European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - February 28, 1987, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Page 10 the stars and stripes saturday february 28, 1987 columns . Apple or. Tower report stresses White House fumbling the presidency of Ronald Reagan who Only afew months ago commanded the widest popularity of any postwar chief executive reached what May Well be in decisive moment with the issuance of the report of his review Board thursday. At a Lime when inc Western european allies believe in it tsp Sovil Union has seized the initiative. Reagan finds himself on the defensive pictured by inc report As unwilling to involve himself in inc details of foreign policy and m least in the Jan Contra affair unable to control his staff unable even to remember when he authorized what. Iii critics and some of his friends will no doubt find parallels Between the Story of confusion in the report and another recent episode the Summit meeting in Iceland last fall. And on a different level inc Rock n wiil dramatize for a much wider audience across the country a controversy that has heretofore generated excitement mostly among the political cognoscenti. Reagan s accomplishments students of his presidency say. Have been to restore the Confidence of inc american people in themselves their country and its leadership and initially Al least to take the initiative against inc soviet Union. These accomplishments now seem imperilled. The danger is that lie Faith of tire american Public and of inc allies in Reagan s capacity to Lead will be further eroded in inc remaining 2i months of his second term. The erosion has been Sesic. Ii appears tin Likely with two congressional committees and a Spe Cial prosecutor beginning i hair work that anything Reagan docs now will repair All of the damage. A Republican conservative rep. New Gingrich of Georgia commented thursday he will never again be inc Reagan that i was before he blew it. Lie is nol going to regain our Trusi and our Faith  Al meetings in the while House Over the weekend Reagan will be told according to people who Are to Lake part that he must admin he made serious mis takes that he must install a staff thai will ensure that such mistakes will not recur and that he must act quickly. His advisers arc said to be convinced that the chief of Shaft Donald t. Regan must leave but that Thisa Lonwill not be enough. This is the most important passage of this presi Dency n staff member said. We will either Start to get it together next week when the president makes his speech to the nation or we May never gel it together. He will have to go much further than he has before in accepting the blame for a policy that was catastrophic. William f. Buckley or. After this report the slate of the Union formula Jusi is nol  in his state of the Union message on Jan. 27, Rea Gan said Only that we did not achieve whal we wished in Iran and that serious mistakes were made in trying to do  at no Point has he said that he himself made mistakes. A former White House aide summed up in problem by idling of an encounter after a speech he gave at a Southern University. A student stood up and said people want to believe the president but they just Don t think he has told the  the student gota standing ovation. Repairing the breach of Confidence is one matter. Another is providing what the Western european allies and official Washington want some evidence that the president is Back in control that he has a staff that will do his bidding that foreign policy is being run in a level headed professional Way. An american travelling through Britain Germany and France during the last 10 Days was asked whether Reagan was capable of understanding what the euro peans saw As Mikhail s. Gorbachev powerful new thrust of soviet policy both domestically and toward a new International order. This May be a historic moment in East West relations a British Diplomat said. We need the Best analysis the most exhaustive policy debate and the detest policy execution we can get but we in the West seem to be cad Cress and that is very dangerous in deed europeans mentioned the Summit meeting in ice land As further evidence of what they saw in the muddled slate of american foreign policy this vie seems to be spreading in the United Stales As Well. Writing in the current Issue of foreign affairs Magazine James r. Schlesinger a former defense Secretary and former director of Central intelligence de scribes the american performance in Iceland As it prepared and quite badly executed phrases Hal matched those used thursday in the Tower commis Sion report in a different context. The report cited no evidence Hal Reagan had been involved in the diversion of arms Sale proceed to the nicaraguan rebels or that he had taken part in on Effort by staff members to conceal the truth. But it faulted him for failing to Monitor the work of his staff and it came close to picturing him As a Man who sometimes inhabited a fantasy land. The president appears to have proceeded with a concept of the initiative thai was nol accurately reflected in the reality of the operation the report said. The president did not seem to be aware of the Way in which the operation was implemented and the full consequences of United states  but it is not any individual finding in the report that is Likely to cause the most damage. It is the cumulative weigh of Page after Page of unemotional description of experts in consulted of policies Univa Luald of re cords unkept of questions unasked of operations concealed by officials even from one another and of a policy so incomprehensible Hal some of the charts illustrating individual transactions look like Rube Goldberg cartoons. It adds up to a depiction not of inadequate institutions but of inept stewardship of the National Trust Ata moment of crisis from the president on Down which May be Why the commission chose As the epigraph for its narrative a Tine from the latin poet Juvenal who will guard the guardians themselves