Allen Exit

Shake-up at the White House

When National Security Adviser Richard Allen announced just after Thanksgiving that he was taking an "administrative leave" from his White House job, the betting in Washington was that Allen's leave-taking would be permanent. Now that estimation has proved to be correct. Allen had been under investigation by the Justice Department for accepting $1,000 and three watches from a Japanese magazine for helping to arrange an interview with Nancy Reagan, and for filing inaccurate financial disclosure statements. Even though the Justice inquiry cleared him of any crime, Administration officials still had doubts about his judgment, his effectiveness as the President's top foreign-affairs adviser and the lasting impact of his brush with notoriety. As a result, President Reagan has decided to announce this week that Allen will not return to his job.

Allen's successor is expected to be William P. Clark, 50, who is now Deputy Secretary of State. Even more important, the post of National Security Adviser will be upgraded to give Clark direct access to the President and substantial authority to coordinate policy among the Pentagon, the State Department and the Central Intelligence Agency. Allen, who was subordinate to Presidential Counsellor Edwin Meese, had neither. Says a senior presidential aide of the job's new status: "We want to have a single focal point at the White House for State and Defense. Because of the personality problems, it didn't work out that way in the past."

Personal antagonism, particularly between Allen and Secretary of State Alexander Haig, was only part of the trouble. In making good on his campaign pledge to reduce the importance of the National Security Adviser, Reagan went too far. The job is basically one of information manager, with the adviser and his staff sifting data and analyses produced by all the relevant agencies and recommending options to the President. But Allen's lack of unescorted access to the Oval Office, his inability to manage the flow of paper smoothly and the shortcomings of his demoralized staff combined to make the council's impact on foreign policy marginal.

Clark, a softspoken, conciliatory California lawyer, brings with him a temperament and some personal connections that make him ideal for the job in ways that Allen was most troublesome. He has been a close friend of the President's for years, and served as his chief of staff when Reagan was Governor of California. During Senate confirmation hearings for his State Department post, Clark showed an almost shocking ignorance of foreign affairs. (He could not, for instance, name the Prime Minister of Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe.) But his sober and congenial performance at State has impressed his colleagues, particularly Haig. Clark is also a longtime friend of Meese and Deputy Chief of Staff Michael Deaver, both of whom were his deputies during the California statehouse days.

Meese and Deaver figured critically in the decision to fire Allen and take on Clark. Deaver first proposed that move in November and also recommended upgrading the national security post. Meese, who conceived the unsatisfactory scheme that gave him authority over the adviser in the first place and who has been Allen's principal defender, resisted the fundamental changes that Deaver has now won. To help cut his losses, Meese last week took the initiative and leaked word of Allen's dismissal to the Washington Post and to Allen himself. As an internal White House matter, the effects of Clark's arrival could be substantial. With Meese's foreign policy role diminished and Deaver planning to resign in a year, Clark might become a member of the President's troika of top advisers.

Allen said at week's end that he knew nothing of his imminent dismissal.

He sounded bitter when asked by TIME Correspondent Douglas Brew about reports that he would take a job with the conservative Heritage Foundation. Snapped Allen: "I don't need an employment agency." Then he added: "It would be an inexplicable pleasure to work with friends again." Allen may feel abandoned, but he surely had an inkling of his fate in November, when a top Administration official said cynically that the charges against Allen did not present a problem but "an opportunity." That opportunity has now been seized.

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