Therefore, our resignations are attached.
There was nothing in the memo I had not said to the President a number of times before—and of course, he had seen an earlier draft on Thursday evening. But the weight of all of it together in a single memo, along with our resignations, got his attention. Ford did break into a broad smile as he read the P.S. I had attached at the end: “If you can take this load and still smile, you are indeed a President.”7
Ford handed the memo back to me and told us that he had to think about it. He went on to discuss normal administrative issues, as if this was any other morning meeting.8 Cheney and I left the Oval Office not knowing what would happen next.
A few hours later I went back in to meet with the President and Kissinger, as scheduled. Ford seemed relaxed and confident. We sat on the couches, he in his chair in front of the fireplace. After a few pleasantries, the President calmly announced he had decided to make some major personnel changes. He informed us he had decided to replace Bill Colby as CIA director with George H. W. Bush, whom he would bring back from China, where he was serving as the U.S. emissary. He planned to nominate Elliot Richardson to be secretary of commerce, to replace the ailing Rogers Morton. Then he told Kissinger that he would be surrendering his role as national security adviser but remain secretary of state. The President added that he would be asking Dick Cheney to be the new White House chief of staff. Then he looked at me. “Don,” he said, “I want you to replace Jim Schlesinger as secretary of defense.”
After reciting this list of major moves, Ford stopped and looked at us to gauge our reactions. There was a long pause. I don’t recall that Henry or I had a word to say, which was something of a first for both of us. “In truth,” Kissinger later wrote, “there was not much to say, since the President did not invite any discussion.”* But within a few minutes, Kissinger found his voice. He expressed his concern that removing him as national security adviser could diminish his authority in international relations. He thought he would no longer be seen as a White House insider close to the President, and that it could look like he was being demoted. He made an impassioned plea that his deputy, Brent Scowcroft, be the one to replace him on the NSC to avoid that appearance.
The President looked at me. “What’s your reaction?” he asked.
I was taken aback. The memo I had given him earlier contained numerous examples of how he might improve things in the White House for the better. However, while I had argued for fashioning a Ford team early in his presidency, such a dramatic shuffling of his cabinet this late was not among my recent suggestions. Still, I did not doubt that the memo Cheney and I had presented to him may have played a role in getting Ford to move—albeit in the President’s own direction. “That’s a pretty big load,” I said. “I want to think about it.”
After talking it over with Joyce, I went to the President the following day and told him I did not think I should go to the Defense Department. I said the time to have made major changes in his cabinet had been soon after he had taken office. Now he was within a year of the upcoming 1976 presidential election, and a Democratic-controlled Senate would need to confirm his nominees. The dramatic changes could smack of desperation. I also cautioned against removing Schlesinger. I told the President I thought that Schlesinger was a darn good secretary of defense and that I didn’t know of a national security issue about which I disagreed with him. Were I at the Defense Department, I told him, I would likely be advocating policies similar to those Schlesinger had been pressing.
Ford pointed out that Schlesinger and Kissinger did not get along, and he believed that Kissinger and I would have a more collegial relationship.† I said that if I were in the Pentagon, I would have no problem agreeing or disagreeing with Kissinger and having the President resolve any differences.
I reminded Ford that he and Kissinger had not sufficiently included Schlesinger in the interagency process. I told him that whoever might go to Defense would need to have an opportunity to give the President the Defense Department’s views and recommendations. I was also concerned that Brent Scowcroft might not be an independent national security adviser because he had worked so closely with Henry. But Kissinger was suggesting he might resign if Scowcroft did not replace him in that role.11
Ford’s assurances did not convince me I should accept the nomination. If I decided to stay in government, I was ready to have a substantive, policy-oriented position, as opposed to a staff post in the White House. On the other hand, I knew the decision to replace Schlesinger would likely be portrayed in the press as a palace coup and that could be damaging to both the President and me. But Ford was not taking no for an answer. He clearly intended to take charge of his administration.
Before deciding, I spoke to Kissinger and expressed concern that if I went to the Department of Defense, it might prove difficult for him. Kissinger had made a habit of reflexively blaming the Pentagon for leaks adverse to him and the State Department. I told him that I probably couldn’t control leaks any better than Schlesinger, and that I was concerned he would go haywire on every leak he saw in the press. “You see a couple of those and you will flip out and the President will be misserved,” I said. “It strikes me that the only person you could have over there would be a perfectly submissive person…. I have never learned to kiss fannies very well, and I don’t intend to start now.” Kissinger assured me that that would not be the case, and that he thought we could work together well.12
I asked Ford’s permission to discuss the issue with Cold War strategist Paul Nitze. When I was ambassador to NATO, Nitze had come to Brussels periodically to brief the North Atlantic Council on the strategic arms negotiations with the Soviet Union and would stay at our guest house. I came to think of him as a man of many dimensions, immense talent, and long experience.* There were few who understood the Cold War and the dangers posed by the Soviet Union better. Coincidentally, as I later learned, Nitze had been the one person who James Forrestal, the first secretary of defense, consulted before agreeing to leave Franklin Roosevelt’s White House to serve as secretary of the Navy (a post Nitze would later fill).
