Reagan: The Life

by H. W. Brands

  “The Al H. situation is coming to a head,” Reagan wrote. “I have to put an end to the turf battles we’re having and his almost paranoid attitude.” The president thought it a shame that things had grown so fractious. Describing a meeting of the NSC on the Lebanon crisis, he wrote, “Al H. made great good sense on this entire matter. It’s amazing how sound he can be on complex international matters but how utterly paranoid with regard to the people he must work with.”

  Haig apparently expected Reagan to refuse his resignation, as he had done before. But the president decided he had had enough of the Haig problem. Haig was getting too much attention, for the wrong reasons. Reagan had no particular policy quarrels with Haig, but he didn’t like being overshadowed. He told Haig he would read his bill of particulars and get back to him.

  He called Haig into the Oval Office the next day. He handed him an unsealed envelope. Haig read the letter it contained. “Dear Al,” it said, “It is with utmost regret that I accept your letter of resignation.”

  Haig was nonplussed. “The president was accepting a letter of resignation I had not submitted,” he recalled. Haig realized that an immediate, unexplained resignation in the middle of a foreign policy crisis would not look good on his résumé, and he requested time to compose a letter. He explained that he would ascribe his departure to policy differences.

  Reagan nodded. But while the secretary was finding the words to frame his departure, the president called George Shultz, formerly secretary of labor and secretary of the Treasury under Richard Nixon. Reagan had met Shultz in Sacramento when the then governor had some questions about the finances of government. The meeting lasted three hours. “He gave me the most intense grilling I ever had on the federal government,” Shultz recalled later. Shultz had guessed that Reagan wanted to run for president. But Reagan’s interrogation signaled something more substantive. “He wanted to do the job,” Shultz said. Subsequently, Shultz invited Reagan to a gathering of academic and policy types at Shultz’s home on the campus of Stanford University. “He was impressive,” Shultz remembered. Reagan had strong views, which wasn’t unusual in a politician. But Reagan’s views were remarkably well-informed. “He understood why he had the views.”

  At the time of Haig’s departure, Shultz was president of Bechtel Corporation, a global construction and engineering firm. Reagan’s call reached him in a meeting in London. “Al Haig has resigned,” Reagan said, “and I want you to be my secretary of state.”

  Shultz wasn’t sure he had heard the president correctly. “Haig has already resigned?” he asked Reagan. “It has already happened?”

  Reagan fudged. “He has resigned,” he said. “It hasn’t been announced, but it has happened. I have accepted his resignation, and I want you to replace him.”

  Shultz suddenly realized that Reagan expected an immediate answer. “Mr. President, are you asking me to accept this job now, over the phone?”

  “Well, yes, I am, George,” Reagan said. “It would help a lot because it’s not a good idea to leave a post like this vacant. When we announce that Secretary Haig has resigned, we’d like to announce that I have nominated you.”

  Shultz thought a few seconds, then said, “Mr. President, I’m on board.”

  Reagan hung up and headed for the White House press room. While Haig was still composing his resignation letter, Reagan announced his successor. Then he flew off to Camp David.

  Haig told his side of the story from the State Department later that day. Reagan was informed Haig would be holding a news conference, and he and Nancy turned on the television. Haig ascribed his resignation to a disagreement on foreign policy. Reagan shook his head. “The only disagreement was over whether I made policy or the secretary of state did,” he wrote that evening.

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  REAGAN RARELY LOOKED backward. From boyhood he had always looked forward—beyond his father’s drunken binges, beyond the emotional dislocations of moving from town to town, beyond the narrow confines of Dixon, beyond Illinois to Hollywood, beyond Hollywood to Sacramento and then Washington. Ambition had driven him to look forward, to the next level of achievement and renown, but so also had temperament. He preferred action to reflection, moving ahead to contemplating the past. He almost never admitted mistakes, partly because he didn’t think he made many of them but also because admitting mistakes required the kind of retrospection he disliked. If his career had been less successful, he might have found his self-imposed amnesia untenable. He would have had to ask himself why his achievements had fallen short of his ambitions. But his career was astonishingly successful. So why worry about the past?

