Reagan: The Life

by H. W. Brands

  Wallace wasn’t satisfied. “On that first point, your own chief of staff, Mr. Regan, has said that the U.S. condoned Israeli shipments of arms to Iran,” he said. “And aren’t you, in effect, sending the very message you always said you didn’t want to send? Aren’t you saying to terrorists, either you or your state sponsor—which in this case was Iran—can gain from the holding of hostages?”

  Reagan denied it. “No, because I don’t see where the kidnappers or the hostage-holders gained anything,” he said. “They didn’t get anything. They let the hostages go. Now, whatever is the pressure that brought that about, I’m just grateful to it for the fact that we got them. As a matter of fact, if there had not been so much publicity, we would have had two more that we were expecting.”

  Sam Donaldson of ABC News was Reagan’s least favorite reporter because, to Reagan’s thinking, Donaldson was more interested in skewering his subjects than in revealing the truth. Donaldson played to form this evening. “Mr. President, when you had the arms embargo on, you were asking other nations, our allies particularly, to observe it, publicly,” he said. “But at the same time, privately, you concede you were authorizing a breaking of that embargo by the United States. How can you justify this duplicity?”

  Reagan didn’t like being called a liar, even if a synonym was employed. He kept his temper only with difficulty. “I don’t think it was duplicity,” he replied. “And as I say, the so-called violation did not in any way alter the military balance between the two countries. But what we were aiming for, I think, made it worthwhile. And this was a waiver of our own embargo; the embargo still stays now and for the future. But the causes that I outlined here in my opening statement—first of all, to try and establish a relationship with a country that is of great strategic importance to peace and everything else in the Middle East, at the same time, also, to strike a blow against terrorism and to get our hostages back, as we did.”

  “Sir, if I may,” Donaldson continued, “the polls show that a lot of American people just simply don’t believe you. The one thing that you’ve had going for you, more than anything else in your presidency, your credibility, has been severely damaged. Can you repair it?”

  Reagan’s anger grew evident. He came close to blaming the media, Donaldson included, for the whole affair. “Well, I imagine I’m the only one around who wants to repair it,” he said. “And I didn’t have anything to do with damaging it.”

  Bill Plante of CBS News spared Reagan more of Donaldson, but the difference hardly mattered. “Mr. President, you say that the equipment which was shipped didn’t alter the military balance. Yet several things: We understand that there were 1,000 TOW antitank missiles shipped by the U.S. The U.S. apparently condoned shipments by Israel and other nations of other quantities of arms as an ancillary part of this deal—not directly connected, but had to condone it, or the shipments could not have gone forward, sir. So how can you say that it cannot alter the military balance? And how can you say, sir, that it didn’t break the law, when the National Security Act of 1977 plainly talks about timely notification of Congress and also, sir, stipulates that if the national security required secrecy the president is still required to advise the leadership and the chairmen of the intelligence committees?”

  Reagan shook his head. “Bill, everything you’ve said here is based on a supposition that is false,” he said. “We did not condone and do not condone the shipment of arms from other countries. And what was the other point that you made here?”

  “There were the antitank missiles, sir.”

  Reagan wasn’t used to such sustained skepticism. It seemed to affect him. “Oh no, about the—that it didn’t—no, that it didn’t violate the—or that did violate the law,” he fumbled. “No, as I’ve said, the president, believe it or not, does have the power if, in his belief, national security can be served, to waive the provisions of that law as well as to defer the notification of the Congress on this.”

  Plante still wanted to hear about the antitank missiles. “Isn’t it possible that the Iraqis, sir, might think that a thousand antitank missiles was enough to alter the balance of that war?” he asked.

  “This is a purely defensive weapon,” Reagan replied. “It is a shoulder-carried weapon. And we don’t think that in this defensive thing—we didn’t add to any offensive power on the part of Iran. We know that Iraq has already announced that they would be willing to settle the conflict, as we’ve said, with no winners or losers. And the other parts happened to be spare parts for an antiaircraft Hawk battery. And, as I say, all of those weapons could be very easily carried in one mission.”

  Charles Bierbauer of CNN inquired about Israel. “Mr. President, I don’t think it’s still clear just what Israel’s role was in this,” he said. “The questions have been asked about a condoned shipment. We do understand that the Israelis sent a shipment in 1985, and there were also reports that it was the Israelis that contacted your administration and suggested that you make contact with Iran. Could you explain what the Israeli role was here?”

  “No,” Reagan responded, “because we, as I say, have had nothing to do with other countries or their shipment of arms or doing what they’re doing. And, no, as a matter of fact, the first ideas about the need to restore relations between Iran and the United States, or the Western world for that matter, actually began before our administration was here. But from the very first, if you look down the road at what could happen and perhaps a change of government there, it was absolutely vital for the Western world and to the hopes for peace in the Middle East and all for us to be trying to establish this relationship. And we worked—oh, it started about eighteen months ago, really, as we began to find out some individuals that it might be possible for us to deal with.”

