Tip and the Gipper: When Politics Worked

by Chris Matthews

  But O’Neill was clearly counting upon Reagan, not the eighteen-month time frame, to ensure “a Vietnam-type escalation is avoided.” “I believe the president when he says he has no plans to change the peacekeeping role of our Marines. I believe he is expending every possible effort to see that differences in Lebanon are settled through negotiations, not through force of arms.”

  It was Democratic congressman Sam Gibbons of Florida who made a speech that offered the compelling case against accepting the troop deployment. “If we are there to fight, we are far too few. If we are there to die, we are far too many.” It’s difficult for me to explain what was going through Tip’s mind on Lebanon, how it ran so differently from his general fear of “another Vietnam,” but in the end it was he and he alone who managed to sway enough Democrats to win. Even so, it was a close vote. The resolution to allow the U.S. marines to remain in Lebanon for another eighteen months passed the House 270 to 161, with 130 of Tip’s Democrats voting “Yea” and 134 voting “Nay.”

  Right after the vote, President Reagan phoned the Speaker to thank him for his critical support. “He was grateful,” O’Neill said, describing the call. “He thinks it was in the best interests of the nation. My response was that I hoped we could get the marines out as quickly as we possibly can and get the whole thing completed.”

  In truth, the Speaker was uncomfortable in the role he’d just stepped into. “I was doing my duty as a leader of the party and as an American. There will be plenty of things along the line that the president will not be happy with me,” he told reporters. He hated being separated from his party’s liberal, antiwar base, and that is precisely where he now was.

  Reagan also thanked Tip publicly. “I want to thank the House of Representatives for its strong, bipartisan vote today supporting our policies in Lebanon and the continued presence of the U.S. peacekeeping force,” said a Reagan statement. “This vote would not have been possible without the strong leadership of Speaker O’Neill.”

  One last detail remained. In order to solicit and win the bipartisan support Tip had supplied, Ronald Reagan had agreed to sign the resolution, thereby meeting the terms of the War Powers Act. He was, in O’Neill’s view, doing no more than accepting the constitutional separation of powers between the executive and legislative branches of government, which required that he do so. “The important thing is not what the president said today but what he did,” I told the New York Times . . . after the ink had dried.

  • • •

  In the early morning of October 22, 1983, Ronald Reagan was given the news that six island nations—Jamaica, Barbados, Dominica, Antigua, St. Lucia, and St. Vincent—in the eastern Caribbean were asking the United States to intervene in neighboring Grenada. A British colony until 1974, Grenada lay about a hundred miles off the coast of Venezuela. With a population at the time of around ninety thousand, and a tropical climate, it was home to an offshore American medical school that would soon take on historic importance.

  Two weeks earlier, the country’s socialist leader, Maurice Bishop, had been placed under house arrest in a Cuban-supported Marxist coup d’état. Demonstrations and counterdemonstrations occurred. Bishop, briefly, was freed. Escalating violence brought civilian deaths. General confusion, not surprisingly, reigned. The unfortunate Bishop, along with members of his cabinet, quickly found himself put to death before a firing squad. At this, the island descended into chaos, without any formal government to speak of.

  What’s interesting is the way this small, little-known Caribbean island—its area roughly 133 square miles—became, along with Nicaragua, “an obsession,” as one White House official put it at the time, for President Reagan. In a speech to the Organization of American States in February 1982, he’d noted specifically “the tightening grip of the totalitarian left in Grenada and Nicaragua.” He’d viewed both places in the reflected light of Cuba, as Soviet beachheads in the hemisphere. Those same half dozen neighbors of Grenada now calling for U.S. intervention had shared their concerns with Reagan the year before. This had occurred during a visit he and Nancy had paid to old Hollywood chum Claudette Colbert, who kept a second home on Barbados. The president had done a round of meetings with officials there that weekend.

