Kennedy and Reagan

by Scott Farris

  If anything, the disaster made him even more determined to remove Castro. At a May 4 meeting of the National Security Council, Kennedy and his advisors agreed that official U.S. policy was to get rid of Castro. Robert Kennedy chaired the Special Group (Augmented) that ran covert operations in Cuba, which was code-named “Operation Mongoose,” and Kennedy asked Colonel Lansdale to be chief of operations.

  Operation Mongoose became one of the largest clandestine undertakings in CIA history, involving some four hundred agents and with an annual budget of more than $50 million. It involved a variety of covert, economic, and psychological operations, including at least eight assassination plots, which were uncovered by the Church Committee during its investigation of the nation’s intelligence agencies in the 1970s. Castro was aware of the plots, including one that would have contracted his killing to American mobsters who hoped to reestablish their presence in Cuba.* Later, when Lyndon Johnson became fully aware of the scope of Kennedy’s covert activities regarding Cuba, he told a biographer that the Kennedys had been “operating a damn Murder, Inc., in the Caribbean.” But it was not a very efficient one. As of early 2013, more than fifty years after Operation Mongoose, Castro was still alive, though he had handed off most of the duties in running Cuba to his brother, Raul.

  * It wasn’t only Castro on the administration’s “hit list.” Dominican Republic dictator Rafael Trujillo was assassinated in May 1961 by plotters using weapons supplied by the CIA.

  Kennedy’s Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara later admitted that the Kennedy administration was “hysterical about Castro at the time of the Bay of Pigs and thereafter.” Kennedy’s obsession with Castro is underscored by the fact that his presidency generated more documents and files on Cuba than on the Soviet Union and Vietnam combined. Kennedy even pumped reporters who had interviewed Castro for gossip about his sex life, asking “Who does he sleep with? I’ve heard he doesn’t even take his boots off.”

  “Latin America,” Henry Kissinger quipped, “is a dagger pointing at the heart of Antarctica.” Like Kennedy, however, Reagan was convinced that Latin America held great strategic importance to the Soviets and so responded in kind. In a diary entry from March 1983, Reagan wrote, “If the Soviets win in Central America, we lose in Geneva and every place else.” To those who questioned this logic, Reagan reminded them of the strategic importance of the Panama Canal and Gulf Coast shipping. “It is well to remember that in 1942 a handful of Hitler’s submarines sank more tonnage there than in all of the Atlantic Ocean,” Reagan said.

  Reagan often used a bogus quotation falsely attributed to Lenin (though Reagan said he believed it was genuine) that claimed that once the Communists took control of Eastern Europe and Asia, they would move into the Western Hemisphere. “Once we have Latin America, we won’t have to take the United States,” the bogus line went, “. . . because it will fall into our outstretched hands like overripe fruit.” Reagan noted with alarm that Cuba was helping tiny Grenada build an air base, but Grenada had no air force, and he questioned why tiny Nicaragua needed an army of twenty-five thousand men.

  But for all the urgency of his warnings, Reagan was unable to arouse either the American public or a majority of Congress to support his policies in Latin America. Reagan expressed exasperation that large numbers of Americans didn’t even know where countries such as El Salvador or Nicaragua were located, and he was infuriated by those who suggested the right-wing regimes supported by the United States were as brutal, or even more so, than the Communist rebels who sought to overthrow them.

  Reagan acknowledged there were “right-wing outlaw elements” within the government of El Salvador, but he believed American policies were promoting democratic reforms there and was convinced Communist atrocities exceeded any crimes committed by right-wing death squads. He considered anti-Communist rebels to be “freedom fighters” just like those who fought in the American Revolution. As Reagan later wrote in his memoirs, “Based simply on the difference between right and wrong, it was clear that we should help the people of the region fight the bloodthirsty guerillas bent on robbing them of freedom.” Even when he took a tour of Latin America in 1982, Reagan saw only what he wanted to see. He praised Guatemalan strongman Jose Efrain Rios Montt as “a man of great integrity and commitment,” even though Rios Montt was a psychopath who headed his own church, “The Church of the Word.” In 2013 a Guatemalan court convicted Rios Montt of genocide for ordering the deliberate killing of the country’s Mayan population during a civil war that killed two hundred thousand people.*

  * As this book was written, a Guatemalan appellate court had ordered a retrial of Rios Montt.

