Adviser Clark grows in influence, but influence for what?
For as long as he has worked with Ronald Reagan, William Patrick Clark has had the job of troubleshooter. In 1967, when Reagan was Governor of California, he appointed Clark his chief of staff during an early crisis; thereafter Clark kept the Governor's office meticulously organized. In 1981, as Deputy Secretary of State, Clark worked to smooth Secretary of State Alexander Haig's high-strung relations with the White House. Finally, when Clark replaced Richard Allen as Reagan's National Security Adviser in January of last year, the common reaction in Washington was relief: a bland but efficient mediator had been brought in to straighten out a floundering operation. The staff was demoralized, and Allen was paralyzed by charges that he had improperly accepted gifts from Japanese acquaintances.
More than a year later Clark seems to have created more troubles. The Administration faces growing difficulties with Central America, the Middle East and Peking, and major political problems with U.S. allies in Europe and Congressmen on the Hill. Clark's job is to help devise solutions, but he has become, in many eyes, part of the problem. Instead of shaping or refining the President's raw, conservative instincts, Clark seems determined to let Reagan be Reagan, regardless of the fallout. Clark exercises as much influence as anyone in the Administration over military and foreign policy decisions.
The question is to what coherent purpose that new influence is being put. Clark says he is simply an expediter and administrator, in charge of coordinating national security advice coming in from Foggy Bottom, the Pentagon, the CIA and his own National Security Council (NSC) staff. Indeed, the former (Reagan-appointed) California Supreme Court justice most prides himself on his manifest neutrality and fairness. "I think I've been able to do what I tried to do, and that is act like a judge," Clark says. "I try to run meetings like my old courtroom, giving no opinions myself unless specifically requested."
In contrast with intellectually forceful predecessors like Henry Kissinger and Zbigniew Brzezinski, Clark does not operate a rump State Department in the White House basement. "I don't have my own agenda separate from the President's," says the soft-spoken aide. He has consolidated his authority by bringing a surface placidity and orderliness to the NSC office. Memos flow smoothly.
But Clark has no training in the substance of the memos. Indeed, he seems to be, in the uncomplimentary phrase of one White House aide, "content-free." He is conservative, but his ideological inclinations are visceral and seldom fine-tuned. Clark, a close friend of Reagan's, mainly seems to reinforce the President's rightward tendencies. On those rare occasions when he does come down hard on one side of an issue, Clark seems too emphatic, as if he seeks to be decisive for the sake of decisiveness. Says a senior State Department official: "He makes decisions that only he thinks have been fully thought out."