  “Can I follow up please, if I may, on that?” Bierbauer said. “The contacts that you’re suggesting are with moderates in the Iranian government and in the Iranian system. Barry Goldwater tonight said in his judgment there are no moderates in Iran. I don’t mean to suggest that there may not be, but how did you know that you were reaching the moderates? And how do you define a moderate in that kind of a government?”

  Reagan dodged once more. “Well, again, you’re asking questions that I cannot get into with regard to the answers,” he said. “But believe me, we had information that led us to believe that there are factions within Iran, and many of them with an eye toward the fact that they think sooner rather than later there is going to be a change in the government there. And there is great dissatisfaction among the people in Iran.”

  The next questioner inquired, “Could we turn to U.S.-Soviet relations for a moment, please?”

  Reagan seized the chance for a laugh. “I’d be delighted,” he said. The room duly chuckled.

  The respite lasted only a moment, though, and the grilling resumed. “Mr. President, going back over your answers tonight about the arms shipments and the numbers of them,” a reporter asked, “are you telling us tonight that the only shipments with which we were involved were the one or two that followed your January 17th finding and that, whatever your aides have said on background or on the record, there were no other shipments which the U.S. condoned?”

  “That’s right,” Reagan said, then caught himself. “I’m saying nothing,” he amended. He nonetheless added, “But the missiles that we sold—and remember, there are too many people that are saying ‘gave.’ They bought them.”

  Andrea Mitchell of NBC tried to pin Reagan down. “Mr. President, to follow up on that,” she said. “We’ve been told by the chief of staff, Donald Regan, that we condoned—this government condoned—an Israeli shipment in September of 1985, shortly before the release of hostage Benjamin Weir. That was four months before your intelligence finding on January 17th that you say gave you the legal authority not to notify Congress. Now, can you clear that up—why this government was not in violation of its arms embargo and of the notification to Congress for having condoned American-made weapons shipped to Iran in Septembe
r of 1985?”

  Reagan pleaded ignorance. “Well, no, I’ve never heard Mr. Regan say that, and I’ll ask him about that. Because we believe in the embargo, and as I say, we waived it for a specific purpose, in fact, with four goals in mind. Yes.”

  Mitchell pushed harder. “Can I just follow up on that for a second, sir, because what is unclear to, I think, many people in the American public is why—if you are saying tonight that there will be no further arms shipments to Iran—why you won’t cancel the January 17th intelligence finding so that you can put to rest any suggestion that you might again, without notification and in complete secrecy and perhaps with the objection of some of your cabinet members, continue to ship weapons if you think that it is necessary?”

  “No, I have no intention of doing that,” Reagan said, leaving his listeners potentially confused as to what he had no intention of doing: canceling the finding or shipping more weapons. “But at the same time, we are hopeful that we’re going to be able to continue our meetings with these people, these individuals.”

  Mitchell sought clarity. “You won’t cancel the intelligence finding?” she asked.

  Reagan hedged. “I don’t know whether it’s called for or whether I have to wait until we’ve reported to Congress and all. I don’t know just what the technicality legally is on that.”

  A reporter brought the American people into the picture. “Do you think—its strategic position notwithstanding—the American people would ever support weapons to the Ayatollah Khomeini?” he asked.

  “We weren’t giving them to the Ayatollah Khomeini,” Reagan said. “It’s a strange situation. As I say, we were dealing with individuals, and we believe that those—and some of those individuals are in government, in positions in government. But it was not a meeting officially of the United States head of state and the Iranian head of state. But these people, we believed, and their closeness to the Iran military was such that this was necessary to let them know, number one, that we were serious and sincere in our effort about good relations and also that they were dealing with the head of government over here, that this wasn’t something coming out of some agency or bureau, that I was behind it.”

  “Mr. President,” a fresh questioner asked, “you said that you were not swapping, or you did not think you were swapping, arms for hostages. But did it ever occur to you, or did it never occur to you, that certainly the Iranians would see it that way and that they might take it as an inducement to take more hostages, especially in light of the fact that they’ve released three but taken three more?”