  CIA Director Casey shared Reagan’s belief that Central America was a linchpin in the Cold War. Casey believed the Soviet Union was overextended and if the United States could score a victory against a Soviet client state somewhere in the world, the Soviet Union’s global influence would unravel. Casey, who notoriously mumbled so that his speech was often unintelligible, told an aide, “Nick-a-wog-wah [as Casey pronounced it] is that place.”

  Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza had been deposed in 1979 and was replaced in power by a group of young Marxists known as the Sandinistas (their name taken from an early Nicaraguan nationalist). While the Carter administration had taken a wait-and-see attitude toward the Sandinistas, the Reagan policy was to overthrow the Sandinista regime, and the opposition backed by the United States was known as the Contras.

  In providing aid to the Contras, Reagan insisted the only goal was to interdict arms shipments the Nicaraguan government was sending to Communist guerillas in El Salvador. In truth, the CIA was arming and training a large rebel force. Concerned about deepening U.S. involvement in the region, Congress passed the so-called Boland Amendment in 1982 that capped aid to the Contras at $24 million per year and which specified that none of those funds could be used to help topple the Nicaraguan government.

  When it was revealed in 1984 that CIA operatives had violated the Boland Amendment by placing explosive mines in Nicaraguan harbors and plotting the assassination of Sandinista leaders, an angry Congress further tightened restrictions on aid to the Contras. Even conservative Republican senator Barry Goldwater, chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, advised Casey in a letter, “I am pissed off.”

  The Reagan administration began to think of new ways they might provide arms and funding to the Contras. A National Security Council staffer, Marine Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North, was tasked with raising funds from foreign governments and private individuals that could then be funneled to the Contras. When Secretary of State George Schultz stated that such activities would be illegal, Reagan acknowledged that if the story ever got out “we’ll all be hanging by our thumbs in front of the White House.”

  North had set up a Swiss bank account and cajoled several American allies, including Israel, South Africa, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, and Brunei, to make contributions, as well as a number of wealthy conservatives. The Contras were so grateful for a donation made by beer magnate Joseph Coors that they painted the Coors beer logo on the tail of one of their airplanes. Then North had what he called “a neat idea”—to raise even more money for the Contras while also addressing another foreign policy issue dear to Reagan’s heart: the release of seven Americans held hostage by Islamic extremists in Lebanon.

  The Reagan administration first became deeply involved in Lebanon following Israel’s 1982 invasion of that country. Reagan had been “repulsed” by Israel’s use of cluster bombs to clear obstructions in Beirut without regard to civilian casualties. A photograph of a seven-month-old baby who lost its arms in such an attack touched Reagan deeply, and he deliberately used the word “holocaust” in demanding that Israeli leaders halt offensive operations in Lebanon.

  Reagan then overruled his Defense Secretary, Casper Weinberger, and committed U.S. troops as part of a multinational peacekeeping force in Lebanon. This would eventually le
ad to one of the great tragedies of the Reagan administration, the October 23, 1983, bombing by Islamic militants of the American Marines barracks, which killed 241 American servicemen. American troops and those of the rest of the peacekeeping force withdrew the following year, and Lebanon descended further into chaos. As one Marine scrawled on a Beirut wall, “Don’t send me to hell. I’ve already served my time in Lebanon.”

  The U.S. government had advised all other Americans to get out of Lebanon as well, but some stayed behind to teach, to minister, to report, or to spy. By 1985 Islamic extremists held seven Americans hostage. Six were private citizens. The seventh was CIA agent William Buckley, who was later killed by his captors. It was one of Reagan’s peculiar traits that while he could not think in terms of groups of people, he had great empathy for individuals. After he met with some of the hostages’ families, Reagan said, “The American people will never forgive me if I fail to get those hostages out,” even though polling did not support this belief.

