Bless Me, Father

By DAN GOODGAME

He is 64 years old and the leader of all he surveys, yet for a moment last week George Bush looked like a schoolboy called before the principal to discuss his report card. Perched nervously on a beige sofa in Ronald Reagan's Los Angeles office, Bush held the tip of his tongue between his lips, smiling thinly as the old President blandly pronounced that the new President is "doing just fine."

Bush looked decidedly relieved when Reagan brushed aside reporters' questions about the dilution of Reagan policies on Star Wars and military aid to the Nicaraguan contras. "Well," Reagan said cautiously, "having had for eight years some of the same problems he's facing now, I'm not going to comment on that."

Reagan's praise was faint, and the body language between the two men, as ever, betrayed discomfort. Nevertheless, Bush's advisers felt he had accomplished a major purpose of his visit: to shore up his crucial and complex relationship with his predecessor and, by extension, with Reagan's loyalists on the Republican right. As Bush jetted last week from Chicago to San Jose to Miami, pointing with pride to the accomplishments of his first 100 days, he and his aides stressed their "continuity" with Reagan and felt obliged to deny the obvious: embedded in their accomplishments are subtle but distinct breaks with Reagan and the right. Among them:

Star Wars. Bush and several of his top advisers view with skepticism Reagan's expensive vision of a high-tech shield from enemy missiles. The 1990 budget agreement cuts funding for the program to $4.6 billion from Reagan's proposed $5.9 billion.

Contras. Reagan hailed the rebels fighting Nicaragua's Marxist government as "the moral equivalent of our Founding Fathers" and sent them overt and covert military support. Bush and Secretary of State James Baker, however, immediately abandoned the nigh hopeless goal of supplying them with more guns and bullets and, instead, struck a deal with Congress to provide continued food and housing assistance, pending elections promised by Nicaragua's junta.

Arms Control. At the Reykjavik summit in 1986, Reagan stunned many of his advisers and allies by embracing the elimination of all nuclear weapons, a move that would expose Western Europe to the Warsaw Pact's overwhelming numerical superiority in troops and tanks. Bush has expressed far less enthusiasm for nuclear-weapons reductions and has suggested they may have to be conditioned on cuts in Soviet conventional forces.

The Budget. Reagan relished sending Congress what one senior aide called "a go-to-hell budget" laden with domestic-spending cuts patently unacceptable to the Democrats. Bush declared at his Inauguration, "The American people didn't send us here to bicker." He drew up a less contentious proposal and, by managing to persuade congressional leaders to accept his overly optimistic economic assumptions, struck a deal by mid-April.

The Environment. Reagan, who was famous for asserting that trees cause pollution, cut back on environmental protection. After declaring in his campaign, "I am an environmentalist," Bush has appointed a respected conservationist to head the EPA; called for the elimination of chlorofluorocarbons, which harm the ozone layer; promised action on a clean- air package and restrictions on acid rain; and proposed adding a mile per gallon to federal mileage standards for motor vehicles.

Gun Control. Reagan opposed it. Bush, too, is against new federal gun- control laws, but he responded to police and public pressure for controls on military-style assault weapons by banning the imported (though not U.S.-made) semiautomatic rifles.

Bush's aides argue that these differences are a matter of approach and attitude rather than intent. "President Bush has not suddenly turned Democrat or liberal," says press secretary Marlin Fitzwater. "He shares the same goals as President Reagan, but like anyone, he has his own style." Bush also has a different hand to play. His party does not control either house of Congress. He was elected with no specific mandate. He lacks Reagan's gift for rallying public support via television, and the budget crunch leaves him few goodies to trade for political support. Says a senior Bush official who also served under Reagan: "This Administration can't afford ideological posturing."

Chief of staff John Sununu adds, "We're less interested in looking good than in getting results . . . and we're willing to work very closely with Congress to get results." That is where Bush uses tools Reagan never had: energy, intense interest and background in the details of policy and long- standing personal ties to lawmakers and other Washington insiders.

The usual Bush method of dealmaking with Congress is to straddle an issue and give something to everybody. Typical was last week's decision to pursue development of both the mobile MX missile and the Midgetman. Either one alone would serve the nation's security needs, but both have strong supporters in Congress. This method smacks of perfidious pragmatism to one of the few papers Reagan is known to read and enjoy, the conservative weekly Human Events, which bristles with articles critical of the new Administration. "I do not think President Bush's concept of the presidency can work," writes Patrick Buchanan, communications director in the Reagan White House. "Americans care much more about ideas and ideals than about 'bipartisanship' or political peace."

A more personal barb came from columnist George Will, who has close ties to the Reagans. He noted archly that when Bush returned from his February trip to Asia, he called to consult with former President Jimmy Carter rather than Reagan. That may explain Bush's eagerness last week to recruit Reagan for special diplomatic missions to Asia and elsewhere.

Meanwhile, another former Republican President, Richard Nixon, urged Bush to stop his staff from contrasting his hands-on energy with Reagan's well-known sloth and detachment. Bush, whose politeness is legendary, was furious that anyone on his payroll would blurt such disrespectful truths. One senior Bushman who had also worked for Reagan felt obliged to write to Nancy Reagan (with a copy to President Bush) denying he had bad-mouthed her husband.

This need to look over his shoulder prevents Bush from taking as much credit as he might for his early successes. "If they draw too much attention to this approach of taking what you can get from the Democrats in Congress," says a Bush adviser outside Government, "they're going to attract more fire from the conservatives." Instead, Bush will soon emphasize his toughness on two issues dear to the right: his veto strategy to "hold the line" on the minimum wage and his plan to build more prison cells. As a wry college coach once put it, the trick is to keep the alumni "sullen but not mutinous." A few outright partisan victories might help.

With reporting by Michael Duffy/Washington.