Midterm Exam

By WILLIAM A. HENRY III

GAMBLING WITH HISTORY by Laurence I. Barrett Doubleday; 511 pages; $19.95

For all the affability of Ronald Reagan as a man, Washington journalists consider his a closed presidency. Aides have repeatedly tightened opportunities for reporters to ask Reagan impromptu questions. Ranking officials sometimes pride themselves on being unhelpful, and--in a futile White House attempt to stem unwanted leaks--for a time all but half a dozen of them were to be barred from talking off the record. Nonetheless, Laurence I. Barrett seems to have established access to the President and his men and to have got them to open up.

Barrett's midterm report on the Reagan Administration has already prompted news coverage of unknown or underreported events. A Reagan "mole" obtained President Carter's point-by-point strategy for the candidates' televised debate. Aide Richard Darman spirited away copies of constitutional documents to keep the Cabinet from weighing Reagan's fitness to hold office after he was shot. White House Chief of Staff James Baker, then manager of George Bush's presidential campaign, announced Bush's withdrawal from the California primary without consulting the candidate. But the book offers more than nuggets of scandal.

After covering the Republican campaign, Barrett was named TIME'S White House correspondent in 1981. Familiarity with the Reagan team certainly did not breed contempt in him; neither did it render him unwilling to make tough judgments. He depicts Presidential Counsellor Edwin Meese as deceitful and ineffectual, Deputy Chief of Staff Michael Deaver as a plodding loyalist, National Security Adviser William Clark as a tough conniver, and Chief of Staff Baker as a game player with few deeply held beliefs.

Barrett is equally candid about Reagan, whom he admires and expects to run again. As the book's title implies, Barrett sees Reagan as intuitive, at times impulsive. He discerns shortcomings even in the man's virtues: the President's belief in personal charity obstructs his understanding of the need for Government-run social justice programs; his boundless optimism can make him unable to hear, let alone accept, bad news on budget deficits. Though Barrett insists that Reagan is complex, the book portrays a man whose views are based largely on personal experience and whose approach to issues can be disarmingly simple: in dealing with the Soviets, for example, Reagan tends to equate diplomacy with weakness.

The book is not a string of pronouncements: Barrett has a gift for getting people to talk. Even the President's taciturn brother Neil confessed to their lifelong competition in macho stoicism: "I don't give him credit for taking a deep breath, and he won't give me credit for taking a deep breath."

As a chronology of Reagan's first two years, Gambling with History is best on the budget, tax legislation, the Middle East, the Administration's relations with minorities, and the tempestuous personal and policy struggles of former Secretary of State Alexander Haig. Some matters are given only glancing treatment: the firestorm over Reagan's attempt to appoint Foundation Executive Ernest Lefever as Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights rates but a couple of sentences, even though Barrett says the nomination was evidence that the Reagan team did not care about humanitarian concerns. Barrett notes that after former Aide Lyn Nofziger criticized a Reagan bill, he was brought back to the White House to manage publicity on the measure; the book leaves the reader to guess whether Nofziger was needed or whether the Reaganauts just wanted to get him off the case. These flaws are minor: Barrett is detailed, comprehensive and seemingly unawed by his sources. He has managed to make yesterday's headlines coherent and compelling.

--By William A. Henry III This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.