TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/111290/1112480.000

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                ~≡±u          ╓ ß                                           EXCERPT, Page 66

Reagan Memoirs: "An American Life" Part Two

By Ronald Reagan

[(c) 1990 by Ronald W. Reagan. From An American Life, to be
published by Simon & Schuster Inc.]


    THE MIDEAST: INTO THE QUAGMIRE

    When I came to the White House in 1981, I hoped to build on
the peace process in the Middle East that had been started by
Jimmy Carter at Camp David, where Egypt and Israel signed a
treaty ending their 30-year state of war. I never had any
illusions that it would be easy. Although we had moments of
progress, and at times we managed to bottle up at least
temporarily the savagery that forever lies beneath the sands of
the Middle East, the region was still an adders' nest of
problems when I moved out of the White House eight years later.
And along the way, it had been the source of some of my
Administration's most difficult moments.

    During its final months, the Carter Administration had
tentatively decided to sell Saudi Arabia several Airborne
Warning and Control system (AWACS) aircraft -- flying radar
stations that can spot incoming aircraft and missiles and direct
the launching of missiles. I decided to go ahead with the sale
because I was told the planes would not materially change the
balance of power in the Arab-Israeli conflict. I thought the
Arab world would regard it as evenhanded.

    Though Saudi Arabia had opposed the Camp David accords, I
thought it was important to strengthen ties with this relatively
moderate Arab country. Not only were its oil exports essential
to our economy, but like Israel, it wanted to resist Soviet
expansionism in the region. In some ways, our interests in the
Middle East coincided. The Saudis needed the friendship and, if
necessary, the help of a great power in defending their oil
fields. We wanted to keep the Soviets out of the region and keep
Saudi Arabia from becoming another Iran.

    I also wanted to signal our allies and Moscow that the U.S.
supported its friends and intended to exert an influence in the
Middle East not just limited to our support of Israel. The AWACS
sale became a symbol to moderate Arab countries of our fairness
and the strength of our commitment to them. Unfortunately, it
also became the symbol of what Israel and some of its supporters
in Congress perceived as a betrayal, and they created a
donnybrook in Congress that, I believed, we could not afford to
lose.

    Just a few days after I moved into the White House, I
started getting calls and visits from leaders of American Jewish
organizations and their supporters in Congress, opposing the
sale.

    As the AWACS battle was heating up in Congress, so were
hostilities in the Middle East. Israel was becoming increasingly
concerned over attacks across its borders by Palestine
Liberation Organization terrorists based in Lebanon. Syrian
forces, which had entered Lebanon in 1976 as part of an Arab
"peacekeeping" force, were fighting in central Lebanon's Bekaa
Valley with the Phalange, a Christian militia. After Syria
started installing Soviet-made surface-to-air missiles in
Lebanon, we began hearing that Israel was thinking of invading
southern Lebanon to attack P.L.O. and Syrian installations.

    In the late spring, Saudi Arabia agreed to help Philip Habib
mediate the dispute on the Syrian and P.L.O. side. A miracle
worker who never ceased to amaze me, Habib had come out of
retirement to serve as my special Mideast emissary. He
negotiated a cease-fire that held intermittently through most
of the year, even after the Israelis, flying U.S.-made planes,
bombed a nuclear reactor under construction in Iraq in early
June.

    Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, who informed us of
the attack only after the fact, said Israel had learned that the
Iraqi plant was to be used to produce fissionable material for
nuclear weapons for use against Israel. He said a French
shipment of "hot" uranium was to arrive soon, and if he had
waited longer, he could not have ordered the bombing because
radiation would have drifted over Baghdad.

    "I can understand his fear but feel he took the wrong
option," I wrote in the diary. "He should have told us and the
French. We could have done something to remove the threat.
However, we are not turning on Israel. That would be an
invitation for the Arabs to attack. It's time to raise h--l for
a settlement. We need a real push for a solid peace."

    Some Cabinet members wanted me to lean hard on Israel
because it had used U.S.-made weapons for offensive purposes.
We sent a note to Israel criticizing the raid and delayed
shipment of several military aircraft as a show of our
displeasure; but I sympathized with Begin's motivations and
privately believed we should give him the benefit of the doubt.
I had no doubt that the Iraqis were trying to develop a nuclear
weapon.

    In Congress the AWACS controversy came to a boil in early
September. Prime Minister Begin arrived in Washington and urged
us not to go ahead with the sale. Israel, he argued, was owed
everything the U.S. could do to preserve its security. I wrote
in my diary that night: "I told him how strongly we felt that
the AWACS sale could help bring the Saudis into the peacemaking
process. I assured him that we were allies and that we would not
let a risk to Israel be created. While he didn't give up his
objection, he mellowed. He said this was the warmest reception
he'd ever had from a U.S. President. I think we're off to a good
start in the difficult business of peace in the Middle East."

    Almost immediately after he left the White House, Begin went
to Capitol Hill and began lobbying very hard against the AWACS
sale -- after he had told me he wouldn't do that. I told the
State Department to let Begin know that I didn't like it and
that he was jeopardizing the close relationship of our countries
unless he backed off. He'd broken his word and I was angry.


    After the tragic assassination of Anwar Sadat, the future
of the Middle East became even murkier, while the clouds of war
over Lebanon grew darker each day. Hosni Mubarak succeeded Sadat
as President of Egypt, inheriting serious economic problems,
isolation from the Arab world because of its acceptance of
Israel's right to exist and the increasing ferment of
fundamentalist Muslims. Once Egypt reclaimed the Sinai, it
seemed possible he might renounce the Camp David accords, rejoin
the Arab League and perhaps even re-establish the close ties
with the Soviet Union forged under Sadat's predecessor, Gamal
Abdel Nasser.

