attempts to find suitable candidates who could satisfy political constituencies or obligations, such as naming minorities and women. Efforts to keep the selection process secret met with little success, as informed and uninformed speculation hovered over every choice, with occasionally ludicrous results. In one instance, a banker, Walter B. Wriston, saw his name appear on page one of The New York Times and elsewhere as Reagan's certain choice for Secretary of the Treasury; a few days later, however, Donald T. Regan '40 got the job. What had happened? Wriston said he was the last person to ask; he had never heard from the transition team, one way or another, "Many are considered, few are chosen," quipped an aide.

DIFFERENT AREAS of the transition naturally kept different paces. Though distracted somewhat by confirmation hearings, Alexander M. Haig Jr. quickly assembled a team at the State Department, though he was forced to accept know-nothing Reagan friend William Clark as deputy secretary. But while the former general was swift in consolidating command at State--and in presenting to Reagan on inauguration afternoon a plan to concentrate foreign policy-making machinery in his department's hands--the situation at Defense bordered on scandalous. Conservatives were disappointed with the two people tapped to head the department, and many transition planners were disgusted at the fact that, until this week, no other Defense positions had been filled.

A sign that this transition might not be a smooth one came when Caspar W. Weinberger '38, soon after getting the job, fired the defense transition team and had a run-in with its head, William R. Van cleave, Reagan's hawkish chief defense adviser, who during the campaign had hoped for a high Pentagon post. By January 20 disgruntled aides were calling the defense transition a joke, a mess and "at the very least, quite a bit behind." For a period of time, aides said, literally no one was running the place: Weinberger was working with Reagan on the budget, while the deputy secretary Carter holdover Frank Carlucci, was acting director of the Central Intelligence Agency. "It's pretty lonely here," a secretary said, telling a caller that with Weinberger and Carlucci out, there was no one else around who could answer questions.

THE REAGAN government so far has taken on a distinctly Nixon-Ford tinge, as members of previous Republican administrations-reshuffle and reassemble. To the disappointment of fire-and-brimstone loyalists who dreamed of a Moral Majority-staffed White House, the only truly new face on the scene pushing for extreme government disembowelment is whiz-kid budget-slasher David A. Stockman; all other cabinet-level positions went to establishment administrators, bankers and the occasional crony. It's happened before, an aide says, and it'll happen again. "Jimmy Carter spent 1976 campaigning against Washington, and look what he ended up with: Cy Vance, Lloyd Cutler, Harold Brown. When it comes time to put together a government, you go to people with experience, who know how government works and how to make it work."

So far, the transition--possibly preluding the government to follow--has been a gargantuan monster slowly trudging through swamps of paper, still unsteady and trying to find its bearing. And don't let anyone fool you: The transition isn't over; it's still revving up. But it has all dragged on too long for at least one candidate for an administration post. Back in November--and again in December and January--Chris DeMuth's name kept popping up on lists of people to head the EPA. As far as he knows, he's still under consideration. But another factor has come into play, and now it looks like he'll have to turn down the job if the offer ever arrives. "I can't go down to Washington--my students have already handed in their study cards, and they'd be left out in the cold," DeMuth said Wednesday. Of course, if the endless transition doesn't get around to EPA until after finals, it could be another story....