When I told him about Ford’s proposal, Nitze, a friend of Schlesinger’s, told me I had no choice but to accept. In his view, it was not a difficult question. The President had to have a secretary of defense who could do the job. Second, that person had to be confirmable by the U.S. Senate, and third, it had to be someone with whom the President could work with comfortably. Nitze told me I had to accept, since I was the only one who met those three key criteria.
On November 2, a Sunday, President Ford left for Florida for meetings with President Anwar Sadat of Egypt. At my request, Cheney went with him. Someone had leaked the story of Kissinger losing his NSC hat, and we were told it would be published the following Monday in Newsweek.14 Ford was concerned he would lose control of the announcements, and his decisions would come out piecemeal instead of as an overall plan. Aboard Air Force One, Ford asked Cheney to find a way to get me to agree to take the job at Defense. Cheney said he would try.
That Sunday afternoon I took our son, Nick, to the Washington Redskins’ football game. It was a chance to be with him and to be away from the phone.
After the game, Nick and I went out to our car, and I found that I had lost my keys. A couple was pulling out of the parking lot, and I asked them if they could give us a ride into Washington. I could see the woman whisper a muffled no to her husband, but he asked where we were going. I told him we were heading up to Pennsylvania Avenue. He said that was the way they were going, and we could get in.
As we approached the White House, he asked where we wanted to be dropped off. I said, “Pull in here,” and he realized he had just pulled up to the White House West Wing entrance. The couple had no idea who I was or that I worked for the President.
I asked them if they had ever been inside the White House. When they said no, I asked if they would like to come in. The guard waved us through, and the man parked out front. I took them into the
West Wing and gave them a tour of the Oval Office, the Cabinet Room, the Roosevelt Room, and my office, thanked them for the ride, and escorted them out. As they left, I wondered what sort of conversation they had on the way home. I can almost hear the husband saying to his wife, “And you wanted to say no!”
I was told that Cheney was trying to get in touch with me on the phone. He told me Ford needed my answer before the Newsweek story appeared the next morning. Realizing that my limited time was over, I remembered Nitze’s admonition and finally agreed to take the job.
Before he left for Florida, the President had met with CIA director Colby and Schlesinger about their leaving the administration. I imagined neither meeting was enjoyable for any of them, but I was impressed with the forthright, take-charge Gerald Ford I was now witnessing. He met with them himself, rather than asking someone else to do it. I found that classy.
The circumstances surrounding George H. W. Bush’s nomination to be director of the CIA is a particularly stubborn chapter of the myth that I had stage-managed Ford’s staff reorganization. Typical of this “Rumsfeld takes out Bush” storyline was the view expressed in a sympathetic biography of Bush, George Bush: The Life of a Lone Star Yankee: “Rumsfeld, who took over as secretary of defense in the administration’s cabinet shake-up that fall, had a motive for shunting Bush off to the CIA…. Rumsfeld took a backseat to no one…and steered his organizational system to ‘diminish the influence of all potential rivals at the White House.’” The Bush biography cited a memo I wrote to the President in 1975 that “lauded” Bush’s qualifications for the job at CIA. From this memo the author argued that “Rumsfeld was more than a contributor to the Bush transfer. He was a promoter.”*
At the President’s request, I provided him with a memo listing strengths and weaknesses of twenty-three potential CIA candidates, one of whom was Bush. At the end of this long list, the memo included the senior staff’s rankings of the candidates listed. Rather than promoting Bush, I put him “below the line.”16 That meant that I recognized his qualifications for the job but that he was not on my personal short list of top recommendations to the President.
I understood why Bush might be a reasonable candidate for the position. He had served in Congress and had good relationships in both parties. It made sense to put a former legislator in the post, since it looked like the principal responsibility for the new CIA director during that period would be to deal less with intelligence matters and more with the Congress during difficult ongoing investigations. The investigations centered on covert programs authorized by several of Ford’s predecessors as president that had been leaked and that had appeared in the press under a series of sensational headlines. One article described a program authorized by President Johnson to investigate ties between antiwar groups and foreign supporters, which continued during the Nixon administration. The CIA had monitored some ten thousand American citizens, a newspaper claimed. The reports also focused on a 1973 CIA review that documented the Agency’s covert operations stretching back a quarter century. The list included alleged assassination plots against foreign leaders authorized during the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. The explosive document tracing these activities was quickly given the title the “Family Jewels.”17 I was amazed by the allegations and shared President Ford’s desire to have a CIA director in place who had some credibility with Congress.
Bush was eager to return to a high-profile post in the United States.18 His wife, Barbara, later noted that Bush was “thrilled” when he was asked to take the job at CIA.19 My distinct impression was that he not only was greatly pleased, but also that he had actively sought the assignment.
The Bush nomination engendered a controversy when Democrats in the Senate insisted that he agree not to be a vice presidential candidate in 1976 before they would consider his nomination. The senators argued that the CIA had been politicized, its credibility damaged, and Bush was a former Republican National Committee chairman with obvious political ambitions.