    There was also a strong possibility that Begin,
understandably worried about the new leadership in Cairo and the
growing P.L.O. military buildup in Lebanon, would decide that
Israel's security was best served by going to war again with the
Arabs.

    As a friend of both Israel and the moderate Arab states, I
felt the U.S. was the only nation that could serve as middleman
in the quest for peace. Virtually all of the key players, except
the Palestinian extremists and radical Muslim fundamentalists,
were looking to us to help find a solution.

    In December 1981, Israel announced that it had annexed the
strategically important Golan Heights, which it had taken from
Syria during the 1967 war; this violated U.N. Resolution 242.
Meanwhile, Israel continued to establish settlements in the
occupied territories, in defiance of world opinion.

    To signal our disapproval of the annexation, we shelved a
memorandum of understanding that was to spell out details of a
strengthened military partnership between our countries. Begin
sent me an angry letter that said, "The people of Israel lived
without the memorandum of understanding for 3,700 years, and
will continue to live without it for another 3,700 years."

    As these events were unfolding, we continued to receive what
appeared to be credible reports from Israel that Begin, who
believed in the biblical maxim of "an eye for an eye," and his
Defense Minister, Ariel Sharon, a bellicose man who seemed to
be chomping at the bit to start a war, were preparing for a
full-scale invasion of Lebanon against the P.L.O., waiting only
for the slightest provocation to launch it.

    Despite political pressure within Israel to abandon the
agreement to transfer the Sinai to Egypt, the handover was
completed on schedule on April 25, 1982. That morning, I
telephoned Mubarak and Begin to congratulate them on this
milestone.

    My heart went out to Begin. I had many difficulties with
him, but he was an Israeli patriot devoted above all to the
survival of his country. He passionately believed that the
ancient lands of the Israelites rightfully belonged to modern
Israel. A survivor and nearly victim of the Holocaust, he knew
the depth of the hatred and viciousness that can be directed at
Jews simply because they are Jews, and he had sworn, he once
told me, to assure that no Jew's blood was ever spilled again
with impunity.

    Unfortunately, as soon as the Sinai was returned, things
started unraveling in Lebanon. Radical elements of the P.L.O.
were waging terrorist attacks on Israel to provoke it into
attacking Palestinians in Lebanon. This, the radicals believed,
would lead to war, rally Arab and Soviet support, reduce the
influence in the P.L.O. of the more moderate Yasser Arafat and
destroy the Camp David process. We tried to persuade Begin and
Sharon that these radical Palestinians were trying to manipulate
them into war. They listened, but they did not hear. By early
June, it was apparent that Israel had already decided to attack
in Lebanon and was waiting only for an excuse.

    After an Israeli diplomat was critically wounded in London,
Israel launched a full-scale invasion of Lebanon on June 6,
informing us that its only goal was to drive P.L.O. forces 25
miles away from its border with Lebanon. Encountering little
resistance, however, Ariel Sharon's tanks and troops continued
their advance, and he apparently decided that Israel now had a
historic opportunity to drive the P.L.O. from Lebanon. The
Israel Defense Forces moved on Beirut, then engaged a new enemy
with attacks on Syrian missile sites in the Bekaa Valley.
Israeli pilots dealt a stunning defeat to the Syrian air force
and its Soviet-built MiGs and knocked out dozens of Syrian
missile sites. The Israelis were winning the war but plunging
into a quagmire.

    Begin arrived in Washington on June 21 as Israeli planes,
gunboats and artillery units were attacking the fringes of West
Beirut in what appeared to be relentless and indiscriminate
bombardment of neighborhoods filled with civilians who had no
role in the dispute. Israel then cut off water and electricity
to these neighborhoods, causing more hardship.

    When we shook hands, it was still "Menachem" and "Ron," but
our meeting had none of the glow of the previous one. I told him
that no matter how villainous the attack on Israel's diplomat
in London had been, it had not given Israel cause to unleash its
brutal attack on Beirut. Begin wouldn't give an inch. He claimed
that the invasion was justified by the P.L.O. shelling of
Israeli villages from Lebanon; then he went on the
counterattack, protesting a pending U.S. sale of fighter planes
to Jordan. When I said I wanted to create "more Egypts" -- Arab
countries willing to make peace with Israel -- he angrily said
that was impossible, no other Arab state would do what Egypt
had done and recognize Israel.

    Underneath his uncompromising and combative mood, I
suspected Begin wanted to end the fighting. The invasion was
taking a rising toll of Israeli lives, and I suspected Begin now
believed that the pugnacious Sharon had extended his reach too
far. Back in Israel, Begin endorsed our plan calling for the
elimination of the P.L.O. fighters and all foreign armies from
Lebanon.

    Despite our appeals for restraint, the Israelis on Aug. 12
opened a new and even more brutal 11-hour attack on civilian
neighborhoods in Beirut that sickened me and others in the White
House. I phoned Begin with an angry demand for an end to the
bloodletting. Later I wrote, "I told him it had to stop or our
entire relationship was endangered. I used the word `holocaust'
deliberately and said the symbol of his country was becoming `a
picture of a seven-month-old baby with its arms blown off.' He
told me he had ordered the bombing stopped. I asked about the
artillery fire. He claimed the P.L.O. had started that and
Israeli forces had taken casualties. Twenty minutes later, he
called back to tell me he'd ordered an end to the barrage and
pleaded for our continued friendship."