  At the time the Reagans had traveled to the Caribbean, Cuban workers on Grenada were building a ten-thousand-foot airstrip. Hearing of this project, Reagan worried it would be able to serve Soviet long-range bombers, as well as large Russian transport planes landing with arms for Central American insurgents. The one bit of news offsetting these disturbing revelations was that Bishop, the Grenadian prime minister, was not at all gung ho in turning his country socialist. He’d been encouraging private investment in hopes of making Grenada a popular tourist destination, and had made a ten-day visit to the United States to try to allay fears about his political intentions. Unfortunately, after Bishop’s death at the hands of his rivals for power, that moderating factor was gone.

  Adding to the impetus for action was the presence of a thousand Americans on the island, six hundred of whom were students at the St. George’s University School of Medicine, established seven years earlier. It was not unreasonable to think Americans studying there might be taken hostage or harmed in what looked to be such an unstable situation. “The cost of not doing Grenada,” Reagan’s defense chief, Cap Weinberger, said later, “was obviously greater than the cost of doing it. We didn’t want students held 440 days as hostages.” The memory of what had happened in Tehran, the incident that made Reagan’s 1980 victory possible, was never far from the administration’s mind.

  “I’ve OK’d an outright invasion in response to a request by 6 other Caribbean nations including Jamaica & Barbados,” Reagan jots in his diary.

  On Sunday, October 23, he was once more wakened in the middle of the night, this time with news that the U.S. marine barracks in Beirut had been hit—catastrophically. A suicide bomber had driven into the barracks, where his vehicle exploded with enormous power, killing 241 marines.

  In the language of the official report, “The truck drove over the barbed and concertina wire obstacle, passed between two Marine guard posts without being engaged by fire, entered an open gate, passed around one sewer pipe barrier and between two others, flattened the Sergeant of the Guard’s sandbagged booth at the building’s entrance, penetrated the lobby of the building and detonated while the majority of the occupants slept. The force of the explosion ripped the building from its foundation. The building then imploded upon itself. Almost all the occupants were crushed or trapped inside the wreckage.” The FBI described it as the biggest non-nuclear blast on record.

  Even under these terrible circumstances, the Speaker continued to stand by the American mission in Lebanon. It was painful to have American fighting men robbed of their lives on an assignment hard to reconcile with even an expanded notion of American security. Even so, he felt, to pull out the marines now “would be the worst possible thing we could do.”

  Years after, O’Neill would look back to a briefing he’d gotten from the president’s top national security advisor, Robert McFarlane.

  He spoke of an agreement under which the Israelis and the Syrians would remove their troops, and the prime minister of Lebanon would put together a new, broader cabinet. As part of the new arrangement, we would keep our marines in Beirut as the symbol of American power and prestige. Put that way, the presence of the marines made sense. But at the time, nobody mentioned that their real mission was to protect the highly exposed Beirut airport. When neither the Syrians nor the Israelis withdrew, our boys became increasingly vulnerable. Not knowing the real purpose they would be serving, I supported the president’s decision to keep the marines in Beirut. In the House, I delivered enough Democratic votes to give us a bipartisan policy with regard to Lebanon.

  There’s an expression, “mission creep,” that I think applies here. The sad fact was, the administration had engaged in a maneuver changing the terms of the marines’ assignment without being up fron
t about what it was doing. They had committed troops to a diplomatic role—one that ended up with them patrolling the Beirut airport, often with unloaded guns—that was, or should have been, wholly unacceptable. Cast officially as peacekeepers, they were regarded in the region not merely as unwanted interlopers but as imported allies of the Lebanese Christians and, even more dangerously, as foreigners secretly answering to Israel.

  That Monday morning, the day after the barracks was hit, Reagan called O’Neill and Senate leader Howard Baker for assurances. “Phoned Tip & Howard B. to express hope they’d stay firm on keeping the Marines in Lebanon—both said yes.” At his daily press conference that morning, the Speaker grappled with what had happened as best he could. When asked if he had any “second thoughts” about backing the War Powers resolution on Lebanon, he fell back on the argument that none of the options before the House, even the six-month limitation of the troop deployment, would have gotten the marines out in time.

