Reagan: The Life

by H. W. Brands

  Casey hoped Congress would heed the administration’s appeal for contra funding. But if it didn’t, there were alternatives. “The legal position is that the CIA is authorized to seek support from third countries,” he said. “In fact, the finding”—the statement of the president’s authority—“encourages third country participation and support in this entire effort.” Casey said he was looking into support from the governments of El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras (as well as a “South American country” whose identity was deleted when the minutes of this meeting were declassified). “If we notify the oversight committees”—in Congress—“we can provide direct assistance to help the FDN get the money they need from third countries. There will be some criticism, but senior members of the oversight committees recognize that we need to do this.” Looking toward the president, Casey said, “We need a decision to authorize our permitting the FDN to obtain third country support.”

  Reagan didn’t respond at once to Casey’s appeal. “It all hangs on support for the anti-Sandinistas,” he said. “How can we get that support in Congress? We have to be more active.”

  George Shultz urged that the administration continue to engage the Sandinistas in negotiations, if only to deflect charges that the United States was ignoring diplomacy in favor of a military solution to the Central American unrest.

  Reagan took the secretary’s point. “If we are just talking about negotiations with Nicaragua, that is so far-fetched to imagine that a communist government like that would make any reasonable deal with us,” the president said. “But if it is to get Congress to support the anti-Sandinistas, then that can be helpful.”

  Jeane Kirkpatrick agreed that diplomacy had its place. But it might fail, and it shouldn’t obscure the absolute necessity of funding the contras. “If we don’t find the money to support the contras, it will be perceived in the region and the world as our having abandoned them,” Kirkpatrick asserted. “And this will lead to an increase in refugees in the region and it will permit Nicaragua to infiltrate thousands of Nicaraguan trained forces into El Salvador. And this will be an infiltration we could not stop.” She urged the president to appeal again to Congress and the American people. But if the Democrats in the House continued to ignore the national interest, the administration should take other measures. “We should make the maximum effort to find the money elsewhere.”

  Shultz offered a caution. Congress had voted on the contra funding and rejected it. The decision was on the record, and the administration couldn’t simply pretend it hadn’t been made. Bill Casey had said the presidential finding allowed raising money from third countries; Shultz relayed a different opinion. “I would like to get money for the contras also,” he said, “but another lawyer, Jim Baker, said that if we go out and try to get money from third countries, it is an impeachable offense.”

  Casey cut in. “I am entitled to complete the record,” he said. “Jim Baker said that if we tried to get the money from third countries without notifying the oversight committees, it could be a problem. He was informed that the finding does provide for the participation and cooperation of third countries. Once he learned that the finding does encourage cooperation from third countries, Jim Baker immediately dropped his view that this could be an ‘impeachable offense.’ And you heard him say that, George.”

  Shultz held his ground. “Jim Baker’s argument is that the U.S. government may raise and spend funds only through an appropriation of the Congress.”

  Caspar Weinberger jumped in. “I am another lawyer who isn’t practicing law, but Jim Baker should realize that the United States would not be spending the money for the anti-Sandinista program. It is merely helping the anti-Sandinistas obtain money from other sources. Therefore the United States is not, as a government, spending money obtained from other sources.”

  Shultz appealed to a lawyer who was practicing—on behalf of the United States. “I think we need to get an opinion from the attorney general on whether we can help the contras obtain money from third sources,” he said. “It would be the prudent thing to do.”

  Ed Meese didn’t object to going to the attorney general, William French Smith, but he thought the question needed to be framed appropriately. “As another non-practicing lawyer,” Meese said, “I want to emphasize that it’s important to tell the Department of Justice that we want them to find the proper and legal basis which will permit the United States to assist in obtaining third party resources for the anti-Sandinistas. You have to give lawyers guidance when you ask them a question.”