    The phone calls worked, at least briefly bringing a
cessation to the slaughter in Beirut.

    I sent a follow-up letter to Begin noting that with Habib
only days away from wrapping up his package plan for departure
of the P.L.O. from Beirut, "Israeli air strikes, shelling and
other military moves have stopped progress in the negotiations.
Israeli defense forces must stop these massive eruptions to any
provocation. Our entire future relations are at stake if these
military eruptions continue."

    Begin replied the next day, telling me how offended he felt
by the tone of my letter after the two phone conversations:

    "I would have understood perfectly well were it written
after our first talk, in which you voiced anger and in which you
also hurt me personally and deeply, especially through the use
of the word `holocaust,' of which I know some facts which may
be unknown to my fellow man. But after the second conversation,
you ended it with the words, `Menachem, Shalom [peace].' How can
I have shalom of mind having now read your written message?"

    During the next two weeks, Habib finally got all sides to
agree on a new cease-fire, withdrawal of the P.L.O. guerrillas
from Lebanon and the subsequent withdrawal of Syrian and Israeli
armies. At the request of Lebanese leaders, I agreed to send a
contingent of Marines to Beirut for three or four weeks as part
of a multinational peacekeeping force that would help supervise
the departure of P.L.O. forces.

    With the shooting stopped, George Shultz and I saw a
possible golden opportunity to make a fresh start. We decided
to offer the framework for a new peace initiative.

    We knew Israel would oppose creation of an independent
Palestinian nation next to it on the West Bank and in Gaza (as
would some Arab countries fearful of a strong Palestinian
state). But we believed that peace would never come to the
Middle East as long as the occupied territories remained under
the permanent political control of Israel. We believed that the
Palestinians in these areas had to be given freedom,
self-determination and self-government, and that the best way
of accomplishing this was through some sort of political
association with Jordan under which the Palestinians would have
self-rule and autonomy, perhaps like an American state.

    Thus, we believed that the solution lay in what came to be
known as the "land for peace" option: Israel's withdrawal, under
provisions of U.N. Security Council Resolution 242, from Gaza
and most of the West Bank and an undivided Jerusalem, in
exchange for peace and the Arabs' acceptance of its right to
exist. Without Israel agreeing to "land for peace," I don't
think there will ever be peace in the Middle East.

    I planned to announce our new Middle East peace initiative
on Sept. 1, 1982. Expecting Begin to look unfavorably on any
proposal that called on Israel to give up any part of the West
Bank and its claim to all of Jerusalem, I sent him a letter
meant to supplement a more detailed briefing to be given to him
by our excellent ambassador in Israel, Samuel Lewis.

    The Israeli Cabinet wasted no time in rejecting my proposal,
and Begin's reply to my letter was blunt: "What some call the
West Bank, Mr. President, is Judea and Samaria, and the simple
historic truth will never change. There are cynics who will
deride history; they may continue their derision as they wish,
but I will stand by the truth. And the truth is: 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 rather rich civilization
which we took with us in our hearts and in our minds on our long
global trek for over 18 centuries and with it we came back home.

    "Mr. President, you declare that you will not support the
creation of a Palestinian state in Judea, Samaria and the Gaza
district. The Palestinian state will rise of itself the day
Judea and Samaria are given to Jordanian jurisdiction; then in
no time, you will have a Soviet base in the heart of the Middle
East. Under no circumstances shall we accept such a possibility
ever arising which would endanger our very existence."

    As the summer of 1982 came to an end, the agreement worked
out by Habib seemed to be succeeding. Along with troops from
France and Italy, our Marines had evacuated more than 10,000
P.L.O. combatants from Beirut and were themselves preparing to
leave Lebanon. I did not realize that the worst was yet to come.

    On Sept. 14, a bomb destroyed a building in Beirut where the
President-elect of Lebanon, Bashir Gemayel, was giving a speech.
Four days later, as my diary reminds me, "In Beirut, Christian
Phalange militia entered a Palestine refugee camp and massacred
men, women and children. The Israelis did nothing to prevent or
halt it. It was a sad day and one which may very well set our
peace efforts back."

    I wrote in my diary:

    "Sept. 19: I attended meeting in the morning re the Beirut
massacre. I told our group we should go for broke.

    "Let's tell the people we are at the request of the Lebanese
sending the multinational force back in. Italy has agreed and
we believe the French will too. We are asking the Israelis to
leave Beirut. We are asking Arabs to intervene and persuade
Syrians to leave Lebanon at which time we'll ask Israelis to do
likewise.

    "Sept. 28: Cap W. signed order for Marines to go ashore
Wednesday a.m. Israelis will withdraw to south of the airport;
Marines will be stationed at the airport."

    But the Israelis were now adamantly against leaving Beirut
because they feared the P.L.O. might then return to Lebanon. In
early December, Habib and I had lunch in my study. The Middle
East was so unpredictable and explosive, Habib said, that unless
all foreign forces withdrew as quickly as possible, Palestinian
extremists would gain credibility and strengthen the hand of the
radicals and their Islamic allies.

    I instructed Habib on his return to the Middle East to again
tell Begin that Israel's intransigence might cost it its special
relationship with America. King Hussein of Jordan, meanwhile,
acknowledged during a Washington visit that there were two sides
to the Israeli-Arab conflict and indicated he was anxious to
work with us to achieve a solution all parties could accept. "I
really like him," I wrote in the diary later. "He is our hope
to lead the Arab side and the P.L.O. in negotiating with the
Israelis. He has some problems to keep the trust of other Arab
states, and right now Israel is proving difficult. I told King
Hussein that we'd go all out to bring peace in the Middle East
and we'd stand by Jordan."

