Deaver Lobbied Four in Reagan Cabinet

Michael K. Deaver, President Reagan’s former aide and confidant, has moved in the Administration’s highest circles as a lobbyist through direct contacts with at least four members of Reagan’s Cabinet on behalf of foreign clients, Justice Department records showed Tuesday.

Although such high-level lobbying is not prohibited, Deaver’s discussions with such officials as Secretary of State George P. Shultz, Treasury Secretary James A. Baker III, Commerce Secretary Malcolm Baldrige and U.S. Trade Representative Clayton K. Yeutter set him apart from the vast majority of Washington representatives who must generally operate at much lower levels.

The relatively unrestricted access indicates how Deaver has managed to develop a multimillion-dollar business in the 11 months since he stepped down as Reagan’s deputy chief of staff.

Aides to Baldrige and Baker contend that Deaver’s access is not out of the ordinary. However, B. Jay Cooper, an aide to Baldrige, said that, although “I wouldn’t call it unusual . . . I wouldn’t call it a daily occurrence either” in Washington, where thousands of lobbyists and foreign representatives routinely seek access to government officials as they ply their trade.

Foreign Clients

Deaver’s reports of his activities, which he is required to file with the Foreign Agents Registration Section of the Justice Department, cover the period since last May when he began to represent a select group of overseas interests, including the governments of Canada, Mexico and Saudi Arabia and such entities as the Panama-based C.B.I. Sugar Group Inc., Daewoo Inc., of South Korea and the Korea Broadcasting Advertising Corp.

Since May, Deaver, 48, and his business partners have generated $4.5 million in fees from foreign clients and U.S. corporations, according to estimates by his powerful Washington firm, Michael K. Deaver & Associates.

Federal conflict-of-interest laws prohibit for life people such as Deaver from lobbying on any issue in which they were personally and substantially involved while in government. Former officials are also banned from lobbying their old departments or agencies for one year--including the White House, as in Deaver’s case.

Justice Department filings show that Deaver had contacts last October and last January with two staff members of the President’s National Security Council--William Martin and Gaston Sigur--on “issues relating to general trade relations and communications between the United States and South Korea.”

Lobbied for B-1

In addition, the records show that Deaver, as previously reported, lobbied Office of Management and Budget Director James C. Miller III earlier this year for support of Air Force acquisition of more B-1 bombers made by Rockwell International, a Deaver client.

Deaver, however, has denied that any of his lobbying has involved White House officials. The ethics law has been interpreted narrowly to exclude the Office of Management and Budget and the National Security Council from being part of the Executive Office of the President, in which Deaver served.

The filings show that Deaver contacted Shultz last Feb. 3--and that he lobbied Baker, his direct superior at the White House before becoming Treasury secretary--on two occasions last February. He spoke with both officials about “implementation of the sugar import provisions of the 1985 Food Security Act” as they might affect the C.B.I. Sugar Group, the reports showed.

The sugar group, composed of 10 Central American and Caribbean nations, has paid Deaver’s firm $300,000 since last August, according to the filings. Since a crash in world sugar prices last year, the group has been seeking a bigger share of the U.S. sugar market.

Korean Trade Issue

Deaver contacted Baldrige twice last January to ask him to review a decision by the International Trade Commission, which had imposed a 64% duty on imports of photo albums manufactured in South Korea, according to the files. The Koreans had been accused of illegally “dumping” photo albums on the American market. Baldrige, in the end, declined to give them a favorable ruling.

Deaver spoke with Yeutter, who holds Cabinet-level rank, and three other officials in the trade representative’s office last October on behalf of unspecified Canadian issues, his reports showed. Canada signed a $105,000-a-year contract with Deaver last July as his first foreign client.

A spokesman for Yeutter said that Deaver met alone with the trade representative, who could not be reached Tuesday for an explanation of the session. A spokesman for Shultz said he could not give an immediate response.

Deaver has formally requested the appointment of an independent counsel to investigate his lobbying on grounds that he has never violated conflict-of-interest laws.