  Bill Casey returned to the fate of the contras. “It is essential that we tell the Congress what will happen if they fail to provide the funding for the anti-Sandinistas. At the same time, we can go ahead in trying to help obtain funding for the anti-Sandinistas from other sources. The finding does say explicitly ‘the United States should cooperate with other governments and seek support of other governments.’ ” He added, “We have met no resistance from senior members of the intelligence committees to the idea of getting third country funding.”

  Reagan remained noncommittal on third-party funding. He hadn’t given up on Congress. “I am behind an all-out push in Congress,” he said. “We must obtain the funds to help these freedom fighters.” Congressional funding would send a message to the Sandinistas. “It is what will keep the pressure on.”

  The meeting had run overtime. Robert McFarlane realized that a consensus was lacking. “I propose that there be no authority for anyone to seek third party support for the anti-Sandinistas until we have the information we need”—from the attorney general. He added, “I certainly hope none of this discussion will be made public in any way.”

  Reagan closed the session with a caution cloaked in a smile. “If such a story gets out,” he said, “we’ll all be hanging by our thumbs in front of the White House until we find out who did it.”

  68

  REAGAN WARMED TO world travel only slowly. His postwar journey to England to shoot The Hasty Heart satisfied his modest pre-political wanderlust, which his aversion to flying did nothing to inflame. Ambition for office eventually prodded him into the air, but even after he became California’s governor his transoceanic miles mounted slowly. He visited several American allies at the behest of Richard Nixon, who wished to assure them that Washington was keeping them in mind. He met Chiang Kai-shek of Taiwan (the Republic of China, formally), Francisco Franco of Spain, Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines, and Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore. After leaving Sacramento and while readying runs for the White House, he traveled to Europe and Asia. The travel still didn’t thrill him, but a former governor who sought to become the nation’s diplomat in chief and commander in chief could stand the international exposure.

  As president he finally discovered the joys of travel. Air Force One, of course, made the journeys themselves much more comfortable. And the White House staff handled all the logistics. He simply had to step out his door, board his helicopter for the short hop to Andrews Air Force Base, climb the steps of his personal Boeing 707, and be off.

  Yet the effortlessness of travel was only part of what made foreign trips attractive. Reagan’s Hollywood career had accustomed him to the perquisites of celebrity, but these were nothing next to the treatment a president received. Everywhere he went, he was the biggest story in that week’s news, and American allies and protégés who sought to make a good impression turned out crowds that put to shame anything a mere actor could have commanded. Moreover, though the cliché that Ameri can politics stops at the water’s edge has been honored more in the breach than in the observance, Reagan discovered that criticism of his actions was often muted when he was abroad. Even Tip O’Neill understood that it was bad form to blast America’s head of state when he was representing the country to the world.

  Reagan traveled to Canada in July 1981 for a meeting in Ottawa of the Group of Seven economic powers and to Mexico that October for a conference in Cancún on economic development. In June 1982 he took a ten-day trip to
Europe, starting with France for a G7 meeting in Paris, continuing to Italy, where he had an audience with Pope John Paul, then to Britain to address Parliament and see Margaret Thatcher in her native environment, and finally to West Germany for a meeting of the NATO council and a look at the Berlin Wall. In late November and early December 1982, Reagan visited Central and South America, with stops in Honduras, Costa Rica, Colombia, and Brazil. The following year he crossed the Pacific to Japan and South Korea; in the former country he addressed the Diet, or parliament, while in the latter he visited the demilitarized zone that buffered South Korea from North Korea.

  Presidential travel is good for a president’s reelection prospects, or at least so most candidates for reelection conclude. Incumbents attempt to highlight the difference between themselves and their challengers, and no differences are starker than those between the pomp that surrounds presidential travel and the grind that candidates in the opposing party’s primaries are subjected to. Reagan’s handlers understood this perfectly, and while the Democrats in the early months of 1984 were traipsing through the snows of New Hampshire and the bayous of Louisiana, the White House laid plans for a pair of foreign spectaculars.

