Reagan: The Life (55 page)

Reagan asserted that the economic reforms he proposed could take place only in a political and military framework that addressed the region’s security threats. “Our economic and social program cannot work if our neighbors cannot pursue their own economic and political future in peace, but must divert their resources, instead, to fight imported terrorism and armed attack. Economic progress cannot be made while guerrillas systematically burn, bomb, and destroy bridges, farms, and power and transportation systems—all with the deliberate intention of worsening economic and social problems in hopes of radicalizing already suffering people.” He shared some of the intelligence Casey had presented at the NSC meeting. “Last year, Cuba received 66,000 tons of war supplies from the Soviet Union—more than in any year since the 1962 missile crisis. Last month, the arrival of additional high performance MIG-23 Floggers gave Cuba an arsenal of more than 200 Soviet warplanes—far more than the military aircraft inventories of all other Caribbean Basin countries combined.” The Nicaraguan
Sandinistas assisted the Cubans in their terrorist purposes. “For almost two years, Nicaragua has served as a platform for covert military action. Through Nicaragua, arms are being smuggled to guerrillas in El Salvador and
Guatemala.”

El Salvador was in grave peril, Reagan said. “Very simply, guerrillas
armed and supported by and through Cuba are attempting to impose a Marxist-Leninist dictatorship on the people of El Salvador as part of a larger imperialistic plan.” The Salvadoran guerrillas, purporting to speak for the people of the country, opposed an election empowering the people. “More than that, they now threaten violence and death to those who participate in such an election,” Reagan said. “Can anything make more clear the nature of those who pretend to be supporters of so-called wars of liberation?”

The United States had no choice but to move decisively against the agents of subversion. “If we do not act promptly and decisively in defense of freedom, new Cubas will arise from the ruins of today’s conflicts. We will face more totalitarian regimes tied militarily to the Soviet Union.” Listeners familiar with the origins of America’s Cold War containment policy heard echoes of the
Truman Doctrine when Reagan declared, “I believe free and peaceful development of our hemisphere requires us to help governments confronted with aggression from outside their borders to defend themselves. For this reason, I will ask the Congress to provide increased security assistance to help friendly countries hold off those who would destroy their chances for economic and social progress and political democracy.” This might be just the beginning. “Let our friends and our adversaries understand that we will do whatever is prudent and necessary to ensure the peace and security of the Caribbean area.”

R
EAGAN
’
S CRITICS RECOILED
at his bellicose rhetoric. “
If he had just given the first half of the speech, I would have left the hall with a different feeling,” the Reverend
Joseph Eldridge said. Eldridge spoke for the Washington Office on Latin America, one of many groups that had been protesting the administration’s Central American policy. Eldridge and the other critics, including the Reverend
J. Bryan Hehir of the United States Catholic Conference, thought Reagan grossly misrepresented the causes of unrest in the region. “The conflict in El Salvador is rooted in longstanding patterns of injustice and denial of fundamental rights for the majority of the population,” Hehir said.

Senator
Christopher Dodd, Democrat of Connecticut, deemed Reagan’s remarks uninformed and unhelpful. “To blame the Cubans for everything that happened since 1960 is ridiculous,” Dodd said. “I’m willing to agree that Cubans have not been shy about exploiting the situation, but to say they caused it is ridiculous. If the president really wanted bipartisan
support, he should have gotten away from that kind of thing.” Democratic congresswoman
Mary Rose Oakar represented Cleveland, the home of two of four American churchwomen murdered in El Salvador by persons alleged, and later proven, to be linked to the government of José Napoleon Duarte. Oakar resented even the economic side of Reagan’s initiative, asserting that it would encourage additional killings. “I wish he would send that $350 million in economic aid to Cleveland.” Columnist Anthony Lewis likened El Salvador to Vietnam, declaring, “
As in Vietnam, our policy is based on ignorance of history. Washington sees in El Salvador a sudden threat, mounted from outside, that is susceptible to instant military remedies. But what is happening is a response to decades of oppressive history in El Salvador, and no American policy can neatly determine the result.”

