Word: troika
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...Meese often seems insensitive to political and public relations pitfalls. He has a tendency to hold back when aggressive action is necessary. His lax management of operations, when he gets into that, suggests that he should confine himself to his strong suit: counseling the President. Indeed, Reagan created the troika in the first place partly because good friends persuaded him that Meese could not serve as a single, powerful White House Chief of Staff. Meese's choice of aides often has been questionable, and though he had a reputation for a time as Reagan's "prime minister," White House insiders...
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...
...discussion group. It has met 35 times; issues are "round-tabled" (a White House buzz word) to give everyone a chance to sound off, and the President delivers what amounts to pep talks. But Reagan almost never announces a decision until he can discuss matters further with the troika and perhaps a few other aides. The President, says a close aide, fears that some Cabinet members are becoming captives of the bureaucracies they head...
...himself is not quite the detached Chairman of the Board of popular myth, or so his aides assert. They insist that he studies briefing papers longer and in more detail than the public ever suspects. The President can be fiercely decisive on matters that involve his ideological principles. The troika had to restrain him last August from announcing his decision to fire the striking air-traffic controllers until the strike had actually begun. Reagan has even been known to overrule a unanimous troika opinion on issues about which he feels deeply. The three all thought last summer that the Administration...