J. Lynn Helms, who began the project in 1981, left office on Jan. 31, 1984, the end of the first Reagan term.

This is not a third Reagan term.

And so it is today, especially after two Reagan terms marked by lower taxes and less Government regulation.

Let us apply that technique to the operation that brought ruination to the second Reagan term.

The rising dollar through the first Reagan term had been hurting some of the administration's most important allies in the business lobby.

In the second Reagan term, he said, the budget appears likely to average a 2.5 percent annual decline, after adjustment for inflation.

Mr. Baldrige says he intends to stay to the end of the second Reagan term, for a total tenure of eight years.

What resulted was turmoil in the White House, the Iran-contra scandal and a relatively ineffective second Reagan term.

As in the White House in the second Reagan term, the ideological line could harden.

In the first Reagan term, Europeans' fears were aroused by careless rhetoric about fighting a nuclear war and a dismissal of serious efforts at arms control.