Not Yet a Potted Plant

By Ed Magnuson

For the embattled President, the cheering crowds were a tonic. "Reagan, Reagan, Reagan!" chanted a chorus of young people in Port Washington, Wis., as bright balloons lofted over the Lake Michigan shoreline and a band blared campaign-style tunes. In nearby West Bend (pop. 21,000), some 30,000 people turned out to welcome the presidential motorcade. Buoyed by the lively response, Ronald Reagan scoffed at critics who claim he has lost his political punch. Said he: "I reject a potted-plant presidency."

That was, of course, a reference to one of the more memorable lines uttered during the Iran-contra hearings: Attorney Brendan Sullivan's notable "I am not a potted plant" response when Senator Daniel Inouye grew impatient with the lawyer's frequent objections and suggested that his client, Oliver North, should be the one to speak up. The fact that the President would remind his audiences even obliquely of the scandal that has seriously impaired his effectiveness signaled his rising optimism. Although the Wisconsin demonstrations had been carefully stage-managed, they reinforced Reagan's recovery from the doldrums inflicted by a triple whammy last November: the uproar over his sale of U.S. arms to terrorist Iran, his failure to keep the Senate in Republican hands, and his almost automatic reduction, once the final midterm elections of his presidency were behind him, to lame-duck status.

The end of the public hearings this week will give the White House relief from the almost daily battering of adverse headlines and dramatic TV testimony. But the damage inflicted on Reagan's credibility and his conduct of foreign policy cannot be readily repaired by a few motorcades down the main streets of mid-America. Any President heading into his waning months and faced with a hostile Congress would have an uphill struggle against becoming irrelevant. The nation's living-room view of the strange doings in the Oval Office adds to Reagan's burden.

North's testimony may have marginally aided the contra cause and enhanced his own can-do image (though there are already signs that Olliemania is fading), but it did not help his Commander in Chief, who professed not to know what his National Security Council staff aide had been up to. National Security Adviser John Poindexter's insistence that "the buck stops here with me" on the diversion of profits from the Iran arms sales to the contras meant that investigators had not found a "smoking gun" in the President's hand. But many Americans found the admiral's tale too tall to be credible. Polls showed that a majority of Americans still believe the President was lying when he claimed he did not know about this diversion. "For the first time probably in his whole career, his integrity has been brought into question," conceded his pollster, Richard Wirthlin. "That troubles him and frustrates him."

Later witnesses were more believable, and in some ways more damaging. Both Secretary of State George Shultz and former Chief of Staff Don Regan inadvertently portrayed Reagan as easily manipulated and uninterested in the details of how two of his most cherished goals were being pursued: the release of American hostages in Lebanon and the survival of the contras when Congress was refusing to arm them. The resulting portrait of the President was far from flattering. His occasional eagerness to actively shape policy and his memory of what he had decided appeared erratic and selective.

Worse yet, there was no way to avoid harsh bottom-line judgments of what Reagan had actually done, or failed to do, in the Iran-contra fiasco:

-- He rejected the strenuous objections of Shultz and Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger, and sold U.S. weapons to Iran even though his Administration was loudly urging other nations not to do so. He did this on the advice of two far less assertive aides, first Robert McFarlane and then John Poindexter and, more significantly, William Casey, the late CIA director whose ghostly presence haunted the hearings as the one who may have masterminded the events.

-- He undermined his own antiterrorist policy by trading arms for hostages, thereby raising the value of the innocent captives and inviting the seizure of more. When an aide questioned the legality of the bargaining, Reagan replied, "The American people will never forgive me if I fail to get these hostages out over this legal question." The comment carried a ring distressingly close to the spontaneous declaration of Fawn Hall, North's document-shredding secretary: "Sometimes you have to go above the written law."

-- He staked his credibility on his claim that he had not known that his NSC staff had arranged to divert profits to the contras. Yet the fine focus on this point obscured a broader one: any act so potentially destructive to the President's management of foreign policy should not have been allowed to escape his attention.

-- Once news of the arms sales broke, he misled the public. His press conference claim that no third country had been involved in the weapons shipments to Iran was far from a matter of a bad briefing. He knew Israel had been involved, but he was told to conceal the fact. At best, he became confused; at worst, he lied.

-- When he presumably learned about the diversion from the hasty fact-finding probe of Attorney General Edwin Meese, he commendably made the startling fact public. Yet he made no effort to find out how this had happened from either Poindexter or North, who knew the details. One possibility was that the President already knew more than he cared to reveal.

The President's self-inflicted Iran-contra wounds will not heal quickly. He will try to put the events behind him later this month by giving his own post- hearings perspective in a brief televised speech. But more blows seem likely. The final report of the Senate and House select committees, due in early October, is certain to be highly critical.

Any new indictments by Independent Counsel Lawrence Walsh will draw fresh attention to the scandal, and some could very well fall close to the Oval Office. Reagan is known to be especially hurt by the revelation that his former personal assistant, David Fischer, took large payments for bringing potential contra contributors into the White House for presidential handshakes.

At a photo opportunity on Friday, Reagan made the baffling assertion that he had not "heard a single word" indicating that any crime was committed. That was a worrisome indication that he still may not understand what went on ! -- or may not want to. Two contra fund raisers have already pleaded guilty to a conspiracy to defraud the Government, and there has been clear evidence of destruction of official documents as well as probable unauthorized use of Government funds.

The affair has diverted the Administration from fashioning effective new policies, wasting the dwindling time that the President has left. It has emboldened Democratic presidential candidates to attack Reagan personally as an ineffective leader. Republican contenders, too, have been trying to distance themselves from Reagan now that his cloak of invincibility has slipped.

Yet Reagan's innate optimism, which remains largely intact despite three major operations since he entered the White House and minor surgery last week to remove a cancerous growth from his nose, could help him fight back. His overall approval rating in polls remains high (53% in the latest Gallup), and Wirthlin predicts it will rebound to 60% or so as attention swings away from the scandal. At the least, the President seems likely to remain a formidable, if diminished, player in the Administration's battles with Congress as he tries to pin down his place in history.

Reagan's impending clash with the Senate over Robert Bork's nomination to the Supreme Court is expected to be a dramatic showdown. "Most people in the Senate haven't made up their minds," contends Chief of Staff Howard Baker, "and I think that's good." He predicts Bork will be "an absolutely stunningly good witness." If Reagan wins, his legacy may well include a long- lasting conservative course for the court.

The revived public interest in the fate of the contras, stimulated by North's impassioned oratory, may give Congress second thoughts about again curtailing support for the rebels. This battle, too, could go either way, and Reagan will not be irrelevant to its outcome.

Nothing would revive the President's leadership more solidly than reaching agreement with the Soviet Union on a sweeping reduction in intermediate-range nuclear missiles. This would raise the remote possibility of a cutback in strategic missiles, whose numbers have continued to grow, albeit at a slower rate, under past treaties. However he may be diminished by his Iran-contra adventure, Ronald Reagan is unlikely to go down in history as a mere potted plant. In his final 16 months as President, he may yet carve out a more elevated niche.

With reporting by Laurence I. Barrett and Barrett Seaman/Washington