Bush Selects Sullivan, 4 Others for Top Posts : Interior, Transportation, Veterans, EPA Jobs Also Filled; Labor, Energy Heads Still Unnamed

WASHINGTON — President-elect George Bush, filling five top-level posts Thursday in a single announcement, turned aside the grumbles of abortion foes to select Dr. Louis W. Sullivan as health and human services secretary and reached out to Westerners and conservationists in naming his top environmental officials.

Bush’s roster included retiring New Mexico Rep. Manuel Lujan Jr. as Interior secretary and William K. Reilly, president of the World Wildlife Fund, as head of the Environmental Protection Agency.

Bush named Chicago lawyer Samuel K. Skinner as transportation secretary. And, for the newest Cabinet post--head of the Veterans Affairs Department, which will replace the Veterans Administration on March 15--he selected his former House colleague and State Department official Edward J. Derwinski.

The selections nearly complete Bush’s Cabinet. Among the 14 departments, only Labor and Energy remain unfilled.

The latest selections continue to fill in a clear portrait of an incoming Administration marked by pragmatic moderation, in contrast to the more conservative, ideological tone of President Reagan’s years.

Sullivan, the first black named to Bush’s Cabinet, survived a series of noisy blasts from anti-abortion activists, who frequently had their way during the Reagan Administration.

Reilly’s appointment signaled Bush’s intention to give more emphasis to the environment than Reagan did.

The selections of Sullivan and Skinner were expected, but Bush rushed announcement of the three other appointments before they were signaled by the news media. Lujan and Derwinski said that they were asked Thursday morning if they would accept nomination.

“Surprising to what lengths a person will go to fool you all, isn’t it?” Bush told reporters.

The appointment of Sullivan, 55, the president of Atlanta’s Morehouse School of Medicine, followed two days of intense grilling by Bush aides and congressional anti-abortion leaders after Sullivan was quoted in Sunday’s Atlanta Journal-Constitution as favoring a woman’s right to an abortion.

Sullivan, in accepting Bush’s appointment, insisted: “My personal position is that I am opposed to abortion except in the case of rape, incest or threat to the life of the mother . . . . This position is the same as that of President-elect Bush.”

He refused to answer related questions, including whether he had been misquoted by the Journal-Constitution, until his Senate confirmation hearings. “While I read my script,” he said, “I hope you read my lips.”

Bush said that he thought Sullivan’s restated views on abortion “would satisfy any critic.” But he acknowledged that his views may not always coincide with those of his Cabinet members.

“We may have differences on this,” Bush said. “But I’m the one that was elected President . . . . And I’m the one that’s going to set the policy.”

On other issues facing the Health and Human Services Department, Sullivan and Bush alike said that they would emphasize cutting medical costs for poor Americans and working on cures for cancer, heart disease and AIDS.

‘Outstanding Leader’

Bush referred to Sullivan, a close friend of both Bush and his wife, Barbara, as “a black leader, obviously,” but also “an outstanding leader in the health community.”

The appointments of Lujan and especially Reilly were meant to highlight Bush’s departure from Reagan’s contentious environmental policies. Environmental groups cheered Reilly’s appointment.

Reilly, 48, head of the Conservation Foundation and the World Wildlife Fund, promised “a new and constructive course” for the EPA. He specifically announced his intention to work for international agreements.

Reilly told reporters that Bush had issued commitments to him to work for a renewed Clean Air Act and to spend money to solve the problem of acid rain. Bush refused to set a spending total, saying that it would await decisions on how to trim the federal deficit.

“Clean air, clean water, these things fit into my priorities,” Bush declared. “But we have to recognize that there are not all the monies available that I would like to see for all the good things that need to be done by the federal government.”

Lujan, 60, who retired effective next month from the Albuquerque-area House seat he has held since 1968, vowed to be sensitive to environmental concerns. “If one little piece of our public trust is desecrated, we all suffer from it,” he said.

Longtime Bush Ally

Skinner, 50, the head of the Chicago Regional Transportation Authority and a longtime Bush political ally in Illinois, won his formal selection after weeks of shuttling to and from Washington as the announcement was delayed by the controversy over Sullivan.

He defended himself against allegations by Sen. Howard M. Metzenbaum (D-Ohio), who asked for an FBI investigation into whether Skinner in the 1970s had delayed a grand jury inquiry into the pharmaceutical company G. D. Searle, for whose law firm Skinner later worked.

The investigation, involving the sweetener NutraSweet, was requested by the Food and Drug Administration, but it lay dormant for two months, after which Skinner recused himself from the case because he was discussing a job with Searle’s law firm. Skinner’s deputy ultimately undertook the inquiry, but it did not result in a grand jury investigation.

Will Answer All Questions

“I acted in accordance with Department of Justice policies,” Skinner insisted. “I am fully willing to answer any and every question that the United States Senate has.”

Derwinski, 62, a surprise selection, served in the House for 24 years and is now an undersecretary of state. In accepting Bush’s appointment, he joked that he had spotted Bush as a congressman with “a future” when the President-elect was a mere freshman in 1967.

“That kind of wise judgment has always stood me well in my career,” he said, as Bush grinned.

Bush left open the possibility that he may make other announcements before he departs Monday for a four-day hunting and fishing trip in Texas and Alabama.