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August 6, 1980
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by Jim Earle Speculation is mounting over
possible Reagan Cabinet choices
91
i J
“I’ve tried to get organized by writing down my phone number, student
number, social security number, license number, laundry number,
credit card numbers, zip code number, employee number, laboratory
number ... I think I’m worse off now than ever/”
Latin conservatives
banking on Reagan
by JUAN O. TAMAYO
United Press International
GUATEMALE CITY Guatemala — Rodolfo
Herrera is a middle-aged factory owner who
plans to buy a bottle of imported scotch on
Nov. 4, sit back in front of his television and
watch the U.S. presidential elections.
“I am going to get drunk,” he says with
determination, banging his fist on a restaurant
table for effect. “I’ll be celebrating if Ronald
Reagan wins — and drowning my sorrows if he
loses.”
Herrera like thousands of political conserva
tives and rightists in Central America is look
ing forward to a Reagan victory as the only way
to quash a rash of leftist revolutions in El
Salvador, Guatemala and Nicaragua.
To them, President Carter is only the inept
architect of a human rights policy that
alienated rightists — Washington’s traditional
allies in the region — yet failed to overcome
decades of leftist hatred of the United States.
Their hero is Reagan, the man they see as a
Cold War Warrior, who they think will erase
the Carter policies and support any anti
communist government regardless of its hu
man rights record.
That image was reinforced when Reagan
picked former CIA chief George Bush as his
running mate and when he was endorsed by
Sen. Jesse Helms, R-N.C., a harsh and stead
fast critic of Carter policies in Latin America.
Nowhere is the election’s outcome viewed
as more crucial than in El Salvador, where
Carter has singlehandedly kept in power a
military-civilian regime despite violent attacks
by leftist and rightist extremists that have
taken 3,400 lives since Jan. 1.
Rightists have staged several protests in
front of the U.S. Embassy and the residence of
Ambassador Robert White carrying signs such
as “Reagan Si, Carter No.” and “Down with
Human Rights.”
Roberto D’Aubuisson, an army intelligence
expert, blocked by Washington in two rightist
coup attempts against the junta, recently told
UPI he believes “things will change in Novem
ber because Reagan has a lot of sympathy for
us.”
Warped
STEVE GERSTEL
United Press International
WASHINGTON — With all the polls now show
ing him a runaway winner, it would be surprising if
Ronald Reagan’s thoughts do not sometimes drift to
the heady days after the election.
It is in the weeks following the election — the so-
called transition period — that a winning presiden
tial candidate chooses his official family and forms
his cabinet.
Only the choice of a vice presidential candidate
and the appointment of a Supreme Court justice
generate more speculation in the media and more
sweaty palms among contenders than the naming of
the members of a new Cabinet.
With some exceptions, Cabinet members come
from campuses, law firms, big business, state
houses, city hall or Congress.
Should Reagan win the election, he unquestion
ably would consider some members of Congress for
cabinet posts.
Yet Reagan could face a peculiar problem — one
to which he alluded in the first news conference
after his nomination.
There is a distinct possibility — should Reagan
achieve a coat-tail size win — that the Republicans
for the first time in a quarter of a century could take
control of the Senate and House.
If the GOP achieves this political triumph the
chances are the margin would be so narrow that
Reagan could not afford to take anyone from Con
gress lest he endanger the slim majority.
The greater probability however, is that the
Republicans will fall just short of taking control,
giving Reagan some room to maneuver in the event
there are one or more members of Congress he
believes would be more valuable in the executive
branch.
By far the biggest advantage in recruiting on
Capitol Hill is that members of Congress are
familiar with Washington and its intricate workings,
an experience that Reagan and his inner circle lack.
The biggest disadvantage is that they for the most
part lack background in running an enterprise the
size of a department usually coming straight to
Capitol Hill from private or low-level private life.
The recent past indicates members of Congress
are not regarded highly by presidents or presidents-
elect for the more important posts.
They seem never to be considered for treasury
secretary and only rarely for the posts of secretary of
state, secretary of defense or attorney general.
There have been exceptions in the last 20 or so
years.
The most recent was the naming by President
Carter of Sen. Edmund Muskie of Maine, a 22-year
Capitol Hill veteran, as secretary of state.
Although Muskie was a Carter favorite
beginning, the suspicion is that Carter pk I
for the prestige he brought to the job at i| I
delicate moment which followed the resign®
Cyrus Vance. 1
Other examples would be the selectionolfife
Nixon of Rep. Melvin Laird as secretary ofifi
and Sen. William Saxbe as attorney general
mer Sen. William Fullbright was widely met
as a possible secretary of state under ]
Kennedy.
But for the most part presidents-electhavel
members of Congress — and not manyattkj
the lesser Cabinet posts. And in thisareatl
have to compete with the obligatory seledi|
blacks and women.