    During the winter and early spring of 1982-83 we continued
trying to persuade Begin to withdraw Israeli forces so that work
on the broader peace process could resume and members of the
multinational force could go home. But he insisted Israel had
to keep its troops in Lebanon or risk losing the advantage it
had gained over the P.L.O. and Syria in a war that had cost
hundreds of Israeli casualties. The Soviets, meanwhile,
responded to Israel's crushing defeat of Syrian forces and their
Soviet-built weapons by sending the Syrians their most modern
arms.

    We agreed that Israel had reason to be concerned about the
safety of Israelis living near its northern border. But Habib,
George Shultz and I constantly reassured Begin that if Israel
pulled its forces out of Lebanon, the U.S. would not allow it
to be disadvantaged. Begin wouldn't move. This left my peace
initiative in limbo.

    Throughout that long winter and early spring, I continued
to get nowhere. I suspect Begin's resolve was stiffened by his
confidence that Congress would ensure that the U.S. would never
reduce its support of Israel, as well as by my own oft-stated
commitment to always stand by Israel.

    In February 1983, after a judicial panel asserted that Ariel
Sharon had been indirectly responsible for the massacres at the
Palestinian refugee camps, he resigned as Israel's Defense
Minister and was succeeded by Moshe Arens, the Israeli
ambassador in Washington. I hoped this would help get the peace
process started again.

    When Lebanon's Foreign Minister visited Washington that
spring, I told him that until all foreign troops withdrew, our
Marines would remain. He said that it had been his experience
with American Presidents that they at first seemed willing to
tackle the problems of Lebanon, but that they "advanced so far
and then retreated." I told him I didn't have a reverse gear.

    In late March, Israel began sending conciliatory signals,
indicating it was willing to withdraw from Lebanon under
reasonable terms. But we soon learned, tragically, that many
people in the Middle East did not want peace, at least not as
long as it entailed accepting Israel's right to exist.

    On April 18, Nancy and I were awakened before dawn by a call
informing me that a terrorist's car bomb had just exploded at
our embassy in Beirut, killing scores of Americans and Lebanese.
Shi`ite Muslim fundamentalists from Iran took credit for the
barbarous act. "Lord forgive me for the hatred I feel for the
humans who can do such a cruel but cowardly deed," I wrote in
my diary. Five days later, I was at Andrews Air Force Base when
the bodies of 16 Americans came home. There were many, too many
days like that when I was President.

    George Shultz suggested that he go to the Middle East to
attempt to breathe new life into the peace process. George
worked out an agreement under which Israel promised to withdraw
from Lebanon simultaneously with Syrian forces. He also got
Lebanon to agree to the establishment near its southern border
of a security zone to protect northern Israeli settlements.

    Then Syria, apparently emboldened by its new Russian arms
and thousands of new Soviet "advisers," began sending signals
that it would not leave Lebanon. This meant that the hard-won
agreement between Lebanon and Israel couldn't be implemented
either.

    Shultz and Robert C. ("Bud") McFarlane, who had succeeded
Habib as special Mideast envoy, tried vainly into the early fall
of 1983 to persuade Syria to leave. Syrian and Israeli forces
remained entrenched, while old feuds between Lebanese Christians
and Muslims began to erupt in an increasingly bitter civil war.

    Throughout September, our Marines came under increasing fire
from the hills above their position at the Beirut airport. After
each Marine was killed, I telephoned his parents. They were
difficult, terrible calls to make. One father asked me: "Are we
in Lebanon for any reason worth my son's life?"

    I gulped and said yes. "No words I can say can ever make up
for the loss of your son, but perhaps you might find a little
comfort in knowing that your son died while he was living up to
the finest traditions of his country and the Marine Corps.
America is a country whose people have always believed we had
a special responsibility to try to bring peace and democracy to
others in the world. And brave men and women have always been
willing to give up their lives in the defense of freedom, and
that's what our Marines are doing in the Middle East."

    On Oct. 22, 1983, Nancy and I flew to Georgia for a golfing
weekend. I was looking for a couple of days of relaxation, but
they turned out to be as unrelaxing as any weekend I've ever
spent.

     Shortly after 4 a.m. Saturday, Bud McFarlane, whom I had
named my new National Security Adviser four days earlier, called
and said it was urgent that I meet with him and George Shultz.
In robe and pajamas, I listened to them explain the situation
in Grenada that was to lead to our rescue operation a few days
from then.

    At about 2:30 a.m. Sunday, Bud called again. A suicide
bomber had just driven a truckload of dynamite past our sentries
and smashed into the Marine barracks at the Beirut airport. The
first reports said at least 100 Marines had been killed.

    On Monday, Oct. 24, the full magnitude of the catastrophe
became apparent. In all, 241 servicemen had died as they slept.
Two miles away, and two minutes after the blast at the airport,
58 French members of the multinational force had been killed by
a second car bomb.

    In the profound sadness that fell over the whole country
after the Beirut bombing, I had to decide what to do next in
Lebanon. Not surprisingly, there was new pressure in Congress
to leave that country.

    I believed in and still believe in the policy and decisions
that originally sent the Marines to Lebanon. The central
government of Lebanon had all but wasted away. Our policy was
based on the expectation that the Lebanese army would subdue the
militias of rival Muslim and Christian groups and re-establish
the central government's control while the multinational force
helped maintain order.