  In July 1985, an Israeli official introduced Reagan’s National Security Advisor, Robert McFarlane, to an Iranian businessman named Manucher Ghorbanifar, who claimed to represent Iranian “moderates.” Ghorbanifar made an offer: If the United States would provide arms to assist Iran in her war with Iraq, then these Iranian moderates who wished better ties with America would pressure the Islamic militants in Beirut to release the hostages.

  To skirt legal restrictions against sending arms to Iran, it was agreed that the Israelis would deliver the desired weapons to Iran and then be compensated by the United States with new weapons. Reagan personally approved of the deal. One hundred antitank missiles were delivered to Iran, but no hostages were freed. Ghorbanifar asked for four hundred more antitank missiles. After those were delivered, one hostage, the Reverend Benjamin Weir, was freed.

  It was at this point that North came up with the idea of selling the Iranians weapons at inflated prices and then taking the profits from those sales to provide arms and training for the Contras. Schultz, Weinberger, and others warned Reagan that what was occurring, if discovered, might be an impeachable offense. But North convinced Reagan that no laws were technically being broken because it was the Israelis, not America, selling arms to Iran, and the money going to the Contras was not public money and so not prohibited by the Boland Amendment. All of this was wrong, of course.

  Not only were the activities illegal, they were not accomplishing the objective of freeing the hostages. Despite the sale of several thousand antitank missiles to Iran, only two more hostages had been released, but in the meantime additional Americans had been taken hostage. The operation was a merry-go-round going nowhere, though North’s scheme did raise as much as $20 million for the Contras.

  The story first broke in a small Lebanese newspaper days before the 1986 U.S. general elections, in which the Democrats regained control of the Senate. When Reagan addressed the growing controversy on November 13, he insisted that only defensive weapons and spare parts had been sold to Iran, that this was done only to strengthen the position of Iranian political moderates, and that none of this was part of any deal with terrorists to release hostages. As Reagan himself ruefully noted, the American people did not believe him. Then again, he was not telling the truth. His job approval rating fell from 67 percent at the beginning of November to 46 percent in December.

  After all the investigations were completed, eleven officials within the Reagan administration either pleaded guilty or were convicted of perjury, misusing public funds, and other relatively minor infractions. Several of the convictions were overturned on appeal, while Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger was pardoned by President George H. W. Bush before his case went to trial.

  Congress chose to focus its hearings on the funneling of funds to the Contras, but what upset the American public was the notion of negotiating with terrorists and selling arms to Iran. As presidential scholar Richard Neustadt noted, “Reagan had entered office on a wave of popular antipathy for ayatollahs. . . . The President had not at all prepared his countrymen to see him arming Iran.”

  The hearings were one occasion where Reagan’s false reputation as an “amiable dunce,” to use Washington insider Clark Clifford’s phrase, served him well. Congress was not anxious to take down a still popular president and so did not press Reagan very hard. In his depositions, Reagan, the man known for his photographic memory, the man who did know the details of issues that interested him, and whose mind was still sharp in his second term, kept insisting he could not recall key events, meetings, and decisions. North said, “President Reagan knew everything.”

  Reagan was able to put Iran-Contra behind him because he soon enjoyed success in his historic summits with Gorbachev, and because once the hearings were over he had but a year left in office.

  Kennedy had greater difficulty moving on from the Bay of Pigs. A meeting with Douglas MacArthur made Kennedy feel better; MacArthur placed the blame on Eisenhower, his former staff officer. But MacArthur also advised Kennedy not to intervene in Laos, where there were threats of a Communist takeover. He warned Kennedy to stay out of Southeast Asia altogether; American interests extended no further than Japan, Taiwan, and the Philippines, MacArthur said. Kennedy received similar advice from French President Charles de Gaulle, who said, “You will sink into a bottomless military and political quagmire, however much you spend in men and money.”

