Warblers, Wrens and Hawks

By Hugh Sidey

The Presidency

It is dawn along the Potomac River. James R. Schlesinger, ex-Secretary of Energy, former Secretary of Defense, former CIA chief, former AEC chairman, stands beside the marshes in a golden silence as old as earth. Mallards rise into the sun. Indigo buntings flit in the trees and goldfinches play below. Says Schlesinger with rare emotion, "Look, a long-billed marsh wren." He raises his binoculars, studies the scene for long seconds, breathing cool morning air, humbled by the beauty before him in a way that his old adversaries in power never succeeded in humbling him.

For more than a decade Schlesinger was at the center of the nation's drama, court philosopher and iconoclast, a man with big-fisted ideas of leadership oddly matched with a Swiss-watch mind. He is out of phase, decompressing (sort of) as the political pace quickens. He was fired by one President, sensed the time to depart another. A rare repository of current history, Schlesinger is taking long looks at the world on these autumn days.

He twists his head as he hears the greeting of a white-eyed vireo. Then he follows the flight of a parula warbler. Already he has spotted 22 different birds and the sun is barely over the trees.

"Can we have a system that works with two equal centers of power?" Schlesinger asks, his eyes absorbing the graceful arcs of a broad-winged hawk, his mind back on Washington.

Obviously, he does not think so. The old Rooseveltian compromise, in which Congress let the President meet emergencies, has broken down. Today, Congress demands an equal voice. Right now Schlesinger sees our constitutional system as a road map to frustration. "It may require an external shock to set it straight," he says. "It may be a major foreign policy setback, and then the public will insist that we have cohesion in Government. I just hope such a shock is not fatal. The 1980s will be a tune of severe peril."

Schlesinger sees a breakdown in discipline in the Executive structure of Government. The press is in a destructive mood, he believes. "It comes because of disappointment with Government," he says. "L.B.J. had a lot to do with it, loading on all of those Government programs. J.F.K. raised foreign policy expectations. All of this created grand illusions that all problems are solvable. All problems are not solvable."

"Quick," he blurts. "A redheaded woodpecker. It's a beautiful thing." A Carolina wren intrudes, followed by a kestrel. It is a birders' ecstasy for a few minutes--a blue-winged teal, a pectoral sandpiper, a black-bellied plover.

"We are not going to be a great power if we keep going as we are," Schlesinger says. "The Soviet Union's intentions are not benign. So many people grew up after the Berlin crisis. They would not accept the true face of Communism in Hanoi and elsewhere. It used to be so much fun to discover our own moral defects. It is not so much fun any longer. These people labored under the notion that if we were sufficiently lovable, others would be drawn to us. Our young had so much security in the postwar world that they felt it was the order of nature, that nothing needed to be done to preserve it. It does not work that way. There must be respect, even tinged with fear."

Schlesinger falls silent, his glasses turned upward as a common egret, snowy in the bright light, floats over the shore. The glories of approaching fall along the Potomac seem to bring out an even greater awareness of danger in this singular man than he displayed in office.

"The new generation of Soviet leaders will be more inclined to use the awesome power they have accumulated," he says. "We entice the Soviets to take action. They misunderstand our positions. The United States is not giving the signals of determination it should any place in the world."

Two turkey vultures, hanging on new thermals, tilt their wings, looking for food. Schlesinger studies them silently. They make his point about the rituals of survival. Especially in moments of apparent tranquillity.

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