by Bob Spitz
Gorbachev was more persistent when they reconvened after lunch. He wanted some commitment from his American counterpart, specific answers to his proposals. The president was cautiously approving, but he insisted on going forward with research on SDI. “The American people,” he said, “should not be left defenseless.” Again he repeated his intention to share SDI with the Soviet Union. Listening to this, Gorbachev was unable to conceal his cynicism. “If you will not share oil-drilling equipment or even milk-processing facilities, I do not believe you will share SDI. Sharing SDI would provoke a second American revolution!”
At dinner that evening in the embassy residence, John Poindexter produced a proposal from Cap Weinberger that the secretary of defense had given him some months earlier. It was a straightforward plan to do away with all land-based ICBM missiles and to continue with research on SDI. Reagan supported it wholeheartedly, so did George Shultz. They immediately ordered their senior people to work on drafting a counterproposal based on Weinberger’s strategy. “We didn’t have a lot of space for the staff,” Poindexter recalls, “so they found a big plywood board and laid it over the bathtub in the upstairs head, and spent all night crouched there working on it.”
The U.S. proposal wasn’t as dramatic as doing away with all nuclear weapons, but it was a step in the right direction. Their Soviet counterparts were intrigued. At two in the morning the American strategists woke George Shultz. The Russians were agreeable to across-the-board cuts, they said, but there was dissention within their ranks. A joint U.S.-Soviet team met from 3:00 a.m. to 6:30 a.m. in an effort to hammer out a mutual agreement. In the end, the language both sides came up with would commit the superpowers to destroy more than four thousand missiles and twenty thousand nuclear warheads.
Sunday morning, having studied the joint agreement, both Reagan and Gorbachev expressed their disappointment. The president thought it fell short on INF, the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces accord that limited Soviet missiles in Asia. The Soviet general secretary expected a more definitive response to issues in the ABM Treaty. And he was adamant about curtailing SDI. Gorbachev was more than disappointed—he was exasperated, resentful. “We’ve accomplished nothing,” he said, throwing up his hands.
“Are we going to leave with nothing?” the president asked him.
“Yes,” Gorbachev said. “Let’s go home.”
Cooler heads prevailed, and the leaders agreed to a final, midafternoon meeting. Gorbachev, taking Reagan’s commitment to SDI under consideration, suggested an addition to the ABM Treaty for the Americans to discuss among themselves: “The testing in space of all space components of anti-ballistic missile defense is prohibited, except research and testing conducted in laboratories.” It was a compromise. The treaty enabled the United States to continue SDI research for a period of ten years, but not to deploy the system in space.
Reagan took his team back to the bubble room to discuss Gorbachev’s proposal. He went around the table, asking for advice. George Shultz and Paul Nitze urged him to take it. Richard Perle was the sole dissenting voice. “If you accept this proposal,” he warned, “it will mean the end of the SDI program.” The president listened to the conflicting opinions and posed his own argument: “If we agree to this, won’t we be doing it just so we can go home with an agreement?” In the end, he decided to reject Gorbachev’s proposal.
As the U.S. team headed back to the negotiating table, Reagan pulled his chief of staff aside. “Don,” he said, sotto voce, “this is taking too long.” He wanted to leave later in the afternoon, as scheduled. He’d spoken to Nancy earlier and promised her he’d be home for a late dinner. Regan informed him that both sides felt they were close to a breakthrough. It might be worthwhile to continue for an extra day. “Oh, shit!” the president said. “Nancy would kill me.”
She was already steamed about Raisa Gorbachev’s presence in Iceland. Wives had not been invited to the summit, but Mrs. Gorbachev showed up on her husband’s arm. When a reporter asked her about Nancy Reagan’s absence, the Soviet First Lady blithely answered, “Perhaps she has something else to do. Or maybe she isn’t feeling well.” To add insult to injury, Raisa Gorbachev carried out a full schedule of public-relations appearances throughout the weekend that got plenty of TV coverage.
