Global coordinator

Many Wall Street analysts and trade luminaries fret that the Bush Administration isn't up to the challenge. Enter the many-titled Gary R. Edson. As the new deputy assistant to the President for international economic affairs and a deputy national security adviser, he has the considerable challenge of trying to make sure that important, although sometimes subtle, offshore economic problems get the attention they deserve.

Toward the same end, the Clinton Administration created the National Economic Council to help coordinate domestic and international economic policy-making. The Bushies have decided that Edson, as their international economic policy maven, will sit on the National Security Council, where he will serve as a deputy both to Larry Lindsey, the assistant to the President for economic policy, and to Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser. Edson will also be the lead U.S. coordinator for the annual summits of the Group of Eight industrialized nations.

Bush Administration officials contend that, regardless of where Edson sits, economic issues will not play second fiddle to foreign policy concerns. "We have no obligation to adopt the Clinton template for organizing the White House around these issues," said Joshua Bolten, White House deputy chief of staff for policy. In any event, Edson couldn't have better credentials. He was chief of staff and general counsel to U.S. Trade Representative Carla A. Hills in the elder Bush's Administration, and was a senior aide to Deputy Secretary of State Kenneth W. Dam during President Reagan's first term.

Along the way, he has established close ties with people who are now key players in George W.'s Administration. "You can't overestimate personal relationships, because you need to integrate personalities to integrate policies," said Daniel Tarullo, a professor at Georgetown University Law Center who had many of Edson's responsibilities in the Clinton White House.

And, in the end, Tarullo adds, "the real question will be: What is the attitude of the people at the top? Do they genuinely understand that economics has its own integrity?" It will take a significant international financial red alert -- possibly the meltdown under way in Turkey, or an internal White House debate over economic sanctions against Iraq or China -- to answer that question and to measure Edson's influence. Return to main story