    But the Lebanese army simply wasn't strong enough, nor did
we realize until too late that many of its members didn't have
the will to fight their countrymen, especially those with
similar religious beliefs. We also had not recognized that when
our Marines took over the job of keeping open Beirut's civilian
airport, they were placed in a wide-open space where they were
vulnerable to snipers in the surrounding hills.


    The price we had to pay in Beirut was so great, the tragedy
at the barracks was so enormous, and the virulent problems of
Lebanon were so intractable that it wasn't possible to continue
with the policy that had put our Marines in Lebanon without
taking a second look at it. In the weeks after the bombing, I
believed the last thing we should do was turn tail and leave.
That would say to terrorists that all it took to change American
foreign policy was to murder some Americans.

    If we walked away, we'd also be giving up on the moral
commitment to Israel that had originally sent our Marines to
Lebanon. We'd be saying that the sacrifice of those Marines had
been for nothing. We'd be inviting the Russians to supplant the
U.S. as the most influential superpower in the Middle East. The
biggest winner would be Syria, a Soviet client.

    I still believed it was essential to continue working with
moderate Arabs to find a solution to the Middle East's problem
and that we should make selective sales of American weapons to
the moderate Arabs as proof of our friendship. In this I was
constantly frustrated by strong resistance from Israel's
supporters in Congress. At the same time, I was beginning to
have doubts whether the Arab world, with its ancient rivalries,
centuries of internecine strife and almost pathological hatred
of Israel, was as serious about supporting our peace efforts as
King Fahd of Saudi Arabia and King Hussein of Jordan said they
were.

    In any case, Israel wouldn't budge; and Syria, with its new
Soviet weapons, was growing more arrogant than ever and rejected
several proposals aimed at getting them out of Lebanon.

    As 1984 began, it was becoming clearer that the civil war
into which we had been dragged reluctantly was likely to go on
for an extended period. As the sniping and shelling of their
camp continued, I gave an order to evacuate all the Marines to
ships anchored off Lebanon. At the end of March, the ships of
the Sixth Fleet and the Marines who had fought to keep peace in
Lebanon moved on to other assignments.

    We had to pull out. Our policy wasn't working. We couldn't
stay there and run the risk of another suicide attack on the
Marines. I'm not sure how we could have anticipated the
catastrophe at the Marine barracks. Perhaps we didn't appreciate
fully enough the hatred and the complexity of the problems that
make the Middle East such a jungle. Perhaps the idea of a
suicide bomber committing mass murder to gain instant entry to
paradise was so foreign to us that it did not create in us the
concern for the Marines' safety that it should have.

    In any case, sending the Marines to Beirut was the source
of my greatest regret and my greatest sorrow as President.

    In the months and years that followed, our experience in
Lebanon led to our adoption of a set of principles to guide
America in the application of military force abroad, and I would
recommend it to future Presidents. Among the principles:

    1) The U.S. should not commit its forces to military action
overseas unless the cause is vital to our national interest.

    2) If the decision is made to commit our forces to combat
abroad, it must be done with the clear intent and support needed
to win. It should not be a halfway or tentative commitment, and
there must be clearly defined and realistic objectives.

    3) Before we commit our troops to combat, there must be
reasonable assurance that the cause we are fighting for and the
actions we take will have the support of the American people and
Congress. (The Vietnam War had turned into such a tragedy
because military action had been undertaken without sufficient
assurances that the American people were behind it.)

    4) Even after all these other tests are met, our troops
should be committed to combat abroad only as a last resort, when
no other choice is available.

    After the Marines left Beirut, we continued a search for
peace and a diplomatic solution to the problems in the Middle
East. But the war in Lebanon grew even more violent, the
Arab-lsraeli conflict became more bitter, and the Middle East
continued to be a source of problems for me and our country.


    IRAN-CONTRA: RIDING A ROLLER COASTER

    Long before I entered the Oval Office, I had adopted a very
simple philosophy regarding what we as a nation should do if an
American were held captive abroad: whenever one of our citizens,
even the least among us, through no fault of his or her own, was
denied the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,
it was up to the rest of us to do everything we could to restore
those rights, wherever it took us, anywhere in the world. It was
a policy I followed for eight years as President.

    Following the example set by Iran, the barbarian Hizballah
-- the Shi`ite Party of God in Lebanon -- had turned the
systematic kidnapping and torture of innocent Americans into an
instrument of war. No problem was more frustrating for me than
trying to get the hostages home. Almost every morning at my
national security briefings, I began by asking, "Any progress
on getting the hostages out of Lebanon?"

    On July 17, 1985, recovering in Bethesda Naval Medical
Center from surgery to remove a cancerous growth from my colon,
I recorded an event in my diary that was to mark the beginning
of what became known as the Iran-contra affair: "Some strange
soundings are coming from some Iranians. Bud M. will be here
tomorrow to talk about it. It could be a breakthrough on getting
our seven kidnap victims back."

    National Security Adviser Bud McFarlane informed me that
representatives of Israel had contacted him secretly to pass on
information from a group of moderate, politically influential
Iranians. They were disenchanted members of Iran's government
who wanted to establish a quiet relationship with U.S. leaders
as a prelude to re-establishing formal relations after the
Ayatullah Khomeini died. To demonstrate their sincerity, the
Iranian moderates had offered to persuade the Hizballah
terrorists to release our seven hostages. I don't recall feeling
that the proposal seemed earth shattering. O.K., I said, we
would send a team to confer with the Israelis.

    The Israelis said the Iranians wanted us to permit Israel
to sell a small number of TOW antitank missiles to the moderate
Iranians; this would demonstrate that the Israelis had
connections with high U.S. officials. Until then, nothing had
been said about weapons. My first reply was: No, we don't do
business with countries that sponsor terrorism. But then the
Israeli officials sent information that, they said, showed that
the Iranians to whom they were talking opposed terrorism. We had
great respect for Israel's intelligence abilities.

