A I 5 THE WASHINGTON POST, MONO AY, JANUARY 12, 1981  
This week, full of brag and bounce, Ronald Reagan & Associates are donning their makeup and their costumes,Ûª igoing through final rehearsals and flying into town for their first four-year stand. It should be an entertaining show, and if it is to be a successful show, Reagan & [Associates must make good on their i promises to change policy. Can Republicans actually change policy? Did they [ever change it very much in the past? j Only the maniacs believe that they have.</br></br>I In this Republican administration, as in I past Republican administrations, wardrobe will be by Brooks Brothers (estab-i lished 1818). Once again Washington will !teem with rep ties, button-down collars ' and a surprising amplitude of white shirts i Here is the costume of corporate management, and the Republicans always pride Û¢ themselves on the managers in theii i ranks. Yet if Reagan is actually to change i policy he will need the assistance of some-i thing more than corporate America, i When one thinks of the company Rea- gan has kept over the past 16 yearsÛÓfor instance, his friend William F. Buckley Jr. ÛÓor notes the associates he has worked;' withÛÓfor instance, Martin Anderson and; Dick AllenÛÓone assumes Ronald Reagans knows this. One assumes he knows he needs men of conviction who have devoted years to studying policy and its implemen-j tation. But do the Associates know this?; Across the country there is a growing' sense that they do not.</br></br>Policy is different from soap, and government is different from Procter & Gam-i ble. You cannot touch policy or clean clothes with it or beautify yourself with it.! All you can do is suffer with it. Policy is impalpable. It is also, apparently, a mystery to corporate America. Else how does one explain the inability of corporate management to protect itself from the regulatory and economic policies that have so recently ambushed it? And, need I add, many of these policies were established during corporate managementÛªs last trot? around the track, the Nixon-Ford era.</br></br>Corporate management doe3 very well at producing things;palpable.lt does not do so well in producing things impalpable. It produces goods but rarely ideas or laws. It is superb at rationalizing proce-dure, but it rarely is of any value in deciding the product of bureaucratic procedure, namely policy.</br></br>Ah, when the boys with the rep ties stride into their new offices over the next few weeks I should like to be on hand to watch the spectacle. New flow-charts will be put in place. Every paper clip will be accounted for. The budgeting process will be streamlined. The paper will flow efficiently, but who will understand what is written on that paper? Who will be able to analyze its influence on our society? Who will suggest alternatives to what is written on that paper? Is the average corporate manager capable of this sort of Thing? I can see no evidence of it.