No, Nancy wouldn’t be happy if the summit stretched on. The president made it clear—no more extensions. He intended to wrap up negotiations by the end of Sunday and be in Washington in time for dinner.
But at 5:30 p.m. Gorbachev was clinging to limitations on the deployment of SDI. “You can conduct laboratory research,” he argued. “And after ten years, we can completely eliminate all strategic weapons.” The way he described it made it so tempting.
The elimination of all nuclear weapons by 1996. They were so close . . . so close.
“Let’s do it!” George Shultz interjected.
The president shook his head. “I have promised the American people that I would not give up on SDI,” he said. “I can’t confine work to the laboratory. I can’t give in.” The matter of deployment remained the only sticking point, a question of one word. That was all. He asked Gorbachev to drop it from the agreement as a favor to him—and to world peace.
“If I let go on the testing of space weapons, I couldn’t return to Moscow,” Gorbachev countered. “But if we could agree to ban research in space, I’d sign in two minutes.” He delivered an ultimatum. “It’s ‘laboratory’ or goodbye.”
So close . . . and yet so far apart. A gloomy silence fell over the meeting as their positions hardened, solidified. It was obvious the negotiations had collapsed. Both men knew they had given ground but had taken things as far as possible. They stood up and gathered their papers. Without another word they walked out of the room.
Anticipation was high that the leaders would make a joint statement to the press gathered expectantly outside the front door in the dark, but the president refused. “No statement!” he bristled at his assistant, Jim Kuhn, unable to mask his anger. His face was grim; inside he was seething. He pushed through the throng of diplomats crowding the entrance, avoiding eye contact with Gorbachev, who was beside him.
“I don’t know what else I could have done,” the Soviet leader said.
Without turning his head, Reagan said, “You could have said yes.”
Gorbachev shook his head contemptuously. “We won’t be seeing each other again,” he said.
The president followed George Shultz into a waiting limousine. As the door closed, one word escaped: “Goddammit!”
* * *
—
Despite the crushing diplomatic failure, the delegation rolled out its biggest guns to rewrite the event and to put a positive spin on it. The party line would be that Ronald Reagan had refused to sell America short; in the process, he’d stood up to the Soviets. John Poindexter briefed the press on Air Force One. He implied that it was never the intention of the president to negotiate a nuclear weapons ban, that he had wanted to focus on issues that could be agreed upon later. George Shultz delivered the same summary to the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal. The three networks were serviced by Pat Buchanan, Ken Adelman, and Paul Nitze. Even Henry Kissinger pitched in to do his part. “When one side suddenly springs a major plan on the other and expects it to be negotiated in thirty-six hours, that’s preposterous and outrageous,” he told Tom Brokaw on NBC Nightly News. It was a highly polished group effort, and the polls reflected it had done its job. A Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll indicated Americans supported the president’s performance, with a 71 percent favorable rating. No one seemed to realize that a stride toward world peace had been sacrificed to the whim of a space shield, still in its early development stages, that scientific and military establishments believed wouldn’t be deployable for another ten years—if ever.
* * *
—
While the country seemed willing to giv
e Ronald Reagan a pass on Reykjavik, the support wasn’t enough to alter the midterm elections. He attempted to convince campaign crowds on the stump that the Strategic Defense Initiative was essential to national security and would stimulate the economy, “opening the door to a new technological age,” but voters couldn’t grasp its importance, or how SDI related to them. On November 4, 1986, control of the Senate changed hands, giving the Democrats a 55–45 edge. They now controlled both houses of Congress, which put the president in a weak position to pass legislation that remained on his to-do list.
The administration could spin that, too. The president would forge new alliances, he would sow bipartisan support, his popularity would carry him nicely through the next two years, the Soviets would come around, the economy had momentum—the spin doctors were in full-throttle mode. But the same day, another story appeared under the headlines that announced the election returns: “Iran Says McFarlane and 4 Others Went to Tehran on a Secret Trip.” That was a story no doctor could spin.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
SNAKEBIT
“Every advantage in the past is judged in the light of the final issue.”
