Jesse Plays the Front Man White House opposition dooms an arms-control nomination
North Carolina's Republican Senator Jesse Helms, a gadfly of the right, thought he had finally won a congressional victory last week. Thwarted in every attempt on the Hill to advance his "social issues" agenda—banning abortion, reinstating prayer in public schools, ending the busing of students to desegregate schools—into real legislation, he has appointed himself as a special Senate watchdog on presidential nominations, one who is ever on the alert for signs of ideological deviation. Early in the Reagan Administration, Helms was able to delay confirmation of a few State Department officials whom he considered squishy-soft on Communism. But once the White House pushed a bit, Reagan and the Senate rolled right over the Senator's opposition. "Helms is considered a paper tiger on the Hill," scoffs one Administration official.
He may still be, but last week he was celebrating an unofficial White House decision to back away from support for Robert Grey, a career State Department official who had been nominated by Reagan as Deputy Director of the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency. It was Grey's longtime association with Eugene Rostow, who heads the agency, and his brief service as an administrative assistant to California's liberal Democratic Senator Alan Cranston that inspired Helms to threaten the Senate leadership with a ten-hour filibuster to block confirmation. In Helms' view, even the hawkish President was not selecting tried and true conservatives to the arms negotiating posts. In a sudden twist, the White House gave up the fight and is expected to withdraw Grey's name.
Helms' triumph was something of an illusion. He had considerable help from Senate Republican leaders, who were edgy at the thought of a Helms filibuster. In addition, Republican Senators Malcolm Wallop and Orrin Hatch were going after the nomination of Richard Burt, whose appointment as Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs has been pending for nearly four months. Both Hatch and Helms claim that in 1979 Burt, then a New York Times correspondent in Washington, revealed classified information in his paper. For that, Hatch and Helms contend Burt should be disqualified from a sensitive post at State. As a result, the Senate leadership set the nomination aside.
Helms, indeed, was cleverly used by White House aides, who have been unhappy with Rostow's performance as ACDA head. They sought to put him in his place by dumping Grey, even if that should prompt Rostow's resignation. "Rostow drives the West Wing up a wall," says one Administration official, claiming he intrudes into policy issues that do not involve his office and once even sent a written critique to the President about the Administration's Middle East policy. Rostow, who was recuperating from a hip operation in Connecticut, telephoned National Security Adviser William Clark to complain about Grey's fate. But he did not seem angry enough to quit.