The Presidency

By Hugh Sidey

As one of Washington's pre-eminent power brokers slid through the remote corridors of the White House last week, he had three separate encounters with members of George Bush's staff. Each of them whispered, "Where is Nancy when we need her?"

The Nancy in question is Nancy Reagan, who was credited in 1987 with using her well-shod foot to loft the self-important chief of staff, Donald Regan, out of the White House. Her husband, like virtually all other Presidents, had been trying to avoid the distasteful task of firing a helper and friend whose insensitivity was damaging the nation.

A similar boot in the behind is now in order for Bush's chief of staff, John Sununu. His abuse of public facilities and trust and George Bush's presidency is just wrong. His apologies and contrition are shams. Sununu has shot himself in both feet and some other parts, has diminished a talented and devoted White House staff, and has insulted the intelligence of Bush and now the country.

The evolution of this third-rate scandal has been astonishing. What only a few weeks ago amounted to no more than a few snickers about Air Sununu has turned into a reflection on whether Bush has the guts to set his house in order.

About 90% of the White House staff is in muted rebellion against Sununu. Members of Congress with few exceptions are in open contempt. The power establishment in the capital doesn't want Sununu around. Some Republican Party donors are talking about buttoning up their wallets if Sununu remains in office. Having an abominable no-man in the presidential apparatus can be a virtue, but there often comes a moment when firing the fellow is even more of a virtue -- perhaps a necessity.

As Bush fled Washington for Kennebunkport, Me., last weekend, he was displaying his vaunted loyalty to subordinates. But there is another side to Bush that emerges, albeit reluctantly, when he thinks the national interest is being harmed. It was Bush, as Republican National Committee chairman back in the summer of 1974, who looked across the Cabinet table at Richard Nixon and made it plain that he ought to resign for the good of the country. It was Bush, as Vice President, who summoned Regan to his office in 1987 and put the final pressure on him to leave, enduring Regan's tirade but never yielding.

Every day, managers across America must summon the courage to let inept subordinates go, but somehow occupants of the Oval Office seem unable to deliver the bad news. In 1958 Dwight Eisenhower endured the turmoil surrounding his chief aide, Sherman Adams, accused of taking favors from wealthy industrialist Bernard Goldfine. Then one day Ike decided he had to make "the hardest, most hurtful decision" he had ever made and fire Adams. Even then he could not do it face-to-face. He summoned Republican National Committee chairman Meade Alcorn and handed him "the dirtiest job I could give you." Alcorn delivered the word to Adams, his friend and fellow Dartmouth graduate.

Try as they may, sometimes Presidents cannot pass that unpleasant buck. When Nixon implored his old friend and Secretary of State William Rogers to order the resignation of White House aides John Ehrlichman and H.R. Haldeman, caught up in the Watergate scandal, Rogers refused, telling Nixon he should do it himself. There followed one of the age's grand political soap operas, with teary meetings, prayers and arguments. But Nixon did it. Later he would recall the words of Britain's heroic Prime Minister William Gladstone: "The first essential for a Prime Minister is to be a good butcher."

Easier quoted than done. Jimmy Carter came down from his meditations on Camp David's mountaintop in 1979 determined to recast his stalled Administration by making a few changes in his Cabinet. "I dreaded this duty," he wrote later. Carter softened the task by gathering his Cabinet and asking them all to offer their resignations for consideration as he reordered things. Bad idea, he later admitted, after he had accepted the resignations of Treasury Secretary Mike Blumenthal, HEW Secretary Joseph Califano and Energy Secretary James Schlesinger. He should have done it quickly and individually.

Give belated credit once again to the unheralded Jerry Ford. Having trouble with the strong-willed James Schlesinger, who then was Secretary of Defense, Ford called him in one Sunday morning in 1975 and asked for his resignation. Give credit to Schlesinger, who refused to resign and insisted he be fired. Ford obliged.

It is a curious and somewhat ironic commentary on high government that the designated roughnecks like Adams and Sununu often end up as victims of the terrible swift sword that they loved to wield so much. Adams by all accounts enjoyed laying about in righteous fervor in the name of national interest. And Sununu relished summoning the hapless Secretary of Education Lauro Cavazos to his office and giving him the heave-ho for the greater glory of Bush, who stayed away from the execution. Perhaps the power these men are given breeds in some ways the arrogance that leads them into trouble. There is only one man who can correct it: the President.