    Once we had information that we could trust the people in
Iran, I didn't have to think 30 seconds about saying yes. I was
told the few missiles would not significantly change the balance
in Iran's war with Iraq, so I said, O.K., one small shipment
from Israel to allow the Israelis to prove they were talking
with the highest levels of the U.S. government. But I said the
Iranians had to use their influence to get our hostages freed.
Israel promised to abort the sale if it became apparent the
hostages were not going to be released.

    Only hours after the shipment was made, the Rev. Benjamin
Weir, an American held hostage in Beirut for 16 months, was
released. We were told the release of the other hostages had
been delayed but it was just a matter of time.

    On Dec. 5, 1985, Bud McFarlane presided over his last
briefing as my National Security Adviser, and John Poindexter,
formerly Bud's deputy, took over. Two days later, I wrote in my
diary:

    "Saturday, Dec. 7, Pearl Harbor Day: Had a meeting on the
complex plan which could return our hostages and help some
officials in Iran who want a better relationship with us. It
calls for Israel selling some weapons to Iran. As they are
delivered our hostages will be released. We then sell Israel
replacements for the delivered weapons. None of this is a gift.
The Iranians pay cash. So does Israel.

    "George Shultz, Cap [Weinberger] and Don [Regan] are
opposed. Congress has imposed a law on us that we can't sell
Iran weapons or sell any other country weapons for resale to
Iran. George also thinks this violates our policy of not paying
off terrorists. I claim the weapons are for those who want to
change the government of Iran and no ransom is being paid. No
direct sale would be made by us to Iran."

    Two of my Cabinet members whom I admired most, Cap
Weinberger and George Shultz, never got along well together.
There was always a little chill, a tension between them. But
almost from the day Bud McFarlane brought us the proposal for
arms sales to Iran, George and Cap were united against it. They
warned me against any arrangement that might be interpreted as
linking the shipment of arms with efforts to free the hostages.
They didn't argue that the plan involved a swap of arms for
hostages, but they contended that if information about it ever
leaked out (and George insisted that it would), it would be made
to look as if we were.

    There were probably always a few questions in my mind about
the reliability of the people we were dealing with. Still, they
had managed to get out one hostage, and since we had made our
connection with them, the Hizballah had committed no major
terrorist acts against Americans.

    So I decided to proceed, despite a deep division within the
Cabinet and staff: Attorney General Ed Meese, CIA Director Bill
Casey and especially John Poindexter, who became principal
manager of the initiative after McFarlane retired, argued for
going ahead. Cap Weinberger and George Shultz argued forcefully
that I was wrong -- Shultz especially -- but I put my foot down.


    [That spring Bud McFarlane made his now notorious secret
mission to Tehran, which turned out to be a heartbreaking
disappointment when the Iranian contacts suddenly upped the ante
to an unacceptable level. Then in late July 1986, Father
Lawrence Jenco, former head of Catholic Relief Services in
Lebanon, was released.]


    It was a roller-coaster ride, but I still felt good about
the initiative. John Poindexter said Father Jenco's release had
been arranged by the same Iranians and Israelis who had brought
out the Rev. Weir from Beirut the previous September. He said
the same group expected to arrange the release of all the
hostages shortly.

    After Father Jenco's release, Bill Casey and the NSC staff
suggested we authorize a small additional shipment of spare
missile parts to the Iranian military forces as a demonstration
of goodwill and gratitude. If we didn't, Casey said, our
principal contact in the Iranian government might lose face and
even be executed by those in Iran who were opposed to what he
was doing. He also said one or more of the remaining hostages
might be killed. I authorized this additional shipment.

    In the weeks after the release of Father Jenco, three more
Americans were kidnapped in Beirut, not by the same faction of
the Hizballah but by another terrorist group. On the plus side,
the NSC opened up what seemed to be a promising second channel
with a relative of a high-level Iranian official who wanted
better U.S.-Iranian relations. The young man was brought
secretly to the U.S. for talks. John Poindexter told me the
official had asked his relative to bring back signed photographs
of me and other gifts, including a Christian Bible. At John's
request, I signed the Bible and inscribed what I was told was
one of the official's favorite verses.

    In early November, a third American hostage, David Jacobsen,
was freed in Beirut, and his captors promised to release the
last two hostages they held, Terry Anderson and Thomas
Sutherland, within 48 hours. The day after Jacobsen was freed,
Nov. 3, a magazine in Beirut published a story asserting that
America was trading arms for hostages.

    Pretty soon every newspaper and television station in
America was repeating the same erroneous report, that I not only
had traded arms for hostages but had been dealing with Khomeini.
On Nov. 12, my exasperation showed up in this entry: "This whole
irresponsible press bilge about hostages and Iran has gotten
totally out of hand. The media looks like it's trying to create
another Watergate. I want to go public and tell the people the
truth."

    Addressing the nation the following night, I said, "We did
not, repeat, did not trade weapons or anything else for
hostages, nor will we."

    On Nov. 20, George Shultz said Poindexter had misled me
about the weapons shipments. I wrote in the diary, "I fear he
may be getting ready to say, `Either someone else is fired or
I quit.'"

    George Shultz, a man of the highest integrity, made me
wonder if there were things about the initiative I didn't know
about. The next day I asked Ed Meese to come to the White House.
Ed said some of his people had found inconsistencies in things
we had been saying, based on Poindexter's remarks, about the
weapons shipments to Iran. I asked him to spend the weekend
looking into the matter.

