Freedom of Speakes

AT LAST. what the Reagan Administration has been waiting for--an example of present indiscretion worthy of disdain--has finally made it to the newspapers. Unfortunately for she presidents, however, if was the remarks of his own Press Secretary Larry Speaken that so outraged Reagan, reportedly prompting him to throw down his New York Times and declare aloud. "I don't like this. This is not the way I want to operate."

In a piece of public buffoonery that outstrips former Secretary of the Interior Watt's best efforts, Speakes, last week hinted at the possible firing of Martin S. Feldstein, Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors. The press secretary made fun of Feldstein's name, and speculated that the Chairman, who was then at a high-level economic luncheon, was at a "last supper," at which he might not last "through dessert."

At first, Speakes responded to questions about Feldstein's career with some care. Asked whether or not the Chairman would be asked to resign. Speakes replied, "I do not think they will actually ask him to resign, I don't think they will ask him face to face." But then the secretary revealed that he thought Feldstein had been excluded from a high level economic luncheon that was going on at the time. When a reporter noted that Feldstein was in fact in attendance, Speakes gallantly sent an aide to find out why. When the aide returned, Speakes read his note silently, mouthing the words "last supper" to the general mirth of those in attendance. Reporters then asked Speakes to read would the contents of the note--the Secretary refused.

What's going on with Feldstein is, in fact, a rather simple matter. Feldstein feels that the Administration must stick to the 1984 fiscal tax plan, which proposes a series of small tax increases for 1984 through 1987 in order to decrease the deficit. Although the long range plan has been met with some support on Capitol Hill, it is nevertheless losing backers within the Administration itself, who steadfastly oppose any tax hikes. Feldstein's mistake seems to be that he has been vocal in his support of the plan, something which the administration does not savor. Disagreement has centered, then, not on policy but on politics; the Chairman's propensity to harp publicly on the importance of decreasing the deficit has caused disaffection in Washington among officials who him that the Economics department professor is "playing to Harvard" and seeking to maintain "academic largely" in the midst of the President's economic programs. But what this recent rift reveals is perhaps something more interesting officials within the fold of the President's economic advisers are beginning to pick sides. According to reports in The New York Times, the President if on the advice of the Secretary of the Treasury Donold F. Regan and the Secretary of State George P. Schuitz, who apparently misses his former calling as an economist. In the opposing cold are Feldstein and the Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, Paul A. Volcker, who disagree with the President's current inclination to downplay the deficit.

What this reveals to the layman is that the Economic Dreamboat that the Administration chartered in 1980 is encountering rough waters, that may imply deeper rifts as the year goes on. Of course those waters have always been choppy. As early as fall 1981, David Stockman, Director of the Office of Management and Budget, also spoke out about holes in the government's economic policy, saying the Administration was hard pressed to translate economic figures into economic reality. "None of us really understands what's going on with all these numbers," Stockman told Washington Post reporter Williams Greider in Greider's book The Education of David Stockman. "What was revealed," writes Greider, "...was a kind of natural anarchy, a helter-skelter sequence of events normally concealed from public view. Is no one in control even at the highest levels of power? Is that how government really works?"

WHAT SPEAKES revealed in his embarrassing comments last Wednesday is, in fact, the very melee that Greider speculates about. Senior officials in the government deny that the President is thinking of firing Feldstein, but Speakes' comments must have reflected some ongoing controversy within the Administration. Was Speakes actually told to make embarrassing remarks to pressure Feldstein into resigning? If Reagan intends to put security clamps on his own officials, he might want to start with his press secretary. Unless, of course, he would rather wait until his economic indiscretions start speaking for themselves. Jonathan S. Sapers