  Reagan had been saying for years that Iran was a state sponsor of terrorism. Now the president found himself having to deny that Iran controlled those it sponsored. “No, to the best of our knowledge, Iran does not own or have authority over the Hezbollah. They cannot order them to do something.” He decided to qualify this. “It is apparent that they, evidently, have either some persuasion—and they don’t always succeed—but they can sometimes persuade or pressure the Hezbollah into doing what they did in this instance. And as I say, the Iranian government had no hostages, and they bought a shipment from us.” He repeated that the arms were merely a token of good faith. He said the administration reminded the Iranians of America’s antiterrorist policy. “We told them that we did not want to do business with any nation that openly backed terrorism. And they gave us information that they did not. And they said also that they had some evidence that there had been a lessening of this on the part of Khomeini and the government and that they’d made some progress. As a matter of fact, some individuals associated with terrorist acts had been put in prison there. And so that was when we said, ‘Well, there’s a very easy way for you to verify that if that’s the way you feel, and they’re being held hostage in Lebanon.’ ”

  “If I can follow up,” the reporter said. “If your arms shipments had no effect on the release of the hostages, then how do you explain the release of the hostages at the same time that the shipments were coming in?”

  “No, I said that—at the time—I said to them that there was something they could do to show their sincerity,” Reagan replied. “And if they really meant it that they were not in favor of backing terrorists, they could begin by releasing our hostages.”

  Reagan’s discomfort had been obvious and growing. He now attempted a counterattack against his questioners. “As a matter of fact, I believe and have reason to believe that we would have had all five of them by this last weekend, had it not been for the attendant confusion that arose here in the reporting room.”

  “On that point,” a reporter rejoined, “you said earlier, and you said just now again, that, but for the publicity, two other hostages would have been returned home by now. As you know, the publicity began in a Syrian-backed, pro-Syrian magazine in Lebanon. My question is, therefore, are you suggesting that someone who was a party to this sabotaged it by deliberately leaking that original report?”

  “To our best information,” Reagan replied, “the leak came from a person in government in Iran and not one of the people that we were dealing with, someone that would be more hostile to us. And that individual gave the story to the magazine, and the magazine then printed the story there in Beirut.”

  “Mr. President, there has been an obvious change in policy towards Iran: from refusing to deal with a terrorist state to even sending weapons as a gesture of good will,” a reporter said. “Would you consider, in the name of the same geopolitical interest that you invoked with Iran, changing your policy towards Nicaragua?”

  “No,” Reagan said, more convincingly than on several of his previous answers. But then he wandered back into the weeds. “I believe that I’ve answered that question, I think, more than once here—that no, we still hold to our position, and Iran officially is still on our list of nations that have been supporting terrorism. But I’m talking about the people that we were doing business with, and they gave us indication and evidence that that policy was changing. And so, as I said, to give them more prestige and muscle there where they were, we made this sale.”

  A reporter offered Reagan a chance to cut his way out of the thicket. “Mr. President, there is a mood in Washington tonight of a president who is very much beleaguered, very much on the defensive. Why don’t you seize the offensive by giving your secretary of state a vote of confidence declaring that all future covert activities will have his support and by shaking up the National Security Council in such a way as to satisfy the concerns in Congress that it has been running a paramilitary operation out of the basement of the White House in defiance of the State Department and the Congress?”

  Reagan rambled before finding something to grasp. “The State Department—or the secretary of state—was involved. The director of the CIA was involved, in what we were doing and, as I said before, there are certain laws in which, for certain actions, I would not have been able to keep them a secret as they were. But these people you’ve mentioned have been involved—do know what was going on. And I don’t see that the action that you’ve suggested has called for it. But what you’ve disappointed me the most in is suggesting that I sound defensive up here. I’ve just been trying to answer all your questions as well as I can. And I don’t feel that I have anything to defend about at all. With the circumstances the way they were, the decision I made I still believe was the correct decision, and I believe that we achieved some portion of our goals.”

  “Mr. President, do you believe that any of the additional hostages will be released?” a reporter asked.

  “I have to believe that,” Reagan said.

  “Mr. President, you made an exception for the arms embargo when you thought it was in the U.S. interest to do so. Why shouldn’t other nations ship weapons to Iran when they think it’s in their interests?”

  “Well, I would like to see the indication as to how it could be in their interest,” Reagan said. “I know that there are other nations that feel as we do that the Western world should be trying to find an avenue to get Iran back w
here it once was—and that is in the family of democratic nations and the family of nations that want peace in the Middle East and so forth.”

  “How, Mr. President—if I may follow up—how does shipping weapons to Iran help bring them back into the community of nations? You’ve acknowledged that you were dealing with only a small portion of the government.”

  “I was talking of strengthening a particular group who needed the prestige that that could give them, who needed that, well, that bargaining power, themselves, within their own ranks,” Reagan said.

  Jeremiah O’Leary of the Republican-friendly Washington Times corrected a Reagan misstatement from earlier in the news conference. “Mr. President, I believe you may have been slightly in error in describing a TOW as a shoulder-mounted weapon. It’s a ground-to-ground weapon. Redeye is the shoulder weapon, but that’s beside the point. TOWs are used to destroy tanks.”

  “Yes, I know, Jerry,” Reagan said. “I know it’s a tank weapon.”