(3 of 4)
For Dukakis, a decision often begins with a staff-written memo, generally a few pages long. The next step is a meeting in which the Governor displays an almost obsessive concern that his staff has consulted virtually all points of view. This quest for consensus is likely to be a hallmark of a Dukakis presidency. "You won't see three people or eight people talking to Dukakis; there will be hundreds," predicts Keefe. "Maybe there'll be three people sitting around at the end of the day, but even they won't have a monopoly on input." Unlike Carter, Dukakis has painfully learned to delegate responsibility. "Michael won't waste time deciding who gets to use the White House tennis court," says a longtime associate. "His principal concern would be why do members of my staff have time to play tennis?"
When Dukakis embarked on his quest more than a year ago, he knew little and cared less about foreign policy. In the words of a close friend, "This was a man who had never heard of a D-5 missile before March 1987." Although he has recently grown more adept, Dukakis' early campaign appearances did nothing to quiet concerns that foreign policy was his personal window of vulnerability. A deep moralistic streak prompted Dukakis to stress rule-of-law pieties: he argued that aid to the contras violated the Rio treaty and lamented the failure of the U.N. Security Council to halt the Iran-Iraq war.
For all the tumult over Dukakis' mastery of foreign policy flash cards, the initiatives he would be likely to pursue as President are right out of the Democratic Party mainstream. There would be an immediate effort to pick up on arms-control negotiations with the Soviet Union wherever the Reagan Administration left off. "We want to avoid the historical pattern of wait- and-see delay that happens with presidential transitions," says Edley. At the same time, advisers like Robert Murray of the Kennedy School sound a note of realistic caution. "What you don't do," explains Murray, "is to march off to Moscow with a new set of rules about relationships." Dukakis' own words about Mikhail Gorbachev sometimes betray a palpable eagerness to negotiate face to face, one economic reformer to another. This aspect of the candidate's world view was best expressed by Brountas when he said, "He's dying to get across the table from Gorbachev and see what the problems are, to get to know him, to discuss their mutual hopes."
A bit more predictable are Dukakis' attitudes toward the defense budget. As a candidate, he has ritualistically denounced Star Wars, the B-1 bomber and the MX missile, the D-5 Trident missile and even the proposed mobile Midgetman, a darling of centrist arms-control advocates. But he has scrupulously avoided the beguiling trap of promising dovish Democratic voters cuts in overall military spending. Rather, Edley speaks in terms of keeping the defense budget "stable," and Murray uses the phrase "zero real growth." After talking to Senator Sam Nunn last year, Dukakis began emphasizing the need to improve conventional forces rather than build new strategic systems. But none of his top advisers believe that he could instantly reorient spending. As Edley explains, "It's very hard at the outset to be bold with the defense budget."