  But Kennedy believed he needed to do something to recover his perceived loss of American prestige. “There are limits to the number of defeats I can defend in one twelve-month period,” Kennedy said. “I’ve had the Bay of Pigs, and pulling out of Laos, and I can’t accept a third.” As he looked around the globe for another place to challenge Communist expansion, he concluded, “If we have to fight in Southeast Asia, let’s fight in Vietnam. The Vietnamese, at least, are committed and will fight. Vietnam is the place.”

  Vietnam had been so far off Eisenhower’s radar that Kennedy insisted Eisenhower had never mentioned Vietnam during their several meetings during the presidential transition. But Kennedy had inherited from the Eisenhower administration a plan for counterinsurgency in Vietnam that had a $42 million price tag. He readily approved it. He had been further buoyed by a report from Colonel Lansdale, who convinced Kennedy that the United States could save South Vietnam from the Communists by backing President Ngo Dinh Diem. Kennedy sent Lansdale to Saigon as his personal representative.

  Two years later, just weeks before his own assassination, Kennedy gave his approval to a coup that would result in Diem’s murder. By then the counterinsurgency plan had grown to involve more than sixteen thousand American military advisors stationed in Vietnam. Once again, America was finding that the coups in Iran and Guatemala that had made covert actions seem so easy were not the norm. As Kennedy headed to Dallas in November 1963, he knew he was coming to a decision point where he would have to decide whether to pull back or push forward. We will never know what he might have done had he lived. All we do know is that when the man who knew him best, his brother Robert, was asked in 1964 whether his brother intended to stay in Vietnam, he gave a one-word answer: “Yes.”

  Later, as his own views on Vietnam evolved, RFK began to imagine that his brother’s views might have too. It’s simply impossible to know. Robert Kennedy was haunted by his brother’s death, not just because of the personal loss but because he wondered if it had been the result of the covert activities undertaken against Castro. Lyndon Johnson, who knew how to torment RFK, suggested either that Castro had been behind the assassination—“President Kennedy tried to get Castro, but Castro got Kennedy first,” he said—or that the assassination was some form of “divine retribution” for Kennedy’s role in the assassinations of Trujillo and Diem.

  Robert Kennedy was deeply offended by the idea that his brother’s death was divine retribution, but he never completely ruled out the possibility that it was direct payback from a Kennedy administration target. To show how his
participation in covert activities had darkened and corrupted his own thoughts, RFK even speculated that the CIA had been involved in his brother’s death! He asked CIA Director John McCone, who had succeeded Allen Dulles, if the agency had been involved. “I asked him in a way that he couldn’t lie to me,” Robert Kennedy said, “and they hadn’t.” That he felt obliged to even ask the question demonstrated that covert operations were very high risk after all.

  CHAPTER 18

  TAX CUTS AND DEFICITS

  Politicians who cut taxes are seldom unpopular. John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan initiated two of the largest rate reductions in American income-tax history. (The cuts proposed by Kennedy did not become law until Lyndon Johnson was president.) While Reagan later raised other taxes to try to reduce skyrocketing federal budget deficits and to maintain Social Security’s solvency, the low marginal income tax rates he established in the 1980s continued through the early 2010s. And while many people contest such a view, the two tax cuts were given at least partial credit for spurring significant economic growth in the 1960s and the 1980s.

  Yet the tax cuts were controversial. Conservatives opposed the cuts first proposed by Kennedy in 1962 because they worried about increasing budget deficits. Liberals opposed Reagan’s tax cuts in 1981, concerned that they would lead to cuts in government services.

  And the tax cuts remain controversial. The question of whether they deserve credit for stimulating the economic growth associated with both presidencies is still being debated, as is the question of whether the tax cuts began a new era of income inequality in America. Disagreement remains over what economic theories were behind the tax cuts as well. Whatever the intended result of each president’s tax cut was, politicians continue to argue over whether they provide a blueprint that should guide future tax policy or whether they were suited to a specific time and set of circumstances.