Carter ,for instance, chose Rep. BrockAii
Washington for transportation and Rep.
land of Minnesota for the thankless agricultal
Rep. Andy Young of Georgia got thecabi«l|
post at the United Nations.
Nixon installed Rep. Rogers C. B. Mor
interior and Kennedy did the same to-orij
Rep. Stewart Udall of Arizona.
Based on recent precedent it would seeti
Reagan — if elected and not in danger ofll
the GOP on Capitol Hill — would pnM|
one or two members of Congress.
But not the the top fobs.
“I am personally enthusiastic about an op
portunity to reexamine the Carter policies,”
says Eduardo Palomo, head of the Private
Enterprise Association, and a key figure in
centrist-conservative politics.
Salvadoran leftists believe that even if
Reagan does not change U.S. policies toward
El Salvador, his mere election in November
could give D’Aubuisson and his followers the
boost they need to topple the junta.
The situation is much the same in neighbor
ing Guatemala, where Washington has pres
sured the military-led government to adopt
reforms that would stop a burgeoning war of
assassinations between leftist and rightist ex
tremists.
Washington recently announced U.S. Am
bassador Frank Ortiz would be pulled out
because he was too close to the government,
and be replaced by George Landau, the cur
rent envoy in Chile and a strong human rights
advocate.
“Carter is taking away a friend. Reagan
would give us another,” said Herrera, whose
factory has been bombed three times since
January — presumably by leftist employees
pressing for higher wages and benefits.
There are two places in Central America
however where Reagan is not so well liked.
In Panama he is remembered — and dis
liked — by almost everyone for his staunch
opposition to the Panama Canal treaties that
surrendered sole U.S. control of the waterway
and the surrounding Canal Zone.
And in Nicaragua Reagan is viewed as a man
who could cut off all U.S. financial aid to the
leftist Sandinista government recovering from
the 18-month war to topple rightist President
Anastasiuo Somozo.
Sandinista Junta member Moises Hassan
marking the first anniversary of the leftist
guerrillas’ victory said Reagan could unleash
on the world “a great wave of violence a great
wave of bloodshed. ”
In the same ceremonies, Gabriel Garcia
Marquez a leftist-leaning intellectual and au
thor of “One Hundred Years of Solitude”
dismissed Reagan as “a mere cowboy.”
Vfell, here -they come... Illegal aliens!”
Smoke-filled rooms still taboo
Politics and the air quality index
by DICK WEST
United Press International
WASHINGTON — Let’s assume for scenario
purposes that Democrats calling for an “open”
convention in New York next week prevail. What
then?
Some party leaders have expressed concern that
releasing delegates from commitments to specific
candidates could result in a return to the old-
fashioned “brokered” type of convention. I say such
fears are groundless.
Too many changes have taken place since the
days when party bosses sequestered themselves in
smoke-filled rooms to strike deals that produced the
presidential nominees.
For one thing hotel rooms are better ventilated
now.
It would take a heap o’ cigar-puffing to make a
hotel suite with a modern air-circulation system
smoky enough for political sell-outs and other
shabby bargains.
In their efforts to generate a sufficient amount of
tobacco effluvium, some of the power brokers
probably would over-aspirate themselves. And if
they did achieve the proper density, the hotel’s
smoke detectors would be activated, causing panic
in the corridor and alerting reporters to the where
abouts of the cabal.
Also, bear in mind that smoking habits them
selves have changed greatly since the era when
convention business was transacted at hazy con
claves.
Statistically, it is almost certain that a sizeable
percentage of any given group of power bloc
manipulators would be non-smokers, perhaps mili-
tantly so.
I suppose it theoretically would be possible for a
convention to be brokered in a room where political
string-pullers were wearing “Thanks For Not Smok
ing” buttons. But somehow it wouldn’t be the same.
This year’s Democrats probably have no ideolog
ical differences that couldn’t be resolved by some
backstage finagling among Carter backers, Kennedy
supporters and “alternate candidate” advocates. But
when you’ve got a group divided between smokers
and non-smokers, compromise becomes imposs
ible.
Many readers will recall the incident not long®
when an airliner had to make an unscheduW
landing because of a ruckus that erupted
smoker lit up in the non-smoking section.
Well, a similar rubarb could arise at a polit
convention. Only there is no place for a hotel
to land.
In the circumstances, the only peaceable arra»!
ment would be to put non-smoking power
in one suite and power brokers who smoke 1
another.
Peaceable, but hardly practicable.
The “dump Carter” forces who can’t do witM
tobacco might agree on Senator Jackson as If
compromise nominee. Meanwhile the “dump
strategists who can’t abide tobacco
ter
would be settling on Secretary of State Muskie | I
There are of course other means by which ;
“open” convention conceivably could shutout^
ter. But the changes of his getting dumped in
smoke-filled room are virtually nil.
by Scott McCullar
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