  Reagan never admitted that choosing Al Haig for secretary of state had been a mistake. Nor did he admit that his detached style of leadership lent itself to the kind of bureaucratic guerrilla warfare that drove Haig to distraction before it drove him from office. Reagan simply blamed Haig for the troubles of the secretary’s tenure and moved on.

  George Shultz soon learned that the truth was more complicated than that. Shultz flew by supersonic Concorde across the Atlantic and by helicopter to Camp David. “President Reagan and I had lunch under a canopy of trees outside Aspen Cottage,” he recalled. “Bill Clark, Jim Baker, and Ed Meese joined us. The shells were falling in Beirut, the press was howling, and pressure on the United States was mounting at the United Nations to take some kind of action against Israel. The president was calm and affable. But he and his aides, I could see, were also gripped with a sense of urgency, frustration, and crisis.”

  Reagan had felt the pressure since the Israelis crossed the border into Lebanon. “We’re walking on a tightrope,” he wrote in his diary. Elias Sarkis, the Lebanese president, seemed willing to let the Israelis neutralize the several thousand PLO fighters in southern Lebanon, but he couldn’t say so in public. That put Reagan in a bind. “The world is waiting for us to use our muscle and order Israel out,” he said. “We can’t do this if we want to help Sarkis, but we can’t explain the situation either. Some days are worse than others.”

  Reagan’s days didn’t get any better. The president understood the Israeli government’s reasons for going into Lebanon, although he disbelieved their public declaration that they simply wanted to drive the PLO back from Israel’s border. He guessed that Begin and Sharon intended to destroy the PLO or at least force it out of Lebanon. They made no secret of their desire to eject Syrian forces from the country. Reagan recognized that much of the world saw Israel as America’s stalking horse and blamed the United States for the casualties Israeli forces were inflicting in Lebanon.

  He declined to lecture Begin publicly, not least because he supposed that such a course would simply make the prime minister more intransigent. But behind the doors of the White House, when Begin again visited Washington, the president let him know he didn’t have carte blanche from the United States. “I was pretty blunt,” Reagan wrote after the meeting. Begin responded that Israel had to defend itself. Reagan said Israeli forces were taking too many casualties. Begin denied it. Reagan said it again. Yet to himself, in his diary, he admitted, “It’s a complex problem. While we think his action was overkill, it still may turn out to be the best opportunity we’ve had to reconcile the warring factions in Lebanon and bring about peace after seven years.”

  Peace was what Reagan wanted, both for the sake of Lebanon and for the credibility of the United States in the Arab world. Yet he realized this was a tall order, and in the meantime he would settle for a cease-fire. He sent special envoy Philip Habib to mediate between the belligerents. Habib got an agreement, only to have each side violate the truce and blame the other. Habib’s central problem was that the Israelis didn’t intend to call off their offensive until they had accomplished the purpose of their invasion. But his task wasn’t made easier by the long-standing refusal of the United States to negotiate directly with the PLO. Habib, the American mediator, had to employ mediators of his own—Lebanese go-betweens—to exchange messages with the Palestinian leadership. When, i
n the interest of efficiency, he edged physically closer to the Palestinians, the Israelis complained, and he had to step back.

  He nonetheless got his messages across, thanks in part to a striking diplomatic style. “Habib never ceased to rave and rant and wave his arms in perpetual motion as he shouted imprecations at anyone in range,” George Shultz recounted. “Habib’s tantrums were at once theatrics and persuasively serious. Beneath the surface everyone discerned a just and good-natured gentleman … Habib could convey unpleasant truths and stark realities in a manner that would often ultimately win agreement without resentment.”

  All the same, Habib’s leverage was no greater than Reagan allowed him to apply. And Reagan, for all his impatience with Begin, refused to risk a rift with Israel, America’s most important partner in the Middle East.

