Letter from Washington

Over the July 4 weekend, Washington patio colloquy turned on 1) who the likely coke-traffickers and pederasts in Congress are, and 2) how George Shultz will alter power flows in the Reagan White House. The pending investigations of the page scandal by the Justice Department, D.C. police, and the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct mercifully permit us to dispense for the nonce with the unsavory (shall we say Weimarian?) Number One topic, leaving the Shultz accession for a bit of idle scrutiny now.

At present Ed Meese is Out and James Baker In. When Richard Allen was dislodged as National Security Advisor, William Clark accepted that post on condition that he would deal directly with the President, Allen having reported to Meese and Meese to Mr. Reagan. Clark’s direct access has had the effect of excluding Meese from foreignpolicy formulation. On the domestic side, Baker and his fleet-footed staff had meanwhile filled the scattered power vacuums left by Meese when he was brokering foreign policy, and Baker worked particularly smoothly with his economic soulmate, David Stockman. All of which meant that Ed Meese now finds himself as odd man out—in terms of being a policymaker, that is.

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Over the July 4 weekend, Washington patio colloquy turned on 1) who the likely coke-traffickers and pederasts in Congress are, and 2) how George Shultz will alter power flows in the Reagan White House. The pending investigations of the page scandal by the Justice Department, D.C. police, and the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct mercifully permit us to dispense for the nonce with the unsavory (shall we say Weimarian?) Number One topic, leaving the Shultz accession for a bit of idle scrutiny now.

At present Ed Meese is Out and James Baker In. When Richard Allen was dislodged as National Security Advisor, William Clark accepted that post on condition that he would deal directly with the President, Allen having reported to Meese and Meese to Mr. Reagan. Clark’s direct access has had the effect of excluding Meese from foreignpolicy formulation. On the domestic side, Baker and his fleet-footed staff had meanwhile filled the scattered power vacuums left by Meese when he was brokering foreign policy, and Baker worked particularly smoothly with his economic soulmate, David Stockman. All of which meant that Ed Meese now finds himself as odd man out—in terms of being a policymaker, that is.