Waiting In The Wings -- At Harvard, Royer Lives Out The Ivy Soft Life While Waiting For His Next Fling In Politics

CUTLINE: SERGEI KHRUSHCHEV AND HIS WIFE, VALENTINA, TALK WITH ROYER. KHRUSHCHEV, SON OF FORMER SOVIET LEADER NIKITA KHRUSHCHEV, WAS A FELLOW LAST FALL AT THE KENNEDY SCHOOL OF GOVERNMENT'S INSTITUTE OF POLITICS AT HARVARD.

CUTLINE: TOP - SENIOR ADVISERS TO THE INSTITUTE OF POLITICS HUDDLE TO CHART FUTURE PROGRAMS. FROM LEFT, RON BROWN, CHAIRMAN OF THE DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL COMMITTEE; ROYER; JOHN HOWELL, THE INSTITUTE'S DEPUTY DIRECTOR; JOHN F. KENNEDY JR., SON OF THE FORMER PRESIDENT AND A NEW YORK COUNTY ASSISTANT DISTRICT ATTORNEY; AND SEN. TED KENNEDY OF MASSACHUSETTS.

CUTLINE: BOTTOM FAR LEFT - KENNEDY AND ROYER TALK WITH MEMBERS OF THE STUDENT ADVISORY COMMITTEE INCLUDING, AT RIGHT, VICE CHAIRMAN KIM MORGAN AND CHAIRMAN BRUCE GOLDBERGER, DURING A BREAK FROM SENIOR AND STUDENT ADVISORY COMMITTEE MEETINGS.

CUTLINE: BOTTOM LEFT - FEET UP IN HIS TYPICAL STYLE, ROYER RELAXES IN HIS OFFICE AT THE INSTITUTE OF POLITICS WHILE ON THE PHONE TO THE OFFICE OF MASSACHUSETTS GOV. MICHAEL DUKAKIS.

CUTLINE: FOLLOWING A FORUM ON THE HOMELESS HE HAS MODERATED, ROYER MEETS WITH HIS NIECE, KARMELA CROW, CENTER, AND HIS WIFE, ROSANNE, BEFORE HEADING HOME TO THEIR CAMBRIDGE CONDOMINIUM. CROW, AN EIGHTH-GRADER FROM OREGON, IS LIVING WITH THE ROYERS THIS YEAR.

They snap pictures for New England calendars on days like this. A blustery fall storm had whipped through the East Coast overnight, leaving the sky over Cambridge, Mass., the most sincere cast of baby blue. Splashes of amber and red jump out from the fading greenery of Harvard Yard. Students in rowing shells dip their oars in unison, whisking down the Charles River in preparation for the upcoming Head of the Charles rowing regatta, a civic celebration similar to Seattle's Opening Day.

Across the street from the river, in Harvard's modern, red-brick Kennedy School of Government, Charley Royer is casually prepping for an afternoon forum featuring Virginia Gov. Doug Wilder. Royer, Seattle's mayor for a dozen years, looks comfortable here. Leaning back in his chair, both legs stretched onto his desk, Royer is editing a biography of Wilder prepared by Royer's assistant. It includes comments such as ``Doesn't like to be called Virginia's first black governor'' - though, of course, Wilder's claim to fame is that he is the nation's first elected black governor. As director of the Kennedy School's Institute of Politics, Royer must introduce Wilder and act as the program emcee, a natural role for a guy with 12 years of ribbon cuttings and speeches and six years in television news under his belt. No matter what else was said about Royer's mayoral abilities, he always gave good ceremony.

Here at the Kennedy School, Harvard's newest professional school geared toward politicians and political activists, a place one pundit called ``the Betty Ford clinic for recovering politicians,'' Royer is recovering nicely. He looks more relaxed than he did when he left the Seattle mayor's office a year

ago. For the first time in years, he works reasonable hours; he's trying to re-learn how to spend leisure time.

Living in Massachusetts, where ``Dukakis'' and ``politician'' are two of the dirtiest words in the local vocabulary, Royer has some advice for politicians and politician wannabes: Quit spending so much time trying to get re-elected, and show some guts. ``There are things worth losing for: For example, voting for a tax, for chrissakes. . . . If the cynical and doom-and-gloom tide is running in one direction, swim against it - like the goddamn salmon.'' Even if it means retirement. ``I can tell you retirement from politics is not that bad. If you don't get re-elected, life is still pretty good.''

