PEOPLE William Kristol, chief of staff for U.S. Secretary of Education William Bennett, says he has no difficulty reconciling his Judaism with his own, his boss' or the Reagan administration's conservative philosophies. PLAYER JAMES DAVID BESSER Washington Correspondent J ews and conservatives sometimes seem like strange bedfellows. On one hand, Jewish Americans are not immune to the pressures that nudge people in the direction of con- servatism as they add to their families, bank accounts and birthdays. Even for some onetime liberals, there is a comfortable in- evitability to the process. At the same time, the most ardent Jewish neoconservatives sometimes feel uncomfortable with their ideological brethren. There are subgroups under the conservative umbrella that still believe in Jewish conspiracies for world domination. Many more advocate things like school prayer and a reemphasis on America's "Christian heritage." Politicians and preachers like Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell have made careers of cementing the bonds between ideological and theological conservatism, a process that sets most Jewish nerves on edge. William Kristol suffers no such ap- prehensions. His conservative pedigree tells part of the story; his father is Irving Kristol, one of the major constellations in the Jewish neoconservative universe. Ac- cording to some published reports, Kristol is more conservative than his father, an assessment that he laughs off, but doesn't deny. 46 FRIDAY, MAY 13, 1988 More importantly, Bill Kristol is a true believer. Amid signs that the luster of the Reagan revolution has dimmed, Kristol still relishes his role as right-hand man to one of the most visible and controversial Reagan warriors, Secretary of Education William Bennett. He doesn't lose sleep over the possible side effects of the educational movement he and Bennett are trying to forge. Poor quality teaching and a failure to teach educational basics, he suggests, are more dangerous threats than school prayer. Kristol's official title at Education is Chief of Staff. "My job is to coordinate things for the Secretary and advise him on policy issues," Kristol says. "I also coor- dinate things at the office of the Secretary, which involves scheduling, speechwriting — everything in which he has a direct per- sonal interest." But Kristol's role goes beyond that of the army of under-secretaries and deputy secretaries who crank the machinery of the Department of Education. Kristol serves as a kind of alter-ego for the controversial Secretary of Education, an intellectual sparring-partner as they try to apply broad conservative principles to the complex debate over the future of America's public schools. An interview with Bill Kristol in his Washington office is an exercise in discon- tinuity. The door that connects his office with Secretary Bennett's should have been