Reagan nearly completes his Cabinet and selects Allen for NSC
All along, the President-elect had made plain that he wanted to fill his Government with individuals whose portfolios were already stamped with success. Amateurs and the unproven ambitious need not apply, though the proof of prior competence need not be in Government service. That meant, as Reagan knew, a step down for some—and too big a step for a few he wanted. But with the naming of five more Cabinet officers and two principal White House aides last week, Reagan's top offices were filled except for a handful of posts, including Secretary of Education and Special Trade Representative. The new selections: Jeane Kirkpatrick, professor of government at Georgetown University, as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations; Denver Lawyer James Watt, an advocate of oil and gas development of wilderness lands, as Secretary of the Interior; Samuel Pierce, a black attorney and labor mediator hi New York, as Secretary of Housing and Urban Development; John Block, Illinois director of agriculture, as Secretary of Agriculture; and former South Carolina Governor James Edwards as Secretary of Energy. In addition, Reagan named Richard Allen to head the National Security Council and Martin Anderson Domestic Affairs Adviser on his White House staff.
Together with his previously announced appointments, the group by and large met Reagan's test of demonstrated ability and constituted an interesting mix of experience and temperament. Several of the appointees are members in good standing of the Establishment, and five even attended that citadel of Eastern elitism, Harvard: Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger, Treasury Secretary Donald Regan, Attorney General William French Smith, Transportation Secretary Drew Lewis, Management and Budget Director David Stockman. A few have had Washington experience: Secretary of State Alexander Haig, Weinberger, Kirkpatrick and Watt. Others are outsiders: Secretary of Labor Raymond Donovan, Block and Edwards. The Cabinet is also divided between managers such as Regan and Weinberger and conceptualizers like Kirkpatrick and Stockman, who can be counted on for new, and maybe arresting, ideas.
In his White House post, Anderson is expected to produce policies that will probably do more to contract than expand Government. A member of the conservative Hoover Institution who once served as special presidential assistant in the Nixon White House, Anderson is an expert on welfare. He argues that the system now traps the poor in a cycle of dependency but cannot be radically altered. Instead, he believes that it must be gradually changed through tougher eligibility standards and work requirements.