Reagan chalked up the complaints to misguided liberalism and concentrated on the reaction of most of those in the hall where he gave the speech. “
It was extremely well received, and remarks from the ambassador relayed to me afterward were to the effect that it was the most impressive presentation ever made to the OAS,” he wrote in his diary. He added that initial soundings of Congress were positive as well. “I think we may have support on this,” he noted after meeting with the leaders of both parties. “
Jim Wright”—the Democratic majority leader in the House—“seemed darn right enthused.”

T
HE PROTRACTED BUDGET
negotiations delayed congressional action on the Caribbean initiative but didn’t deter the administration from moving forward on the covert side. “
Met with National Security Council Planning Group re a former
Nicaraguan rebel leader who has left the government there and wants to head up a counter revolution,” Reagan wrote in his diary in early April. The counterrevolutionary was
Edén Pastora, the flamboyant “Comandante Cero” of the Sandinista revolution, who had grown disillusioned with corruption in the new regime. The CIA began assisting him and his
contra army, which included former members of the Nicaraguan national guard and
Miskito Indians and initially operated from camps in
Honduras and
Costa Rica.

The contra campaign appeared promising in the summer and early autumn of 1982. “
Within a relatively short period of time the Moskitos will have comparatively free rein throughout the underpopulated eastern portion of Nicaragua,” the CIA’s Central America specialist, Duane Clar
ridge, told Reagan and the NSC at a November meeting. “Two columns of Pastora elements will have moved into Nicaragua from the south, and 1200 Nicaraguans who have been in the Honduran camps will be operating in Nicaragua.” Pastora’s units in northern Nicaragua would soon join the struggle. “This group is small but politically very important as it is hoped that Pastora’s presence will lead to the defection of both individuals and units to his cause.” At Bill Casey’s prompting, Clarridge provided additional details on the numerical strength of the insurgency. Some 1,200 armed contras were operating inside Nicaragua; 200 to 300 were being sent out of the country to
Honduras for training. Between 4,000 and 6,000 peasants who lived in the coffee regions in the mountains of northern Nicaragua were thought to be likely recruits. The Honduran camps contained 1,700 Miskitos awaiting arms. “When fully deployed we can anticipate that the Moskito troop level will rise to 4800,” Clarridge said.

T
HE WORLD HAS
a habit of springing surprises on presidents. This was less so before the 1940s, when Americans and their chief executives often ignored what happened beyond the Atlantic and the Pacific. But after Pearl Harbor discredited hemispheric isolationism and the country adopted a global approach to national security, presidents frequently found themselves having to respond to sudden events in distant countries, whether they wanted to or not.

By contrast to
Central America, which Reagan considered a central theater in the struggle against communism, the
Middle East meant little to him when he assumed the presidency. To be sure, it had oil, necessary for the smooth operation of Western economies. And it was the home of Israel, America’s special partner and responsibility since the 1960s. But Reagan was an ideologist, not a geopolitician, and so the battle of organizing philosophies meant more to him than any contest for natural resources. And though his theology occasionally made him wonder if Armageddon was nigh and might start where Zion had regathered, he wasn’t holding his breath.

Yet the Middle East came to mean a great deal to Reagan. His reeducation began in his first year in office when he wrestled with the Israeli government over the sale to Saudi Arabia of American military hardware, especially
AWACS aircraft, equipped with enhanced radar and air control capabilities, and upgrades for F-15 fighter planes. Reagan intended for the weaponry to bolster Saudi Arabia as an ally against communism, but Israeli officials complained that it strengthened the Arab anti-Israel front. Israel’s supporters in the American media and on Capitol Hill took up the
cudgels and battered the administration for endangering the security of America’s only true friend in the Middle East.

The vehemence of the response caught Reagan by surprise. “
I’m disturbed by the reaction and the opposition of so many groups in the
Jewish community,” he wrote to himself. “It must be plain to them they’ve never had a better friend of Israel in the White House than they have now.” The president thought his critics misconstrued his purposes. “We are striving to bring stability to the
Middle East and reduce the threat of a Soviet move in that direction. The basis for such stability must be peace between Israel and the Arab nations. The Saudis are a key to this. If they can follow the counsel of Egypt the rest might fall in place. The AWACS won’t be theirs until 1985. In the meantime much can be accomplished toward furthering the Camp David format. We have assured the Israelis we will do whatever is needed to see that any help to the Arab states does not change the balance of power between them and the Arabs.”