  THE SITUATION GREW tenser when Israeli forces approached Beirut. Israel’s occupation of rural Lebanon had angered Arabs and much of the rest of the world, but a takeover of an Arab capital would almost certainly produce an emotional and political explosion of far greater force. Yet from the Israeli view, Beirut was a legitimate target, for the PLO had retreated from southern Lebanon into the city.

  Reagan tried to forestall the attack. Judging that private warnings had lost their force, the president came close to lecturing Israel openly. A reporter asked him, ahead of a meeting with Israeli foreign minister Yitzhak Shamir, if he was going to get tough with the Israeli government for violating the cease-fire. “Let me say I’ll be firm,” Reagan replied. “This must be resolved, and the bloodshed must stop.” The reporter asked if he was losing patience with Israel. “I lost patience a long time ago,” the president said.

  On August 4, Reagan convened the National Security Council to assess the situation and devise a plan. He commenced the meeting by asking for the latest news from the front. He said he had been awakened that morning by an aide with a report that an “all out assault” on Beirut had begun. Was this true?

  George Shultz said the Israeli activity fell short of a full assault. But the Israeli shelling made it impossible for Phil Habib to continue cease-fire talks. Shultz relayed Habib’s request for “a very strong letter that would threaten sanctions if the Israelis did not provide him with the amount of time and quiet that he needed to conclude the negotiations.” Shultz supported the request, adding that sanctions might include another suspension of arms sales and a resolution by the UN Security Council condemning the Israeli attacks.

  Jeane Kirkpatrick objected to the anti-Israel tone of Shultz’s remarks. “We should not lose sight of the fact that the PLO is not a bunch of agrarian reformers,” the UN ambassador said. “They are international terrorists who are working against U.S. interests and committing acts of violence throughout the world supported by the Soviet Union.” Israel’s aim in Lebanon was America’s, Kirkpatrick said. “The U.S. should not throw away the possibility of getting rid of the PLO by taking measures against Israel which will inhibit, if not eliminate, the prospects of achieving our objectives. Clearly, once we have removed the PLO from Lebanon we can make fast progress in the peace process.”

  Reagan agreed with Kirkpatrick and asked, “How do we inform the PLO of the situation and the need to get out?”

  Caspar Weinberger didn’t answer the president’s question; instead, he returned to the issue of how to deal with Israel. The defense secretary concurred that the PLO should leave Lebanon, but he thought Israel was going too far. “The U.S. must let Israel know of the cost to Israel of its nightly activities,” Weinberger said, referring to the bombardment of West Beirut, the Muslim section of the city, where the PLO had taken refuge.

  Reagan preferred to pressure the Palestinians. “We have to let the PLO know that their games must stop,” the president said. Thinking aloud, he suggested working through Saudi Arabia. “Perhaps the best way to do this would be to communicate something along the following lines to King Fahd: We have continued to hold back the Israelis, and I am again in communication with Prime Minister Begin. But the intransigence of the PLO, who all of us agreed should move out, is causing problems and leading the Israelis to resume their activities. It is time for the PLO to move out.”

  None of Reagan’s advisers contradicted the president, but his suggestion received no second, and the matter was dropped. Discussion turned to what Reagan should say to Begin. Bill Clark had drafted a letter, which he presented to Reagan. The president studied the letter for several minutes. A frown creased his face as he read the final section, which he proceeded to revise on the spot. “Last night we were making significant progress toward a settlement that would result in the removal of the PLO from Beirut,” the president wrote. “That progress was once again frustrated by the actions taken by your forces. There must be an end to the unnecessary bloodshed, particularly among innocent civilians. I insist that a ceasefire-in-place be reestablished and maintained until the PLO has left Beirut. The relationship between our two nations is at stake.”

  Reagan proposed to address Begin in the letter as “Menachem.” But the consensus among the NSC members and staff was that this would vitiate the otherwise stern tone of the letter. Reagan reluctantly agreed to commence the letter “Dear Prime Minister.”