  Question: Should we pull out?

  Speaker: In my opinion, that would be the worst possible thing we could do. We are committed to the Middle East. I think it would be a victory for our adversaries, particularly Russia, and, I think, Syria, who is acting as a satellite of Russia. . . . What would happen to free Europe in the event they would lose the oil fields to Russia?

  Question: Do you think the U.S. has an obligation to stay in the Middle East?

  Speaker: We are committed to the Middle East regardless. That is the policy of the U.S. The troops were there when the bloodshed happened when the Israelis were pulling out, as a peacekeeping force, to see if we could keep foreign nations out, and, thirdly, to see if we could help stabilize the government. I think, personally, to pick up and run would send a terrible message, particularly to moderate Arabs of that area who are depending on us, and to the terrorists of the world who have said they could drive us out. I don’t see this as a political issue. I hope my party . . . believes that we are Americans first and Democrats second.

  Question: Did you tell Reagan you thought the marines should be on ships?

  Speaker: No.

  Question: Did he raise that with you?

  Speaker: Our discussion was about the grief that both of us have about the tragedy that has happened to America.

  Question: Do you think you can succeed in dealing with your party so that it won’t become a partisan issue?

  Speaker: I certainly hope so. There has been no bigger adversary of the president than the Speaker of the House—both on domestic and foreign policy. Throughout the years I have tried to support the President on foreign policy because I think it’s in the best interests of the country. I split with Johnson over Vietnam policy. I try to make a solid judgment as to when the country is right. I think we are wrong in Central America, but I think this is in the best interests of America.

  Asked if he trusted President Reagan, O’Neill said he wouldn’t have voted for the Lebanon resolution if he didn’t. Then he added: “But no one thought there would be terrorists.” The one responsible—and accurate—defense of such a statement is that he and Reagan both retained a mind-set that saw wars fought on battlefields between national armies. Despite all recent history saying otherwise, what still, for him, made the most sense—even in a senseless world—was the idea of trained soldier against soldier, not a smiling suicidal car-bomber raging forward in the dead of night.

  It was a tough time for the Speaker. It was especially hard that morning, knowing that he’d pushed for the resolution giving the president a year and a half to continue his operation in Lebanon. Thus, he found himself in an excruciating position: one he recognized as only bound to get more so, of backing Reagan against his own Democratic base, which would be pushing hard for a pullout.

  Now came the U.S. action that would focus Ronald Reagan—and the American people—once again on the familiar East-West rivalry. Later that Monday, after the president had phoned both Tip O’Neill and Senate leader Howard Baker, White House Chief of Staff Jim Baker met with the Speaker in his Capitol back office. He told Tip that the president needed to see him that night for a hush-hush meeting. A Secret Service car would pick him up. Resisting the cloak-and-dagger, O’Neill said he’d have his own driver bring him to the White House.

  That night, O’Neill and the other congressional leaders, for the first time, were informed that the United States was in the process of invading Grenada. In a ninety-minute briefing they were given the full rationale: the assassination of Bishop, the ten-thousand-foot airport strip being built that would allow the landing of heavy military aircraft, the call by the neighboring Caribbean countries to intervene, the American medical students at risk of turning into sitting ducks.

  “You are informing us, not asking us,” O’Neill told Reagan after hearing the decision to invade had been made, that the action was under way. According to Ken Duberstein, who was there, Reagan acknowledged that Tip was right, but that he had taken an executive action. Duberstein also recalled that the Speaker, from time to time, reached over and reassuringly touched the president on the arm. At the end of the meeting they shook hands, and Tip touched Reagan’s elbow and said, “God bless you, Mr. President.”

  Then, after he’d finished laying out the Grenada plan, Reagan changed topics. Acknowledging that there were calls in Congress for the administration to build a better public case for staying in Lebanon, he suggested the possibility of his addressing a joint session of Congress. The Speaker endorsed this option, admitting, “I need some help.”