The uproar caused the president to postpone sending the Saudi aid package to Congress. He didn’t want to distract the legislators from his tax and budget proposals, and he hoped the fuss would dissipate. Yet he considered the arms sales important, and hardly had the economic measures cleared their hurdles on the Hill when he informed Congress that he was pushing forward with the AWACS and the F-15 parts. “
I am convinced that providing Saudi Arabia with this equipment will improve the security of our friends, strengthen our own posture in the region, and make it clear both to local governments and to the Soviet leadership that the United States is determined to assist in preserving security and stability in Southwest Asia,” he declared in a cover letter to the aid proposal. “I am aware that information from a variety of sources has been circulating on Capitol Hill regarding this sale and that many members have been under some pressure to take an early position against it. I hope that no one will prejudge our proposal before it is presented. We will make a strong case to the Congress that it is in the interest of our country, the Western Alliance and stability in the Middle East.”

Reagan did make his case, repeatedly. “
I have proposed this sale because it significantly enhances our own vital national security interests in the Middle East,” he told a gathering of reporters. “By building confidence in the United States as a reliable security partner, the sale will greatly improve the chances of our working constructively with Saudi Arabia and other states of the Middle East toward our common goal—a
just and lasting peace. It poses no threat to Israel, now or in the future. Indeed, by contributing to the security and stability of the region, it serves Israel’s long-range interests. Further, this sale will significantly improve the capability of Saudi Arabia and the United States to defend the oil fields on which the security of the free world depends.”

The president warned Israel to step back. “As president, it’s my duty to define and defend our broad national security objectives. The Congress, of course, plays an important role in this process. And while we must always take into account the vital interests of our allies, American security interests must remain our internal responsibility. It is not the business of other nations to make American foreign policy.”

But Israel did not back off. Prime Minister Menachem Begin came for a visit. Reagan employed his charm. “
We did some getting acquainted and surprisingly it was very easy,” he remarked that night. Begin broached the subject of the AWACS. “He of course objects to the sale,” Reagan noted. The president reiterated his desire to bring the Saudis into the peace process. He assured Begin of America’s commitment to Israel, at present and in the future. He thought his argument had a positive effect. “While he didn’t give up his objection, he mellowed,” Reagan said of Begin. The president was pleased at how he had handled the sometimes prickly prime minister. “I think we’re off to a good start.”

He soon discovered he was wrong. Begin went from the White House to Capitol Hill, where he lobbied hard against the AWACS sale. Reagan felt double-crossed. “
He told me he wouldn’t.”

Begin’s lobbying initially proved more effective than Reagan’s. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee sent the administration’s request to the full Senate but with a narrowly negative recommendation. Reagan spun the defeat as positively as he could. “
Frankly, I’m gratified that it was that close,” he told reporters. “I, of course, would have wished that it would have been the other way. If one of them had a headache and had to go home early or something, it might have.” He refused to be disheartened. “I still am going to continue believing that we can get it in the Senate vote on the floor.”

He redoubled his efforts on behalf of the sale. He met personally or spoke by phone with most of the senators. He solicited and received endorsements from secretaries of state and defense in previous administrations. He sent a letter to Howard Baker, the majority leader, putting on paper the assurances he had made orally regarding his concern for the security of Israel.

This time his efforts succeeded. The crucial vote in the full Senate favored the administration, 52 to 48. At a joint news conference, Howard Baker lauded the president’s efforts on behalf of the sale. “
The president was our chief negotiator,” Baker said. “And at one time or the other I expect the president saw, virtually, maybe every member of the Senate or almost every member of the Senate. And with some of them he met more than once. I sometimes got ashamed of myself for calling down here and asking him if he would meet with so-and-so. And sometimes the president would say, ‘Well, I already did that.’ I’d say, ‘Well, I know, but you’ve got to do it again.’ ” Baker described one holdout whose mind had been changed by the president at the eleventh hour. “He said, ‘You know, that man down at the White House could sell refrigerators to an Eskimo.’ I said, ‘Well, I’m glad he could sell AWACS to you.’ ”