  STRONGER LANGUAGE PROVED necessary. The Israeli bombardment of Beirut intensified, prompting Reagan to telephone Begin. Geoffrey Kemp, the top Middle East expert on the NSC staff, silently monitored the call but nearly gasped aloud when Reagan dropped the rhetorical h-bomb on Begin. “Menachem, this is a holocaust,” Reagan said.

  “Begin bristled,” Kemp remembered. “You could almost feel it on the telephone.” The prime minister spoke slowly and bitterly: “Mr. President, I know all about a holocaust.”

  Reagan’s call had the desired effect; the attacks on Beirut diminished. But it deeply offended Begin, whose parents and brother had died at the hands of the Nazis.

  Habib worked out a deal. The principal points were a new cease-fire, the evacuation of the PLO from Lebanon, and the subsequent withdrawal of Israeli and Syrian forces from Lebanon. A multinational peacekeeping force would supervise the PLO withdrawal; American troops would be included. “Our purpose will be to assist the Lebanese armed forces in carrying out their responsibility for ensuring the departure of PLO leaders, officers, and combatants in Beirut from Lebanese territory under safe and orderly conditions,” Reagan explained in a Rose Garden statement. “The presence of United States forces also will facilitate the restoration of the sovereignty and authority of the Lebanese government over the Beirut area. In no case will our troops stay longer than thirty days.”

  Reagan had told reporters before his statement that he would not answer questions. Secretary of State Shultz was about to convene a news conference, he explained. But reporters shouted at him anyway. “Mr. President, how can you be sure that American troops will stay safe?” one asked.

  “That will be covered,” Reagan replied, referring to Shultz’s news conference.

  The reporter persisted. “If they’re shot at, will they be withdrawn, sir, immediately?” he said.

  “What?”

  “If they’re shot at, will they be withdrawn immediately?”

  “Yes, yes,” Reagan said.

  Larry Speakes broke in. “We said no questions,” he reminded the reporters. He hustled Reagan off.

  THE PLO EVACUATION proceeded without major incident, allowing Reagan on September 1 to tell the American public, “Today has been a day that should make us proud. It marked the end of the successful evacuation of PLO from Beirut.” The president congratulated Philip Habib for his tireless efforts, and he recognized the several hundred U.S. marines who had helped supervise the operation. “Our young men should be out of Lebanon within two weeks. They, too, have served the cause of peace with distinction, and we can all be very proud of them.”

  The president expressed hope that the Lebanese settlement could lead to a larger resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Suggesting a framework for such a resolution, he iss
ued three calls. “I call on Israel to make clear that the security for which she yearns can only be achieved through genuine peace, a peace requiring magnanimity, vision, and courage. I call on the Palestinian people to recognize that their own political aspirations are inextricably bound to recognition of Israel’s right to a secure future. And I call on the Arab states to accept the reality of Israel—and the reality that peace and justice are to be gained only through hard, fair, direct negotiation.”

  Elaborating on his peace vision, Reagan explicitly rejected an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza, but he also rejected permanent retention by Israel of those territories. He proposed Palestinian self-government in association with Jordan. He declared America’s opposition to the construction of Israeli settlements in the occupied territories. And he embraced the concept of giving the Palestinians land in exchange for a peace treaty with Israel. “We base our approach squarely on the principle that the Arab-Israeli conflict should be resolved through negotiations involving an exchange of territory for peace,” he said.

  Reagan wasn’t surprised when Begin rejected his proposal. The Israeli prime minister regularly proclaimed that the West Bank was Israeli and would forever remain Israeli. “What some call the West Bank, Mr. President, is Judea and Samaria,” Begin wrote to Reagan. “Millennia ago there was a Jewish kingdom of Judea and Samaria where our kings knelt to God, where our prophets brought forth a vision of eternal peace, where we developed a rich civilization which we took with us in our hearts and in our minds on our long global trek over eighteen centuries, and with it we came back home.” Though Jordan had governed Judea and Samaria after 1948, Israel’s people never forgot them. “In a war of most legitimate self-defense in 1967 after having been attacked by King Hussein we liberated with God’s help that portion of our homeland. Judea and Samaria will never again be the West Bank.”