Golf fills some of his new-found free time. He likes to play at the Tip O'Neill public course across from the tri-level Cambridge condominium he purchased with his wife, Rosanne, who now works at the Harvard Business Review. (The Royers still own their house in Seattle's View Ridge neighborhood, which they rent out.) At 51, with a few more silver flecks in his hair, Royer has become a gushing grandfather, bubbling in a

phone conversation with brother Bob about a recent hike in New Hampshire with his daughter, Suzanne, and infant granddaughter, Gabriella, whom he carried on the hike in a backpack. ``She's at the stage where she does all this fun stuff; she babbles and makes faces and just melts your body,'' he tells his brother.

Life is easy for Charley on the Charles. But the question for Royer, a man who seems to have glided from one stage of life to the other, is whether he can translate his glib style of politics and his high-profile position at Harvard into a new political career. What should that be? When to make a move?

Royer says it's too early, too soon after leaving office, to answer those questions. ``I haven't been out long enough to have the fire or to think it through. Part of this is a sorting out for me.'' When he took the Harvard job, he said he would stay three to five years. To honor that, he must rule out the 1992 Senate and governor races. Democratic incumbents Brock Adams and Booth Gardner plan to run, anyway.

Though not everybody buys this, Royer says those races are too early for him. ``I can't see myself running that soon. I couldn't see myself doing this job adequately if I jumped out next year.'' Though he could wait until next fall to decide about either race, Royer says that if he were running he would want to start right now, and he isn't starting.

But Royer doesn't want to evanesce into the Harvard ivy, either. To keep his name alive back home, he is writing somewhat regular op-ed pieces for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. One was a slam of John Silber, the outspoken Massachusetts Democratic candidate for governor who lost; another was an ode to Dorothy Bullitt after the sale of KING-TV, where Royer worked before becoming mayor.

He also is talking to booking agents about additional national speaking engagements. If something unforeseen happens, like the Democrats retaking the White House in 1992, Royer's Harvard job, underscored by more national political appearances, is ideal for peddling his name to the transition teams that line up the new president's cabinet. Frequent speculation, especially during the 1988 Michael Dukakis presidential campaign, has it that Royer wants a cabinet job or some other federal post, which for Royer, a longtime star in the National League of Cities, may be easier to land than a statewide position back home. Royer doesn't deny interest; he simply says, once again, that he needs more time.

Even without the booking agent, through the Harvard job and other contacts he has made over the years, Royer manages to mingle and schmooze with

some of the biggest names in East Coast politics. His daybook in recent months has been jammed with rendezvous with top national politicians: There was the Kennedy School forum with Wilder, who already has formed an exploratory committee for the 1992 presidential race; an appearance at New York Mayor David Dinkins' urban summit; the institute's conference for newly elected members of Congress featuring, among others, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Jack Kemp; and the institute's senior advisory committee meeting with Sen. Ted Kennedy, John F. Kennedy Jr. and Democratic National Committee Chairman Ron Brown.

Lunch that day was more interesting because it included Sergei Khrushchev, Nikita's son. Khrushchev was one of Royer's handpicked fellows last fall. Fellows are six or seven professionals, often politicians who have just lost or stepped down, and accomplished journalists, who come to Harvard for a semester to work with students, maybe write a book, and lead study groups on such topics as perestroika, seduction in the Washington press corps and environmental lobbying.

At the urban summit dinner at the top of New York's World Trade Center, Royer looked trim and confident. One of the featured speakers, he was presented to the 30-some mayors as a sort of senior urban leader, that ``rarity of a three-term mayor who is still popular,'' as the host put it.

With the lights of Manhattan, Brooklyn and New Jersey twinkling below, Royer gave a sometimes

rambling speech that ranged from his pronouncement that there is life after being mayor - ``I come to work at 9, go home around 5. Eat your hearts out'' - to voter anger expressed in the recent election, to the notion that cities need to sell themselves more positively when they have their hands out for money, and finally, to the topic he was supposed to speak on: globalization of city economies.

As he often does, Royer bragged about Seattle, in this case its 1973 decision to become the first city in the United States to establish a sister-city relationship with a Soviet city: Tashkent. That linkage, a modest achievement in some eyes, helped Seattle land last summer's Goodwill Games, according to Royer. The ex-mayor boasted, too, about the city protocol office that helps introduce international visitors, including some business people, to local people.

Here on the East Coast, where the recession is in full swing and many local governments are in precarious financial shape, Royer basks in the glow of Seattle's most-livable-city accolades. ``It doesn't hurt,'' he says candidly. So what if he didn't create the mountains, water and trees? He was mayor for 12 years of a city that works. ``To people in city circles, Seattle is the best. They want to know more about it.'' So what if some of Seattle is tired of Royer? As an aide said in the heat of some civic battle a few years ago, the farther Royer gets away from Seattle, the more popular he is, which could apply to almost any mayor at some point.

