Bush Fills 3 Top Economic Posts : Mosbacher, Hills, Boskin Named; Webster to Remain as CIA Chief

WASHINGTON —  Vice President George Bush fleshed out his top-level economic, foreign relations and intelligence teams Tuesday while declaring again that he will attack the budget deficit aggressively after his inauguration without relying on a tax increase.

And on the eve of a three-way meeting among President Reagan, Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev and himself, Bush also said that he would make clear to the Soviet leader “that we want to go forward” with negotiations between the superpowers.

The economic triumvirate tapped by Bush on Tuesday includes Houston oil executive Robert A. Mosbacher, a longtime Bush friend, as secretary of commerce and former Cabinet member Carla Anderson Hills as special U.S. trade representative. As expected, he also named Stanford University economist Michael J. Boskin as chairman of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers.

Pickering to U.N.

The President-elect also made official his choices for two positions that the resume-heavy Bush has held in the past. He announced that current CIA Director William H. Webster would stay on for an “open-ended” period and said that veteran Foreign Service officer Thomas R. Pickering, now ambassador to Israel, would be U.N. ambassador.

Webster was renamed despite concerns by some in the intelligence community that the director--who moved over from the FBI to head the CIA after the death two years ago of William J. Casey--was too cautious in his approval of covert activities.

Bush fanned speculation that Webster’s tenure may be short by alluding obliquely to suggestions that the CIA director’s tenure and that of the President be separate--a move seen as underscoring the job’s nonpartisan nature.

Addressing the specific concerns raised about Webster, Bush said that he and the director think “exactly the same way” about covert actions.

“From time to time, properly found covert actions are essential,” Bush said.

No Policy Role

Bush also stressed that Webster will not play a policy role in the Administration--as critics have said that former CIA Director Casey did--nor sit in on Cabinet meetings regularly.

While Bush on Tuesday almost doubled the number of high-level nominations he has made--and named the first woman to a senior job--he did not fill the most talked-about position, that of secretary of defense.

Former Texas Sen. John Tower remains the probable secretary-designate, but transition officials said that the announcement has been delayed pending the hiring of several assistants. The “team” approach is seen by Bush transition officials as necessary to present an image of a Defense Department hierarchy intent on cutting out waste and graft.

Throughout his career, Tower has supported defense spending. But through allies he has made it known that he would move to cut back the scope of the department, if appointed. The former senator also has been the target of a rumor-filled campaign by opponents, citing allegations of womanizing and drinking.

Bush said Tuesday, however, that he has “high regard” for the former senator. And of the allegations, he said: “I’m disinclined to believe anything of that nature.”

The President-elect confirmed that nothing has surfaced to knock Tower from contention and a transition source said that an announcement of the defense team could come as early as the end of the week.

In answering the questions of reporters Tuesday, Bush showed his independence from President Reagan’s approach to the Soviet Union and reiterated his no-new-taxes stance.

The President-elect, who will meet for lunch with Reagan and Gorbachev in New York today, said that he will take a back-seat role in the meetings. He also declared, however, that there are “big problems” between the United States and the Soviet Union.

“Do we have any differences with the Soviets? Absolutely,” he said. But he added that he is “absolutely” optimistic about the future and that he will relate that optimism to Gorbachev in New York.

“I will make clear to the president (Gorbachev) that we want to go forward,” he said.

Bush has yet to decide whether he will submit an entire budget after the January submission of the final Reagan spending blueprint, Boskin said, but the President-elect declared that he will take an aggressive stance and not give in to tax hikes.

“I have some time but I have to take the offense,” Bush said. “ . . . I do feel the urgency of getting something moving on the deficit front.”

The President-elect said that he emphasized his anti-tax stance in a meeting earlier Tuesday with Rep. Dan Rostenkowski (D-Ill.), chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee.

“I pointed out to him . . . (that) I don’t remember, Congressman, a lot of your colleagues on either side of the aisle running (for election) on the necessity of a tax increase,” Bush said. “Maybe I’m missing something,” Bush said, tongue in cheek. “Give me a few names.”

Bush said that U.N. Ambassador-designate Pickering, like Webster, would not be accorded Cabinet rank but instead would report through the incoming secretary of state, James A. Baker III.

“There’s no point in the United Nations ambassador sitting around as I did for a while talking about ag (agriculture) policy,” Bush said.

Bush’s economic team pulls together two key campaign advisers, in Mosbacher and Boskin, and a veteran of Republican administrations, in Hills.

For Mosbacher, the commerce post marks the first formal job after a generation spent as a top GOP fund-raiser and three decades as a close personal friend of Bush. The nomination of the 61-year-old Texan had been delayed for weeks pending conclusion of investigations into his extensive financial holdings.

Boskin, a Stanford economist, was one of the architects of Bush’s much-criticized “flexible freeze” budget plan, under which bottom-line spending will be frozen and individual programs increased or diminished, so long as the total spending remains constant.

Hills, 54, served as secretary of housing and urban development during the Gerald R. Ford Administration and earlier as head of the Justice Department’s civil division, where she earned a reputation as a tough administrator. Neither she nor Mosbacher has engaged in any extensive trade efforts.

The other Tuesday nominees are, along with Hills, familiar faces within the government. Pickering, the only nominee not present at the announcement, served as ambassador to El Salvador, Nigeria and Jordan before assuming the post in Israel. And Webster served as a federal judge as well as FBI director before assuming the directorship of the CIA.

The five new nominees join others named earlier in the transition: Secretary of State-designate Baker, Treasury Secretary Nicholas F. Brady, Budget Director Richard G. Darman, Atty. Gen. Dick Thornburgh, Education Secretary Lauro F. Cavazos, National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft and Chief of Staff John H. Sununu.

In other transition-related developments, Bush shared breakfast Tuesday with former Transportation Secretary Elizabeth Hanford Dole. Later, aides said that while Bush hopes to include her in his Administration, no specific commitments were made.

A former political opponent, New York Rep. Jack Kemp, also was said by a transition source to be in the running for a job, although none has been specified.

Bush backhandedly defended himself Tuesday against criticisms that--with the exception of Hills and Cavazos--all of his top-level advisers are white males.

“Stay tuned,” he declared. “We’re only about halfway through this act.”