  The first took Reagan to China in April. Reagan’s schedulers, embarrassed that the president had nodded off while meeting with the pope on his 1982 European trip, made sure to space his events to give him plenty of rest. He laid over in Hawaii for two days and in Guam for one on the trip west and reset his eating and sleeping schedule to Chinese time well ahead of his arrival in the People’s Republic. In Hawaii he met Barry Goldwater, who was returning from Taiwan. Reagan had been briefed by Richard Nixon by memo and phone before leaving; Nixon stressed the importance of China in American and international affairs. Goldwater, by contrast, clung to the Cold War view that Taiwan was the real China and registered displeasure that Reagan was going to Beijing. “Barry is upset about my trip and can’t hide it,” Reagan wrote in his diary. “He seems to think I’m selling out our friends on Taiwan.” Reagan reassured him but without obvious success. “He should know better,” Reagan wrote. “I’ve made it very plain to the leaders of the PRC that we will not forsake old friends in order to make new ones.”

  Nixon had told Reagan what to expect by way of banquets and the like, and a few hours after arriving, the president sat down with Chinese president Li Xiannian. “Our first go at a 12-course Chinese dinner,” Reagan wrote afterward, speaking for himself and Nancy. “We heeded Dick Nixon’s advice and didn’t ask what things were. We just swallowed them. There were a few items I managed to stir around on my plate and leave.”

  The next day Reagan met with Premier Zhao Ziyang. They discussed world affairs generally and Asia in particular. The tone was formal, but Reagan felt a connection. “We get along very well,” he wrote. “I like him and I think he reciprocates.”

  Hu Yaobang, the general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, was a different sort. “He’s a feisty little man and more doctrinaire than anyone I met,” Reagan remarked. “He lectured me about removing our troops from South Korea. I gave it right back to him that there was no way we’d do that. If North Korea wants better relations, let them stop digging tunnels under the DMZ etc.” Reagan spontaneously invited Hu to visit the United States. “He might learn something by seeing the outside world.”

  Reagan awoke the next morning with anticipation. “This was Big Casino day—my meeting with Chairman Deng,” he wrote. Nixon and Reagan’s own team had prepped him for Deng Xiaoping, the architect of China’s unfolding economic reforms. Reagan discovered a mischievous wit. “Nancy went with me for the informal opening,” he wrote. “Deng, who has a sense of humor, invited her to come back to China without me.” But Deng was all business when he turned to international affairs. “He really waded in critical of our Mid-east policy, our treatment of the developing nations etc. and our disarmament failure.” Reagan took the criticism personally and responded accordingly. “He touched a nerve. When it was my turn I corrected him with facts and figures and I meant it.” Reagan was pleased with the result. “Funny thing happened—he warmed up although he did bring up Taiwan (the only one who did). I told him it was their problem to be worked out—but it must be worked out peacefully.”

  That afternoon Reagan’s group visited the Great Wall. “We waved our arms off at the crowds lining the streets to see us,” he wrote of the drive there. The wall itself took his breath away. “The Wall has an amaz ing effect even though you’ve seen photos and movies of it,” he recorded. “There is a feeling I can’t describe when you stand on it and see it disappear over the mountains in both directions.”

  After a visit to the ancient capital of Xi’an and a tour of the site where archaeologists had unearthed hundreds of life-sized statues of warriors, Reagan flew to Shanghai. He was shown a factory where Chinese workers assembled electronics products. He visited Fudan University, where he conversed with students and gave a formal speech. His words were aired on state television, and he made the most of the opportunity to describe America and its values to Chinese viewers. “We believe in the dignity of each man, woman, and child,” he said. “Our entire system is founded on an appreciation of the special genius of each individual, and of his special right to make his own decisions and lead his own life.” Americans chose their own rulers. “We elect our government by the vote of the people.” Americans cherished freedom, for others as much as for themselves. “When the armies of fascism swept Europe four decades ago, the American people fought at great cost to defend the countries under assault. When the armies of fascism swept Asia, we fought with you to stop them.” Americans were a compassionate people. “When the war ended we helped rebuild our allies, and our enemies as well.” Americans were a peace-loving people. “We hate war. We think, and always have, that war is a great sin, a woeful waste.” Reagan acknowledged that America’s ways were not China’s ways, yet the two nations could cooperate to their mutual benefit.