In Cambridge, it's difficult to find anyone who

doesn't like him. Part of it is trading on the Seattle success story, including his legitimate victories in public housing and setting up one of the nation's most successful recycling programs. And there's that famous Royer charm, his ability to work a room, his steady stream of one-liners. Asked how he can tell if the forums he is responsible for are successful, he replies: ``Easy. Is there a big crowd? Do they leave? It's like church without the collection plate.''

Time magazine political writer Margaret Carlson, one of the fall fellows, calls Royer ``the Perry Como of Harvard.'' It's not because Como sang the ``Seattle'' song with the lyrics that say ``the bluest skies you've ever seen are in Seattle.'' Carlson didn't know that. It's because she thinks Royer looks like Como and has a warm, cozy, comfortable personality that softens the big egos in Harvard's hallowed halls. For example, the institute's twice-weekly dinners with fellows, professors, students and the featured guests from study groups or forums. ``Charley sits at the head of the table. The room is always crowded with a lot going on. At least 10 people think they're the most important person in the room,'' she explains.

Others may want to control the program, but Royer sets the tone. ``He stands out in a room because in some ways he's the most soft-spoken.'' Interestingly, Carlson, now writing a book about First Lady Barbara Bush, wrote a sometimes-biting article about the Kennedy School a few years ago and coined the phrase ``the Betty Ford clinic for recovering politicians.''

Several politicians have found the Kennedy School a respectable place to chill their heels while waiting out some form of political exile - self- or voter-imposed. After a devastating 1978 loss for a second governor's term, Michael Dukakis found a haven there as a public policy lecturer. Dan Evans was a fellow after leaving the Senate. Geraldine Ferraro and David Stockman came through. So did former Pennsylvania Gov. Dick Thornburgh, who had run the limit on gubernatorial terms in his state. Thornburgh had Royer's same Harvard job for a more than a year before being nabbed to be attorney general.

Good timing for Royer. Following Thornburgh makes him that much more popular. Thornburgh seemed more obviously to be shopping for another job during his time here. Royer, by contrast, has shown leadership running the institute, which is a link between the university and the real world of politics. His job calls for fund-raising and recruiting the fellows, and he is the one ultimately responsible for the institute's forums, conferences and study groups.

Marty Linsky, who teaches courses on elective politics and the press at the Kennedy School, has watched several directors come and go. He says: ``The difference between Royer and Thornburgh is that he's got his head into the job.'' Though Linsky realizes Royer wants to be senator or governor someday, he believes Royer is committed to the job. ``But unlike lots of people, he doesn't let the future interfere with the present.''

That is especially important to students such as Kim Harris. She spends time at the institute working on a student committee that helps set up forums on, say, Politics and the Catholic Church, or the Persian Gulf Crisis. Like many students at the institute, she wouldn't mind being president someday. But because she was born in Canada, the college junior who oozes confidence has her eye on the Senate instead. And just like some Hollywood people who love to trade sightings of Michael Douglas or Michelle Pfeiffer at the local bistro, Harris gets a thrill out of meeting politicians. The institute is the place to do that.

Royer gives Harris political advice, like the day she asked how a politician decides between what the constituents want and what the politician thinks is best. ``He told me if you run your campaign right, if you're honest, and you told them what you believe, you get elected and you have a mandate.'' Sometimes their discussions turn into more of a debate between his liberal Democratic politics and her moderate Republican stance. ``It's not the Institute of Democratic Politics,'' she chides him. As Harris taps her leg, talking earnestly about what she calls the sad state of the Democratic Party, it becomes clear that a visit to the institute, a chat with Royer, is exactly as another student phrased it - like candy. Royer reigns over a place that metes out no mandatory homework, no grades, but offers students a chance to talk about and meet people they want to become. With little provocation, Harris rattles off the list of people she has met through the institute: three governors, Supreme Court Justice David Souter and a former president of Argentina.

Perhaps Royer fits in so well with students because there is still a bit of college student in him. Former Royer aide Tom Keefe, now an aide to Brock Adams, calls Royer the ``eternal college sophomore.'' On the one hand, Keefe can't think of anyone he'd rather have a beer with than Royer. On the other hand, Keefe left Royer's office disappointed because he felt Royer never developed to his full politician potential, partly because he didn't expand and, in some ways, broke with the grass-roots coalition that first elected him.

``I never really got the feeling that, once he arrived there and got in there, he was willing to do the hard work - use the shoe leather - to develop real major substantial political skills.''

Whether it's planning the insti tute's 25th-anniversary cele bration next year, or talking about the increasingly nega tive tone of politics these days, Royer, who has a journalism degree from the University of Oregon, still is adjusting to his new role in academia. Sometimes, such as at an alumni breakfast in New York in November, he is center stage, answering questions as if he were the grand ole mayor with grand ole answers. What to do about the blizzard of vicious campaign ads? one alum asks. Maybe television stations should charge more for attack ads, Royer answers. Other times, he is so much the host or emcee that he seems awkwardly - for him - on the sidelines, such as the day of the Wilder forum.

