William Clark, President Reagan's surprise choice to be interior secretary, has made a career of taking top level posts for which he had scant background or experience.
Clark, 51, has served as chief of staff in the California's governor's office, California Supreme Court justice, deputy secretary of state and White House national security adviser -- all as Reagan appointees.
The son of a California police chief who wears cowboy boots with his dark pin-striped suits, Clark prefers to be called 'Judge Clark,' from his days on the court. Like Reagan, Clark likes to go back to his California ranch, near Los Angeles, and ride horses.
The soft-spoken Californian has always compensated for his lack of background with what counts the most in government and politics -- the utmost trust of his boss.
'I have decided to turn once again to someone who has been a troubleshooter and a results-oriented professional,' Reagan said Thursday in announcing Clark's latest appointment. 'He is a God-fearing Westerner, fourth-generation California rancher and person I trust.'
There had been speculation that Clark might be President Reagan's top choice for the Supreme Court in the event of an opening.
In February 1981, Clark acknowledged to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee he had little or no foreign policy experience and did not know the name of the prime minister of South Africa. His replies of 'I don't know' or 'I can't speak to that matter at this time' were widely criticized.
Visibly upset, Sen. Charles Percy, R-Ill., chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said that never again would the committee approve any nominee who appeared before it so seemingly ill-prepared for the job.
But Clark gained respect in the post for smoothing relations between the White House and the volatile secretary of state at the time, Alexander Haig. Clark also proved a quick study on foreign policy.
Reagan then made Clark his adviser on national security affairs and brought him from the State Department into the White House inner circle.
Clark was Reagan's chief of staff in the governor's office in Sacramento from 1967 to 1969, and was named by Reagan to the California Supreme Court in 1973.
After shunning a role in the 1980 Reagan campaign, Clark left that job, at Reagan's request, to come to WasOington in 1981. It was then he faced the embarrassing Senate hearing.
When Clark came to the White House a year later, Reagan's 'Big Three' panel of top aides -- James Baker, Edwin Meese and Michael Deaver - was expanded to make room for Clark, who saw Reagan every morning for 'mini-briefings' on foreign policy matters.
Clark is descended from a fourth-generation Ventura County, Calif., ranching and law enforcement family. His grandfather was county sheriff and later U.S. marshal. His father was undersheriff and later chief of police of Oxnard.
Clark spent a year in an Augustinian seminary and seriously considered entering the priesthood. He later attended Stanford University, and Loyola University Law School at night. He dropped out before getting a law degree, but accumulated enough academic credits to take the bar examination, which he passed on the second try.
When Reagan tapped Clark for the state supreme court, his lack of scholarship was a matter of great contention -- and Chief Justice Donald Wright called him 'not qualified by education, training and experience.'
Clark, a Roman Catholic, has been married for 28 years to the former Joan Brauner and they have five children.