    At 4:30 Monday afternoon, Ed Meese and Don Regan brought me
a bombshell: one of Ed's assistants had discovered a memorandum
indicating that Lieut. Colonel Oliver North had diverted part
of the money the Iranians paid for the weapons to support the
freedom fighters in Nicaragua, and John Poindexter had known
about it. My first reaction was that there had to be a mistake.
Ed said there hadn't been.

    In my diary that night I wrote, "Ed M. and Don R. told me
of a smoking gun. On one of the arms shipments, the Iranians had
paid Israel a higher purchase price than we were getting. The
Israelis put the difference in a secret bank account. Then our
Col. North gave the money to the contras. North didn't tell me
about this. Worst of all, John P. found out about it and didn't
tell me. This may call for resignations."

    Next day John Poindexter submitted his resignation as
National Security Adviser, and Oliver North was relieved of his
NSC duties. I asked ex-Senator John Tower, former Secretary of
State Edmund Muskie and former White House National Security
Adviser Brent Scowcroft to determine what had happened. I also
asked for the appointment of an independent prosecutor.

    After Iran-contra hit the front pages, for the first time
in my life, people didn't believe me. I had told the truth, but
they still didn't believe me. While I was unhappy, I never felt
depressed. I didn't feel that I had done anything to feel
depressed about. Everything I had done was within the law and
within the President's powers.

    As the furor continued, I came under pressure to make
personnel changes. George Shultz had to go, some said, because
he'd said publicly that he opposed the Iran initiative. That was
something I couldn't conceive of: George was a patriot who had
done nothing except express an opinion and stick to his
principles. I was urged to replace Bill Casey too. I couldn't
do that to a man who was fighting for his life against brain
cancer.

    Mike Deaver urged me to hire a criminal lawyer. He said it
was likely I'd have to defend myself against criminal charges,
because North or Poindexter might try to blame me for what had
happened. I told him I had nothing to hide: I hadn't done
anything wrong, and didn't want to do anything that could be
construed as throwing a roadblock in the way of the truth.

    The cloud that descended over my credibility during
Iran-contra undoubtedly affected my last two years in office.
Still, we were able to move on once the Tower board had removed
the cloud from over the White House and agreed, as did the
congressional investigating committees, that I had had no
knowledge of any diversion of moneys to the contras.

    To this day I still believe that the Iran initiative was not
an effort to swap arms for hostages. But I know it may not look
that way to some people. Unfortunately, an initiative meant to
develop a relationship with moderate Iranians and get our
hostages home took on a new shape I never expected and was never
told about.

    Mistakes were made, and I tried to rectify them, first by
appointing the Tower board to investigate, then by reorganizing
the National Security Council so that no one there could ever
again take it upon himself to set foreign policy. In time, my
ranking in the opinion polls rose. But that never made me feel
as happy as some might think: it was as if Americans were
forgiving me for something I hadn't done.

    If I could do it over again, I would bring both of them into
the Oval Office and say, "O.K., John and Ollie, level with me.
Tell me what really happened and what it is that you have been
hiding from me. Tell me everything." If I had done that, at
least I wouldn't be sitting here, writing this book, still
ignorant of some of the things that went on during the
Iran-contra affair.


________________________________________________________________
Look, Ma: No Hands


    I've been criticized for what some people call a
"hands-off" management style. But the criticism has come from
people who don't understand how we operated.

    I don't believe a Chief Executive should supervise every
detail of what goes on in his organization. He (or she) should
set broad policy and general ground rules, tell people what he
wants them to do, then let them do it; he should make himself
available so that if there is a problem, policies can be
fine-tuned. But I don't think he should peer constantly over the
shoulders of those in charge of a project and tell them every
few minutes what to do.

    That's the cornerstone of good management: set clear goals
and appoint good people to help you achieve them. Don't
interfere, but if somebody drops the ball, intervene and make
a change.


________________________________________________________________
A Clash of Cultures


    In May 1981 the Prince of Wales came to the White House for
an informal visit prior to a dinner the following evening. When
Prince Charles arrived in the Oval Office, a steward asked him
whether he wanted coffee or tea. He asked for tea, and a tray
was set beside him.

    After a few minutes, I noticed the prince was staring rather
quizzically into his cup, and I thought he seemed a little
troubled. He just kept holding the cup up and looking into it,
then eventually put it down without drinking anything. Finally,
it dawned on me: he had been given a cup containing a tea bag.
I thought, well, maybe he had never seen one before.

    After my discovery, I decided to keep quiet, but I asked him
about it the following night. "I just didn't know what to do
with the little bag," he said.


________________________________________________________________
Commonsense Economics


    I arrived in the White House as the country was experiencing
what many called its greatest economic emergency since the
Depression: double-digit inflation, high unemployment and a
prime-interest rate of 21.5%, the highest since the Civil War.

    I believed that policies of the Federal Government reaching
back for decades were mostly responsible. I wanted to begin
reversing those mistakes, and now I had a chance. My advisers
and I had begun working on a recovery plan the first day after
the election. The morning after Inauguration Day, we began
implementing the plan.

    Its basis was tax reform. I have always thought of
government as a kind of organism with an insatiable appetite for
money, whose natural state is to grow forever unless you do
something to starve it. By cutting taxes, I wanted not only to
stimulate the economy but also to curb the growth of government
and reduce its intrusion into the economic life of the country.