Studying up on Wilder in his office, he joked about his lack of help compared with his days in the mayor's office. ``I don't have any handmaidens anymore,'' he says, hastily adding, ``Don't use that. People will think I am sexist or something.'' Downstairs, 200-plus students gathered to hear Wilder's talk about the Democratic Party's ``New Mainstream'' prescription for winning back the White House. Royer delivered a smooth introduction, comparing Wilder's obvious idea for a campaign theme to Lyndon Johnson's ``Great Society'' and John F. Kennedy's ``New Frontier.''

During the question session, Royer stood next to and a step or two behind Wilder, looking on, putting his hands first behind his back, then clasped over his nose, then folded

in front of him. For a few moments, he looked as though he wasn't sure exactly where to park his hands. Royer is clearly more comfortable when he is the one at the lectern.

When a heckler in the audience, apparently rejected for a job in the Wilder administration, threatened to turn the event into something less civilized, Royer looked as if he wanted to fire off some understanding comment or disarming one-liner. He held back, and Wilder defused the situation on his own. Later Royer said, ``I'm not used to being in that role of the guy introducing and watching. I'm used to being in the middle of the fray. . . . It feels a little strange.''

Royer likes many things about being out of office - the leisure time, not having to schedule his life in 15-minute blocks - but clearly misses some of it, too. ``Here you are dealing with bright people, but it's not important things, it's whom should we invite to this seminar. We'd have a meeting in Seattle and go out and build $50 million worth of public housing,'' a reference to a 1981 bond issue that resulted in the building of more than a thousand apartments for seniors. At Harvard, he must ease into the notion of what he calls longer play-out time. ``Maybe Kim (Harris) will become a U.S. senator; I can say I knew her when. Maybe something I did or said helped her, or maybe just the place I'm responsible for inspired her. That's worth coming to work for.''

The mayor's job was the best job Royer ever had. As he told the mayors in New York, he is glad he left on his own terms, instead of being forced out. While he probably could have won re-election, there was some evidence he got out ahead of the posse, as Keefe put it. There was a lot of public frustration during his last term, some destined to land on him if he stayed around. Though Royer certainly didn't create the Mercer Mess, he was unable to do much about it, despite a couple of attempts. Voters ran from his pet Harborfront project and came out swinging in the CAP election against overbuilding downtown and, implicitly, against the Royer administration. Looking back, he says he

failed to handle the downtown building issue properly.

But another good thing about being out of office, he says, is the chance to gain perspective, which he figures will make him a better, more mature politician.

If so, he might try rebuilding some bridges burned on the way out of town with the state Democratic Party. At least one reason Royer may be sitting in his Harvard office a few more years is that few people in Washington state are clamoring for his return. ``There's no big wake out here,'' says state Democratic Party Chairwoman Karen Marchioro. She says she has always helped Royer but doesn't feel like helping anymore. ``He's been gone a year, and nobody misses him particularly.''

Not only did his last statewide run in 1983 for the Senate against Mike Lowry leave much to be desired, but insiders say Royer promised to raise money for the party before moving to Cambridge and didn't. ``Charley is a real charming guy, but he's kind of a user. I think it's better for people like that if they keep moving,'' Marchioro says. Royer broke the promise because he felt Marchioro didn't do enough to help onetime Royer aide Bruce Hilyer in the 1989 county-executive race against Tim Hill.

If he does decide to come back, if saying he needs more time is just what you say one year into the Harvard job, Royer would need Marchioro and many others to help him raise his campaign assets from the underwhelming $4,000 he now has. There are other obstacles. Despite the op-ed pieces, he is out of sight and, for many, out of mind. And the mayor's office is traditionally a tough place to move up from, though some people, like former San Diego Mayor Pete Wilson, who became U.S. senator and now California's new governor, have done it. The last guy to do it in Seattle was Arthur Langlie, who went directly from mayor to governor in 1941.

So here Royer is at Harvard, bouncing a ball from the Seattle Mariners in an office filled with Seattle pictures and memorabilia, including a shelf-size cardboard Metro bus. He misses Seattle. He comes back to town when he can - he sat near Jane Fonda and Ted Turner at the Goodwill Games - but is also enjoying himself here. He seems to be meeting all the right people in case the right job turns up in D.C. and trying to figure out how to refract some of the purely favorable light that shines on him in Cambridge back to Seattle - where his image has lost some of its gloss.

JONI BALTER IS A SEATTLE TIMES REPORTER. LEE ROMERO IS A FREELANCE PHOTOGRAPHER LIVING IN NEW YORK.