Reagan's Left-Hand man

By William R. Doerner

Richard Darman joins the inner circle

Half an hour before Ronald Reagan was scheduled to discuss the nation's money supply with Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, the President's top aides came into the Oval Office to give a last-minute briefing. While Treasury Secretary Donald Regan and White House Chief of Staff James Baker watched approvingly, Richard Darman went over a typed page containing concise answers to six questions that he expected Volcker to pose. Reagan paid close attention to Darman's script.

A lot of people, both inside and out side the Administration, are paying close attention these days to the bright and ambitious Darman, 40, who had never even met Reagan prior to the 1980 election and who is an anomaly among Reagan's hard-right constituency. In the shake-out of White House responsibilities created by the departure of Presidential Counsellor Edwin Meese, Reagan's last ideological soul mate in the West Wing, Darman continued his steady, determined rise into the inner circle. Says Deputy Chief of Staff Michael Deaver: "Dick Darman is one of the most powerful people here. He has made an incredible contribution to this presidency."

Darman is scheduled shortly to move from his quarters in the White House basement to an office just outside Reagan's. That physical proximity will aid Darman in one of his principal duties, overseeing the day-to-day paper flow to and from the President.

The new line-up will also give Darman's mentor Baker a chance to consolidate the making of policy, which Meese nominally controlled, with political and legislative strategies. For the past three weeks, at Baker's behest, Darman has coordinated a daily 7:30 breakfast meeting in the White House mess that brought the previously bifurcated realms of the Executive apparatus together on an effective basis for the first time since Reagan took office. As a result of the changes, predicts a senior Administration official, "we'll be less inclined to go with off-the-wall stuff that cannot be implemented."

Darman's ascendancy is all the more intriguing for his Eastern Establishment background. The oldest child of a New England industrialist, Darman earned his B. A. and a master's degree in business administration from Harvard and entered Government during the Nixon years under the tutelage of his fellow Brahmin, Elliot Richardson. Darman's various jobs in five Cabinet departments included a stint at Commerce, where he impressed Baker, then an Assistant Secretary, with his ability to analyze vast tangles of information. Baker chose Darman in 1981 as his assistant, says Press Spokesman Larry Speakes, because the Chief of Staff "regards Dick as brighter than himself or the rest of us put together."

With brains, however, come doubts, even private torment, about some of the rigidly conservative aspects of the Reagan agenda. Indeed, while he and Budget Director David Stockman were plotting ways to win passage of the massive 1981 tax cut. Darman had deep reservations about a policy that he thought, correctly, would create huge deficits. He justifies his support for those cuts by arguing, "It was strategically important that the capacity to govern be demonstrated." He also coordinated White House efforts to win congressional approval for placing the Marines in Lebanon, even though he internally opposed that decision. Indeed, Darman is at fundamental odds with the Republican Party's right wing, and with Reagan himself, in believing that effectively managed social programs can be an important force for good in U.S. society.

While moderates view Darman as a welcome balancing force, conservatives see him as a liberal mole. Says Conservative Columnist M. Stanton Evans: "He has undermined the Reagan agenda." Even a sympathetic co-worker admits that "Dick would feel comfortable working in a Democratic Administration." Friends label him a Government junkie, an operator who hopes to spend most of his life working at the top levels of Washington officialdom.

Darman bristles at the suggestion that he is an ambitious mercenary who works for Reagan only to be at the center of power. "Basically, I'm committed to public service," he contends. "I am a long-term idealist and a short-term realist." He says that he supports the Reagan revolution as "an important corrective" to stop America from drifting too far from a workable free-market economy. "If I had to go home too many nights and tell my self that what I am doing is not right, I could not continue doing this."

Ideology aside, Darman's laser-like political foresight has served his boss well.

His supreme self-confidence (he is doubt less the only White House official who cuts his own hair) is accompanied by a razor-sharp intellect. In 1982, during the impending crisis in Social Security funding, Darman suggested forming a bipartisan commission to put the system on more solid financial footing. Currently he is heavily in volved in the White House negotiations with Congress on ways to find a "down payment" on the U.S. deficit. Says Deaver: "Darman is the best strategist in the White House when it comes to dealing with Congress." He can, however, be abrasive; some key legislators have advised the White House to keep Darman away from Capitol Hill. "Dick is more comfortable dealing with ideas than people," says one close colleague.

Darman is unusually sensitive to anything that might be perceived as a slight within the pecking order. An aide recalls that Darman became seriously upset when his name was omitted from the official manifest at the funeral of Nancy Reagan's father in Arizona in 1982. His brilliance and ambition are often translated into a scorching impatience with underlings who are inefficient or who he feels are mediocre.

Darman surprised his closest associates last year by lobbying against a contingency tax in crease, when some insiders had hoped the President would push to lower the deficit.

Some charge that stance was an opportunistic move to make peace with conservative critics. In fact, Darman believes there will be enough economic pressure to force a "big fix" after the elections. That would come in the form of the "tax simplification plan," which would raise money by ending most loopholes and deductions while lowering tax rates. Reagan mentioned it in his State of the Union speech after Darman advocated the idea.

The plan's details are far from clear, but colleagues could not help noticing that Darman has already placed a green file folder on his office worktable with the notation, "The Reagan Revolution:

Phase 2." --By William R. Doerner. Reported by Douglas Brew/Washington

With reporting by Douglas Brew