TIME: Almanac 1995

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<text id=90TT3036> <link 93HT0762> <link 93HT0761> <link 93HT0624> <link 89TT0834> <title> Nov. 12, 1990: Reagan Memoirs:American Dreamer </title> <history> TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1990 Nov. 12, 1990 Ready For War </history> <article> <source>Time Magazine</source> <hdr> EXCERPT, Page 66 Reagan Memoirs: "An American Life" Part Two By Ronald Reagan </hdr> <body> [(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. </body> </article> </text>