CONFIDENTIAL
He is
Defense Secretary Les Aspin is the only appointee whose intellectual calibre clearly matches the President's. perhaps not in the same political league as Cheney, but is
Innovative and commands the respect of the military and both parties in Congress for his knowledge of defence issues. He has views about reshaping America's military capabilities in the post-cold-war era. He favours a strong US military and an interventionist approach abroad.
In trade, Clinton was faced with a clash between protectionists and free-traders. His selection of Mickey Kantor as US Trade Representative was essentially to reward a close friend. He is a novice in trade matters (his predecessors were hardly more experienced). But he is highly regarded for his political skills. He will need to work hard and fast to get on top of all the pressing issues. Clinton envisages a slightly different distribution of responsibilities among his trade team. Ron Brown, Commerce Secretary-designate, has already responded by seeking to take over part of the US Trade Representative portfolio.
Clinton's economic advisers, drawn from Congress and Wall Street, are establishment insiders, pragmatists, centrists and doers - non-ideological Democrats who want to break gridlock and get the job done.
In Lloyd Bentsen, Treasury Secretary, and Leon Panetta, Director of the Office of Management and Budget, Clinton has picked a powerful protector of American business and a deficit hawk. Bentsen represents the old Congressional establishment; critics say his sympathy for big oil and gas interests could clash with Clinton's anti-poverty goals. During his confirmation hearing, Bentsen called for a strengthening of G7 cooperation. emphasised the need to reduce the budget deficit and control healthcare costs. But he was also non-commital on the scale or components of a Clinton recovery package.
Panetta, intellectually sharp, inquisitive and daring, occupies the ideological centre of the Democratic Party and is seen by colleagues as an honest broker. He is fiscally cautious but socially liberal. Panetta's efforts to cut governmental spending (he drafted a long-term deficit reduction plan of his own involving swingeing spending cuts and tax increases) will inevitably conflict with the regulatory agenda of several Cabinet appointees, including Carol Browner at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and perhaps Henry Cisneros at the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Deputy Treasury Secretary-designate Roger Altman has a bankers' expertise with finance that Bentsen lacks. He believes economic stimulus must be applied with caution.
Robert Rubin will head the new White House Economic Council, which is to coordinate domestic and foreign economic policy in parallel with the National Security council. He will report directly to the President. While he has less experience of dealing with national and international policy issues than most of the other appointees, he is likely to have a firmer grasp of the realities of economic policy. He believes in education and worker-training as the key to improved economic competitiveness.
CONFIDENTIAL