The Presidency

By Hugh Sidey

Professor Ronald W. Reagan here. He takes off his Gulf of Sidra admiral's hat, his Nicaragua freedom fighter's cap, his space-shuttle captain's helmet, his tax-and-budget reformer's Homburg, his Philippine democracy cockade--and puts on a mortarboard.

Does it in about a quarter of a second. Hasn't much time to spare these days. Slight aw-shucks duck of his head, gentle smile, a glint of fond memory behind his eyes, and for a few minutes he's standing in an old ivy hall someplace and you can almost hear the mellow chords of the glee club float with the fresh breeze through the open window.

The question: After five years in the presidency, what would you tell students about the office?

"I suppose I'd describe it in what I feel about it," says Reagan. "Some people become President. I've never thought of it that way. I think the presidency is an institution over which you have temporary custody and it has to be treated that way."

Odd answer from a man moving fleets and armies, contemplating settlements on the planet Mars, spending a trillion dollars a year. Yet therein may lie an overlooked clue about his leadership. He has never taken power for granted. Never shown arrogance in his position, never preened personally in public, always acted--whether he was right or clearly wrong--in the name of the American people. Reagan does not remove his coat in the Oval Office out of deference to the nation's tradition.

"Presidents that have come in and drastically changed traditional things --selling the yacht or something, not that I'm a yachtsman, as long as I've got my horse I'm happy--but I just have never tried to do anything of that kind because I don't think the presidency belongs to the individual."

Point two from Dr. Reagan (four honorary degrees): "I think I would be tempted to point out to students how in recent years Congresses have tended to try to curb and take away from the presidency some of the prerogatives that belong there--the handling of foreign policy and so forth--and placed restrictions on the office that in effect would have foreign policy determined by a committee of 535."

Right on the scholarly mark. Reagan's experience and intuition tell him the same things many scholars are finding from their study in the library stacks. To make Government smaller and more efficient, the presidency may need more power to trim here and discard there. To make Government more effective, the presidency may need more freedom for action before crises develop.

Professor Reagan warms to his lecture. Another point, before he goes back to Libya or Central America or the budget billions: "I think one of the things I'm happiest about is that after 50 years of almost unbroken deficit spending, with this great growth in the social reforms and so forth there is total change in the debate that goes on in Government and in the Congress particularly, a debate of how to bring down spending, how to curb the deficit."

Teachers talk like that, in broad concepts. Presidents rarely do. Could this period be called the Reagan Age? No, the President protests. But the professor goes back to lecture point one: "I wouldn't be so bold as to put my name on it, but I think it represents a drastic change in the view of the Federal Government."

In scholarly tradition, an important footnote: "I would also tell the students that I've enjoyed the job. And some nights you go home feeling ten feet tall I've had a fair sprinkling of them." Mortarboard comes off. Professor departs. The President looks ahead three years, grins, rubs his hands, says, "I wouldn't know how to coast."