When I heard about the demand, I told President Ford that I thought he and Bush should not agree to the Senate’s request. I said any president ought to be able to select anyone he wants for vice president, including Bush. Ironically, Ford told me that it was Bush who insisted that he agree to the senators’ condition, because he was afraid he could not be confirmed otherwise and he badly wanted to be CIA director.* In his autobiography, Ford recalled that what actually took place was not what Bush later contended. “[E]ven though Congress held all the cards, I was tempted to fight,” President Ford later wrote. “But Bush himself urged me to accept the Democrats’ demand.”21
It has always amazed me that Bush’s version of what took place has consistently been contrary to the facts, even when the actual version of what took place had been attested to in writing by Gerald Ford, not only in his book but also in our later personal correspondence. After the failure of President Bush’s nomination of John Tower to be secretary of defense in 1989, my name was circulated in the press as a possibility for the post.22 The pushback from the Bush White House was fast and strong—with my imagined role in sending Bush to the CIA cited as the reason. I thought it highly unlikely that I would be asked to serve in his administration. Nonetheless, I was getting tired of reading the falsehoods surrounding the matter, and I wanted to set the record straight. So that spring I wrote to President Ford asking how he remembered the episode.23 Ford responded: “It was my sole decision to send George Bush to the CIA. George wanted to come back from China and Bill Colby wanted to leave the CIA because of the Church and Pike [Intelligence] Committee hearings…. It was George Bush’s decision to agree not to accept any Vice Presidential nomination. I, reluctantly, agreed with his decision.”24
Another Halloween massacre myth has gained currency over the years: that I engineered the effective firing of Vice President Nelson Rockefeller, presumably to clear the way for me to be the vice presidential nominee.25 After I differed with him on policy matters, Rockefeller began making a series of accusations against me. This continued, and indeed escalated, even after the Ford administration ended, when he continued to engage in ridiculous charges.*
I suppose it is always easier on one’s ego to say you were tripped rather than that you fell. But the reasons for President Ford’s decision to remove the Vice President from the ticket were obvious: he was increasingly unpopular across the country. Ford found “ominous” a poll showing that 25 percent of Republicans would not vote for Ford if Nelson Rockefeller were his running mate.27 The reality was that Rockefeller might not have been able to win the vice presidential nomination at the 1976 Republican convention even if Ford were to have recommended him. And if Ford did try, it might have led to an ugly, divisive fight that could have caused him to lose the presidential nomination to Governor Ronald Reagan.
On October 28, 1975, President Ford told Cheney and me that he had met with Rockefeller and “suggested” that Rockefeller announce that he would not be a candidate for vice president. This was news to me. Of course, when the President of the United States makes such a suggestion, it isn’t a suggestion at all. Ford said Rockefeller responded positively and offered to do anything the President wanted. The President took Rocky up on his offer to help by asking Rockefeller to serve in a second term as secretary of the treasury or secretary of state if Kissinger left. But having just said he’d do whatever Ford asked of him, Rockefeller said no.
A few weeks later, his rejection festering, Rockefeller began to lash out wildly. At a meeting with Republican Party officials, where he was supposed to help motivate the senior party leaders, he instead berated them, holding them responsible for his removal from the Ford ticket. “You got me out, you sons of bitches,” he raged. “Now get off your ass.”28 His was a rather unorthodox motivational technique.
I was not surprised when I, too, became the target of Rockefeller’s anger and disappointment. By this point, Rockefeller increasingly seemed to be troubled and embittered by his frustrated ambitions.
Although I saw Ford’s cabinet moves as a sign of his growing confidence, and welcomed his decisiveness, ultimately it may have put him in a weaker position than if he had waited until after the 1976 election. Many conservatives were delighted with the removal of Rockefeller from the ticket but saw the firing of Schlesinger as a victory for Kissinger, who they distrusted for his approach toward the Soviet Union. Earlier in 1975, Ford had led Ronald Reagan in a primary contest by more than twenty points among Republicans, but by the close of that year, Reagan had inched ahead.
Announcing his candidacy for the Republican nomination, Reagan made no mention of President Ford. But when he said it was time for “progress instead of stagnation; the truth instead of promises; hope and faith instead of defeatism and despair,” it was clear enough to whom he was referring.
More than a year earlier, Gerald Ford had taken office with the daunting task of steadying the nation and righting its course. With his integrity and warm, open manner, he had helped to dispel the demons of Vietnam and Watergate. But at the same time, a few of his key early decisions had imperiled his chances of reelection. They had led to what was being characterized as the Nixon-Ford administration by his opponents. And in selecting Rockefeller, he seemed not in tune with his party. Now President Ford faced a new challenge that was almost as daunting as those weeks after Nixon’s resignation: a fight for his political survival.
This, however, was not to be my fight. I was leaving the White House to face my own new set of challenges: helping to steer America through a simmering Cold War and to begin to recover our nation’s standing after the humiliating withdrawal from Vietnam.
PART VI
Fighting the Cold War
“History teaches that weakness is provocative. Time and again weakness has invited adventures which strength might well have deterred.”
Known and Unknown Page 24