—DEMOSTHENES
The story actually broke on November 3, 1986, in Al-Shiraa, a pro-Syrian Arabic magazine in Lebanon. It laid out the startling details of Bud McFarlane’s secret visit to Tehran in May. On November 4, picking up the narrative, Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani addressed Iran’s parliament, highlighting the extent of weaponry that accompanied the Americans. He revealed their fake Irish passports and said the envoys brought a Bible, signed by President Reagan, and a cake, a chocolate cake decorated with a key that symbolized the key to American–Iranian friendship. Magnanimously, he left out the pair of gift-wrapped .357 pistols that were confiscated by the notorious Revolutionary Guard.
Reagan aides expected the story would be eclipsed by the midterm election results and more encouraging news from the day before—that an American hostage, David Jacobsen, had been released and was on his way home. John Poindexter assured his NSC staff that any uproar would fizzle out in a few days. But as George Shultz predicted, “this snake never died.” Its venom had leached out in a series of well-timed leaks citing an array of “intelligence sources.” By November 6, both the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times carried colorful accounts of the Iranian arms initiative. A follow-up report revealed that the initiative had been going on for a year.
The Reagan administration was flat-out snakebit.
It was critical they circle the wagons and perform some hasty damage control, explaining away the arms shipment and preventing further revelations from tying it to the Oval Office. A day earlier, when the president was asked by reporters to confirm McFarlane’s visit, he had tersely responded, “No comment.” But aides knew that would never suffice. There were already cracks in the rickety facade. Rumors circulated that George Shultz opposed the arms deal. During a Rose Garden ceremony honoring David Jacobsen, the president insisted that everyone in his Cabinet supported his policies. “And Secretary Shultz supports the policy, and so does Cap Weinberger?” a reporter persisted. “Yes,” Reagan assured him. But the opposite was true. Shultz and Weinberger were infuriated that they knew nothing about four arms shipments. They’d been purposely kept out of the loop, and were only now, in the face of a snowballing scandal, being asked to pledge allegiance to the ludicrous scheme. “This has all the feel of Watergate,” Shultz thought.
George Bush reached much the same conclusion. By Sunday, November 9, he was carefully distancing himself from the evolving scandal. In a conversation over drinks with the secretary of state, he professed his ignorance of the arms transfer in exchange for hostages. Shultz, irritated by this sudden backpedaling, reminded Bush of a meeting in which the deal was proposed and that Bush had made no objection, in contrast to Shultz’s and Weinberger’s own opposition. Later, the vice president would claim, “We were not in the loop.” To Bud McFarlane, that was particularly galling. “The hell he wasn’t. He was up to his eyebrows in it. He supported it all the way.”
The administration needed a concerted strategy in order to address the mounting congressional and media outcry. On Monday, November 10, the president convened a National Security Planning Group meeting in the Situation Room that featured a star-studded cast: Vice President Bush, Attorney General Meese, Chief of Staff Regan, Secretary of State Shultz, Secretary of Defense Weinberger, CIA Director Casey, and National Security Adviser Poindexter.
“We must say something because I’m being held out to dry,” Reagan complained, according to notes that were taken by an NSC deputy. “A basic statement has to come out. [We] have not dealt directly with terrorists, don’t know who they are. This is a long-range Iranian policy. No further speculation or answers so as not to endanger hostages. We won’t pay any money or give anything to terrorists.”
It was Poindexter who had advised the president that it was more strategic to say less about what they were doing and more about what they weren’t doing, and told him it was essential to convey that their main objective had been a “long-term strategic relationship” with Iran.
Ed Meese offered a dodgy legal rationale. Referring to the sale of TOW missiles for hostages, he said, “We didn’t sell them; Israel did.”
“We have not dealt directly with terrorists, no bargaining, no ransom,” Reagan insisted. “We don’t talk TOWs, don’t talk specifics, avoid specifics.”
Shultz took issue with the president’s analysis. “It is ransom,” he objected.
Reagan did not want to hear it and made his annoyance known. Glaring at the secretary of state, he said, “I would appreciate people saying you support the president’s policy.”
