WHO'S AMBITIOUS?

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP99-00498R000100010062-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 20, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 19, 2007
• Sequence Number: 62
• Publication Date: November 22, 1975
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Approved For Release 2007/06/19: CIA-RDP99-00498R000100010062-5
THE ECONOMIST
22-28 November 1975
Appointments
Who
ambitious?
Washington. DC
Mr Gerald Ford's recent rearrangement;
of his cabinet and national security'
apparatus seemed to have little to do;
with policy and a great deal to do with'
the presidential politics of :1976. Byl
assigning new jobs to Mr Donald Rums-1
feld, Mr George Bush and Mr Elliot
Richardson, Mr Ford may have . been
trying to set up all of them as potential
vice-presidential candidates-thus giv
ing various elements within the Repub-
lican party hope that their man might
win the second spot on the ballot at the
convention in Kansas City next summer..
When. Democrats in the Senate, many
of whom, are -themselves actual or!
potential presidential candidates, per-',,
ceived such: buildup to be under way;'
they began -to mutter darkly that as a,
condition of confirmation to office, the
nominees should renounce any . vice-
presidential ambitions and promise to
remain in the cabinet trough 1976.
But when Mr Rumsfeld came before
the Senate armed services committee for
a hearing on his qualincations to be
secretary of : defence, it became im-
mediately 'clear that no such condition
would be imposed upon him. The former
White House chief of staff, in fact, had
an easy time of-,it. Severe reservations
were expressed - on the subject of
detente with = Russia-particularly by
Senator Barry- Goldwater of Arizona,.
the' spiritual 'leader of conservative
Republicans, and by Senator Henry Jack-
-son of Washington, who has opposed
trade and other agreements with the
-Russians without explicit concessions
in return. But. Mr Rumsfeld managed
to avoid committing himself one way or
another on any controversial topic. He
portrayed himself as a proponent of a j
strong national defence, but also as an
apostle of international goodwill-
above all as President Ford's man,
eager to help work out a cautious com-
with Moscow in. the strategic
promise
arms limitation talks. When the subject
of the Republican vice-presidential
nomination did come up, courtesy of
Mr Jackson, Mr Rumsfeld said it would
be "presumptuous of me to reject
something that has not been offered".
The hearings were notable largely for
eulogies to Mr Rumsfeld's departed pre-
decessor, Mr James - Schlesinger, who
was praised for serving as ? a counter-
point to the presumed father of detente,
Mr Henry Kissinger, the strong-willed
secretary of state.. Most senators simply
came around to the .. view that the
president is entitled to have whomsoever
he pleases at the Pentagon, and when
they convened on Tuesday to consider
Mr Rumsfeld's nomination, they
approved him by a vote of 95 to 2,
after only half an hour of debate.
For Mr Bush, nominated by the
president to become director of Central
Intelligence, the portents are not so
favourable. Mr Frank Church of Idaho,
who is leading the Senate investigation of
the CIA and other intelligence agencies,
has complained that it would be a grave
disservice to put a pure-and-simple
politician into such a sensitive job just
when the CIA faces a crisis of con-
fidence. Mr Robert Byrd of West
Virginia, the assistant Democratic
leader in the Senate, has demanded that'
Mr Bush, as a minimum, make himself
unavailable for the vice-presidency.
By. the time Mr Bush - returns from
Peking, where he . is - now . the . chief
American representative, he can prob-
ably.expect a hostile reception and a
thorough interrogation from the Senate.
A rejection of Mr Bush may be made
easier by the fact that three - other
nominees presented by Mr Ford have
been rejected by Senate committees in I
recent months. The Senate commerce
committee voted against both Mr Joseph
Coors, a wealthy brewer from Colorado;
who had been nominated as a director
of the Corporation for Public Broad-
casting, -and Mrs Isabel Burgess, who
had been nominated for a second term as
a member of the National Transporta-
tion Safety Board. (The. committee
found actual or potential conflicts-of-
-interest in both their, backgrounds.)
And the Senate banking committee
refused to endorse Mr -Ben Blackburn,
a former Republican congressman from
Georgia, as chairman of -the Federal
Home Loan Bank Board. As a con-
gressman, Mr Blackburn voted against
the fair housing act, which he would
have been required to administer had
he been confirmed.
STAT
Approved For Release 2007/06/19: CIA-RDP99-00498R000100010062-5