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Policy differences aggravated, and were aggravated by, the personal hassles. Haig, who was chief assistant to Henry Kissinger on Nixon's National Security Council staff, is a devoted believer in the "Atlanticist" school of diplomacy, which insists that the U.S. must always try to act in concert with its European allies and favor a carefully calibrated mixture of carrots and sticks in dealing with the Soviet Union. In contrast, most of the Californians around Reagan—and to some extent the President himself—instinctively tend to follow a hard, unyielding line toward Moscow, backed up by military muscle, whether U.S. allies agree or not. The leading exponent of this view is Weinberger, who in recent months has openly criticized Haig's policies on everything from the repayment of delinquent Polish debts to the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, with no attempt by the President to quiet him. The intense, high-strung Haig was worried constantly, and with reason, that the laid-back Californians had far easier and more intimate access to Reagan than he ever would.
For all that, Haig usually managed to prevail on policy. Indeed, even his relations with the White House staff seemed to be improving early this year. The reason was Reagan's appointment of Clark as National Security Adviser to replace Richard Allen. Haig regarded Allen as a "guerrilla" who was sniping at him from the White House. Clark, a former California judge and longtime intimate of Reagan, had originally been brought into the Administration as No. 2 at the State Department, largely to serve as a trouble-shooter between Haig and the White House. He nonetheless worked amicably and effectively with Haig and managed to smooth out relations somewhat between the Secretary of State and Reagan's Californians. Haig welcomed Clark's appointment as National Security Adviser, and not only because Allen was gone. Haig had encountered great difficulty in penetrating the "troika" arrangement at the White House, under which Meese, Baker and Deputy Chief of Staff Michael Deaver share authority; he could never figure out whom to see. With Clark in the White House, Haig thought, his views would get a quicker and fuller hearing.
The appointment soon turned out to have the exact opposite result. Clark, says one former Haig lieutenant, "is a man who has no fixed address. He will serve whichever boss he happens to be working for"—and Clark has worked for Reagan a lot longer than he did for Haig. He is convinced that Reagan must put his personal stamp on foreign policy rather than let his Secretary of State run the show. And he is turning into an exceptionally potent National Security Adviser, even though he had no foreign policy experience whatever before he came to Washington. Clark has unlimited personal access to Reagan and can speak for the President within the bureaucracy far more powerfully than Haig could—sometimes without checking with Reagan in advance.