    Excessive tax rates were at the heart of the problem. In the
14th century a Muslim philosopher named Ibn Khaldun said of
taxes in ancient Egypt: "At the beginning of the dynasty,
taxation yields a large revenue from small assessments. At the
end of the dynasty, taxation yields a small revenue from large
assessments." When rates were low, revenue was great; when rates
were high, revenue was low.

    During the 1980 campaign, several economists claimed credit
for inventing the principles of supply-side economics, which
they said I then adopted as the basis for my program. That
wasn't true.

    At Eureka College my major was economics, but my own
experience in Hollywood taught me more about practical economic
theory than I ever learned in a classroom or from an economist.
My views on tax reform did not spring from what people called
supply-side economics.

    At the peak of my career at Warner Bros., I was in the 94%
tax bracket; after a certain point, I received only 6 cents of
each dollar I earned, and the government got the rest. The IRS
took such a big chunk of my earnings that after a while I began
asking myself whether it was worth it to keep on taking work.
Something was wrong with a system like that. Incentive to work
goes down. You don't say, "I've got to do more pictures." You
say, "I'm not gonna work for 6 cents on the dollar." And if I
decided to do one less picture, that meant other people at the
studio wouldn't work as much either.

    The same principle applied to people in all tax brackets.
What worker jumps at overtime when Uncle Sam is going to take
60% or more of his extra pay? And the principle applies as well
to corporations and small businesses. When government
confiscates half or more of their profits, owners and managers
try to avoid taxes by looking for loopholes that contribute
nothing to the growth of our economy. Their companies don't grow
as fast, they invest less in new plant and equipment, and they
hire fewer people.

    Any system that penalizes success is wrong. Any system that
discourages work, discourages productivity, discourages economic
progress, is wrong.

    If, on the other hand, you reduce tax rates and allow people
to spend or save more, they'll have more incentive to work hard,
and money they earn will add fuel to the great economic machine
that energizes our national progress. The result: more
prosperity for all -- and more revenue for government.

    A few economists call this supply-side economics. I call it
common sense.


________________________________________________________________
The Witching Hour


    A month or so after I became President, House Speaker Tip
O'Neill and a few others came to dinner. Nancy had already made
a lot of progress in renovating the White House, and Tip said,
"You know, I have been in and out of this place for 27 years,
and I have never seen it look as beautiful."

    It was a warm, pleasant evening, and by the time it was
over, I thought I'd made a friend. But a day or two later, I
read a story in which Tip really lit into me because he didn't
like the economic-recovery program and some of the spending cuts
I proposed. Some of his remarks were pretty nasty.

    I was not only surprised but also a little hurt. I called
him and said, "Tip, I just read in the paper what you said about
me. I thought we had a pretty fine relationship going."

    "Ol' buddy," Tip said, "that's politics. After 6 o'clock we
can be friends, but before 6, it's politics."

    Four years later, after I had won a second term, Tip made
a point of telling me during the traditional Inaugural lunch
with Congressmen that he was very much aware of the fact that
I had received 59% of the vote. I hoped that was a signal that
he'd be more agreeable the second time around, but it didn't
work out that way. As far as he was concerned, it still wasn't
6 o'clock.


________________________________________________________________
Shake a Leg, Ron


    At a dinner honoring French President Francois Mitterrand,
he and his wife and Nancy and I walked into the State Dining
Room. As was customary, everyone was to stand until Nancy led
Francois to her table and I led Mrs. Mitterrand to mine.

    Nancy and Francois headed for their table, but Mrs.
Mitterrand stood frozen. I whispered, "We're supposed to go over
to the other side." But she wouldn't move. She said something
to me very quietly in French, which I didn't understand. Then
she repeated it, and I shook my head. I still didn't know what
she was saying. Suddenly an interpreter ran up to us and said,
"She's telling you that you're standing on her gown."


________________________________________________________________
Auld Lang Syne


    I've always thought of the presidency as an institution of
which Presidents are granted only temporary custody; now my
custody was coming to an end, and the hardest part was having
to say goodbye to those who had helped me carry out my
responsibilities and had always been there to help in difficult
personal times.

    On Jan. 18, 1989, as I looked into the faces of those
gathered in the East Room for one final goodbye, I couldn't help
thinking about what they had sacrificed with late nights in the
office, weekends at work away from home, much more. We had
experienced life's highs and lows together. How I wanted to say
to each one how deeply Nancy and I appreciated them and how much
their work had meant. But when the band started playing Auld
Lang Syne, we couldn't say much of anything.

    On Jan. 20, I got up earlier than usual, did some puttering
in my study, then went to the Oval Office. There I wrote a note
to George Bush and stuck it in the top drawer of the desk that
in a few hours would become his. I used a little pad with a
printed heading: DON'T LET THE TURKEYS GET YOU DOWN. The note
said:


    Dear George,

    You'll have moments when you want to use this particular
stationery. Well, go for it.

    George, I'll treasure the memories we share and wish you all
the very best. You'll be in my prayers. God bless you and
Barbara. I'll miss our Thursday lunches.

    Ron


    All the members of my staff had submitted their resignations
effective Jan. 19, so I didn't expect anyone else to come to the
Oval Office that morning. But Ken Duberstein, who had replaced
Howard Baker as my chief of staff, came in at our regular
meeting time, and so did my National Security Adviser, Colin
Powell, who gave me my last national security briefing: "Mr.
President," he said, "the world is quiet today."

    Mark Weinberg of the press office then brought in a group
of photographers for one last photo.

    They left, and I was alone again in the Oval Office. I got
up and started to walk out. When I was halfway through the door,
I turned around and took one last look at the Oval Office. Then
I was gone.