Word: deaver
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...three invariably occupy the same positions: Baker at the head of the table, Deaver on his right, Meese on his left. But no one presides; they just talk. TIME White House Correspondent Laurence I. Barrett, attending a breakfast last week, observed that they began exchanging papers and ticking off items on the day's schedule even before a steward served the first course (cantaloupe for Meese and Baker, grapefruit for Deaver). Early though it was, all three had read the White House daily news summary. Deaver and Baker expressed concern about attacks on the Administration's prospective new budget cuts...
Long familiarity enables the three to talk in a kind of clipped shorthand, and on occasion they even finish each other's sentences. Over the second course (cold cereal for Baker and Meese, a Western omelet for Deaver) the breakfast talk turned to a prospective White House order allowing striking members of the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization to be hired for some Government jobs (though not again as controllers). Meese suggested some precise lawyerly language. Said Baker: "I think the PATCO stuff came out . . . " Deaver finished: ". . . just the way it should have...
...three nonetheless are distinct personalities who have carved out different niches for themselves. Meese, a former prosecutor who rarely shows strain or annoyance, prides himself on being the principal policy man. He summarizes issues and possible choices at Cabinet meetings and in sessions with Reagan. Says Deaver: "He is superb at articulating options, synthesizing views." Meese runs meetings with wry humor. At one session the troika had with several Cabinet members, all participants agreed, following a wearying debate, on a paper that summarized positions Reagan would take with Third World leaders at the North-South conference in Cancun. But Secretary...
Serious dissension within the troika, in turn, could be paralyzing to the Reagan Administration. Below the top group, talent is disquietingly thin, even though the staff is deceptively large. There are about 350 people on the White House staff; about 40 report to Deaver and 25 to Meese. That most of the others are in Baker's jurisdiction is no accurate guide to his influence...
...White House aides have shown drive and ability. Assistants to the President Craig Fuller, a Deaver protégé who now works under Meese, and Richard Darman, a Baker choice, operate so closely with the troika, passing policy recommendations up and presidential instructions down, that the five in effect constitute a powerful group that has no name and no official existence. Fuller uses an elaborate computerized tracking system to keep tab on all issues moving through the White House machinery. Darman, who first suggested the Legislative Strategy Group, has made himself the master of all paper going to Reagan; he does...