  As far as the invasion of tiny Grenada went, O’Neill wasn’t yet ready to share his views. He “kept his own counsel,” Duberstein recalled. The following morning, O’Neill continued to reserve judgment. “This is no time for the press, or we in public life, to be critical of our government,” he said at his regular morning press conference back in the Capitol. “We are the opposition. They don’t ask for my advice; they just tell me.”

  But while staying off the record on Grenada, the Speaker now gave an impassioned plea to stick with the president on Lebanon. When asked what he thought of those Democrats seeking a new resolution to shorten the marines’ mission in Lebanon, he was brutal. “I am bitterly disappointed. When you are talking about America, you forget the party issue. I am acting as an American. I think it’s the wrong thing to pick up and leave at this particular time.”

  It would, he voiced, signal American weakness. “The resolution would be to cut off funding as of January 1. But I think it is wrong. I think the fanatics and terrorists of the world . . . it would show they have accomplished what they have set out to do.” What was important now was for President Reagan to make his own case, in his own words, as clearly as possible. “The people of America don’t appreciate the fact of why the marines are there, and it’s time for the president to explain it—and explain it better than his administration has.” It would be to his advantage as well. He’d stuck his neck out for the Lebanon mission and now very much needed the president to give him protection with his own restless Democrats.

  Yet, addressing a caucus of his fellow Democrats, he swung into a memorable declaration of “water’s edge” foreign policy. “As the leader of our party, elected by you, I am not talking as a Democrat. Yes, I love partisans. They say I am the toughest partisan that has ever been in the House. I love politics. They say I am one of the toughest politicians in America, and I am proud of people like that.” However, a different allegiance now called. “I am an American, and at a time of patriotism, I think what is in the best interest of this nation, and I try to lead my party down that road. I don’t look to the next election. I don’t look to the fear of being defeated in the ballot box.”

  On Wednesday, the day after the Grenada invasion, he was still not commenting on it. “I will have plenty to say when the action has stopped and our boys are secure.” He was also waiting to hear what the president would say the next night, speaking simultaneously to the Congress and the American people, about both situations, Lebanon an
d Grenada.

  What he heard was a Reagan defense of U.S. actions in Lebanon and Grenada, ending with a cri de guerre to resist Soviet aggression. “Not only has Moscow assisted and encouraged the violence in both countries, but it provides direct support through a network of surrogates and terrorists.” The president was addressing both countries in the only terms he fully grasped, the Cold War, downplayed the swirl of confessional rivalries in Lebanon, ignoring the ongoing history of resentment against U.S. imperialism in the Americas.

  If Lebanon and Grenada were worth us fighting for, as Reagan argued, then, by extension, so was Nicaragua. He was exploiting the absolute horror in Lebanon, along with the more troubling excursion into Grenada, and, out of both, building a case for what he and his advisors saw as justifiable aggressive action against Nicaragua. He was, at the same time, exploiting Tip O’Neill’s backing for his policy in Lebanon and to-date silent acquiescence on Grenada to win the same bipartisan backing on what he might choose further to do in Central America. He was using Tip’s old-fashioned patriotism to push a Nicaraguan policy that he was fully aware the Speaker could not abide. Essentially, he was tucking an unwilling Speaker into bed with him.

  When he met with reporters the next morning, all the instinctive antagonism O’Neill felt toward Reagan’s Central American policy came bursting forth. He began by explaining why he’d remained silent as long as there was actual fighting in Grenada. He’d learned, he said, from former presidents what effect such political rifts on the home front do to the morale of those putting their lives on the line.

  Then, what about the American medical students on Grenada? Were they truly in danger? “The question I asked the president was, ‘Will we put them in danger by sending the marines in?’ ” What seemed obvious to the Speaker—and he was no longer reluctant to say so—was that, unless the military action off the Venezuelan coast was truly to protect students, the United States had no right to invade.