“I support you, Mr. President,” Shultz replied. “I’m more concerned about the policy.”
Despite the misgivings, an official statement was hammered out,* and on November 12, the president parroted it ably, attempting to convince congressional leaders that he’d complied with U.S. policy. “We have not negotiated with terrorists. We have not broken any laws. It was a covert operation . . . designed to advance our strategic interests in the Middle East.” He gave them just enough information to support his claim, but it was obvious from the follow-up remarks of Robert Byrd and Bob Dole that they didn’t believe a word of it. Dole called the operation “inept,” while Byrd termed it “a major foreign relations blunder.” In any case, leaders on the Senate Intelligence Committee demanded full disclosure and made it clear that they intended to launch investigations into all aspects of the affair. Subpoenas were already being discussed.
The president refused to cave in to the legal threat. He was convinced the lives of too many people hung in the balance—the hostages, of course, but also operatives working undercover in the Middle East. Peter Wallison, the White House counsel, had been in a meeting with Oliver North, who warned, “There’d be heads on stakes in Tehran if we acknowledged these transactions were going on.” Wallison concluded that this claim was “a completely made-up story that would manipulate the President.” Sure enough, North’s “pungent language” had its effect. John Poindexter subsequently advised Reagan that, for the safety of all concerned, it was prudent to withhold information.
The following night, on October 13, the president decided to make his case to the nation. He was very cautious about how much to disclose. In an unusually somber address from his desk in the Oval Office, he said:
The charge has been made that the United States has shipped weapons to Iran as ransom payments for the release of American hostages in Lebanon, and that the United States undercut its allies and secretly violated American policy against trafficking with terrorists. Those charges are utterly false.
The United States has not made concessions to those who hold our people captive in Lebanon, and we will not. The United States has not swapped boatloads or planeloads of American weapons for the return of American hostages, and we will not.
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br /> He did admit to “the transfer of small amounts of defensive weapons” to Iran, but said that “these modest deliveries, taken together, could easily fit into a small single cargo plane.” The president knew this was an outright lie—the two thousand TOWs, eighteen HAWKs, and assorted HAWK parts had necessitated eight cargo planes to transport them. And even as he said it, his narrative was unraveling. The press sensed it was getting “less than the full story.” Information was already slipping out from unsourced administration officials that “the arms may have included surface-to-air missiles, antitank weapons, and spare parts” and that “some of the weapons may have been sent by Israel,” a fact the president chose not to mention. Another “senior official” disclosed that “the Iran operation was approved by Reagan in a directive signed in January.”
Press skepticism was the least of his problems. Richard Nixon, watching at his home, felt an uncomfortable tug of déjà vu. “Get the message out,” he counseled Pat Buchanan. “Admit you made a mistake—you tried something and it turned out badly. But don’t cover it up.” His views were shared by many members of the American public, long-faithful supporters of the president, who felt they were being deceived. An ABC News poll taken immediately after the speech found that 72 percent of respondents disapproved of the president’s policy of shipping arms to Iran to improve relations, while 56 percent believed he’d swapped arms for hostages.
As the staff started to scramble, Ronald Reagan was oddly passive. His team put together an all-out public-relations campaign to salvage the situation, but it only seemed to make matters worse. Bud McFarlane discussed his trip to Tehran with Ted Koppel on Nightline supposedly to come clean, only to deny bringing a Bible, a cake, or pistols. John Poindexter appeared on Meet the Press in a futile effort to convince viewers that the Iran initiative was in the nation’s best interest, implying more arms sales were to come. And George Shultz, under a ferocious interrogation by Leslie Stahl on Face the Nation, did nothing but dodge her questions about the trading of arms for hostages, an operation that, of course, he vehemently opposed. Nevertheless, Stahl pressed him on whether there would be any more arms shipments to Iran. “I would certainly say, as far as I’m concerned, no,” the secretary responded, throwing down the gauntlet. That might have gotten him off with only minor bruising. But when she persisted, asking him if he had the authority to speak for the administration, Shultz shook his head forlornly and answered, “No.”