  Reagan was never a harsh critic of his own performances, but he thought he had done particularly well this day. “It was a darn good speech,” he jotted to himself. “The students ate it up.” To reporters on Air Force One en route home, he said he thought he had made a good impression on China’s leaders and people. “I think they have an understanding and a confidence in us.”

  FROM THE STANDPOINT of making Reagan appear a statesman, and hence deserving of reelection, the China trip was hard to beat. The Great Wall was the ultimate backdrop, and his thoroughly photographed sessions with the leaders of one of the world’s oldest civilizations elevated him far above any challengers.

  But Beijing was just the warm-up. Reagan mounted an even more compelling stage a month later. Preparations for the fortieth anniversary of the D-Day landings at Normandy had been in the works for years, and as the day itself approached, Reagan’s handlers took pains with every detail. Timing, lighting, framing—nothing was left to chance.

  The president stopped in Ireland on his way to France. He embraced his Irish roots by visiting Ballyporeen, the village that had sent his great-grandfather to America. He hopped to London, where he lunched with Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip before meeting with Margaret Thatcher at 10 Downing Street.

  On the big day he awoke at Winfield House, the home of the American ambassador. He was transported by helicopter across southern England to the English Channel, where the USS Eisenhower and other warships plowed the waters furrowed four decades earlier by the thousands of craft of the Allied armada.

  He landed on the Normandy coast near Pointe du Hoc, the knifelike promontory between Omaha Beach to the east and Utah Beach to the west. The point had appealed to the German army, whose engineers placed an artillery battery on the summit to prevent attackers from achieving a foothold on the neighboring beaches. For precisely this reason Pointe du Hoc figured centrally in the invasion plans, and a battalion of U.S. Army Rangers was assigned the task of scaling the cliff and capturing the battery.

  Reagan told their story
in remarks delivered at the memorial atop the cliff. The French government had wanted President François Mitterrand to greet Reagan in the afternoon, before Reagan spoke at Pointe du Hoc, but that would have delayed the American president’s remarks past the end of the morning news shows in the United States. Michael Deaver reminded the French ambassador in Washington how accommodating Reagan had been on a visit by Mitterrand to America; the ambassador relayed the message to Paris, and the schedule was rewritten to give Reagan live access to America’s breakfast tables.

  “We stand on a lonely, windswept point on the northern shore of France,” he said to the audience of dignitaries, veterans, and distant television viewers. “The air is soft, but forty years ago at this moment, the air was dense with smoke and the cries of men, and the air was filled with the crack of rifle fire and the roar of cannon. At dawn, on the morning of the 6th of June, 1944, 225 rangers jumped off the British landing craft and ran to the bottom of these cliffs. Their mission was one of the most difficult and daring of the invasion: to climb these sheer and desolate cliffs and take out the enemy guns. The Allies had been told that some of the mightiest of these guns were here and they would be trained on the beaches to stop the Allied advance.”

  The president nodded to the veterans present as he recounted their heroism. “The rangers looked up and saw the enemy soldiers on the edge of the cliffs shooting down at them with machine-guns and throwing grenades. And the American rangers began to climb. They shot rope ladders over the face of these cliffs and began to pull themselves up. When one ranger fell, another would take his place. When one rope was cut, a ranger would grab another and begin his climb again. They climbed, shot back, and held their footing. Soon, one by one, the rangers pulled themselves over the top, and in seizing the firm land at the top of these cliffs, they began to seize back the continent of Europe. Two hundred and twenty-five came here. After two days of fighting, only ninety could still bear arms.”