Three Days in Moscow

by Bret Baier

  He was considered an outsider, but he wasn’t really. As a former two-term governor of the country’s most populous state, he was practiced in the rubrics of the executive branch. Although he shared that governing background with Carter, that’s where their similarities ended. California has often been likened to a small country, a diverse and complex state, whose budget is as large as or larger than most nations’. Its culture, politics, and economy reflect the country at large in ways that few states can match.

  In particular, Reagan had experience with a vast organizational operation. In his political life, he had collected an impressive cadre of experts and loyalists, but he was bringing a more diverse team on board, including people from past administrations and even Democrats. For that reason, the Reagan transition, run by Meese, was a huge operation, costing more than $3 million, two-thirds appropriated by Congress and the rest from private donations. At the time that was significant cash. According to the historian Carl Brauer, the expenditures galled Reagan’s enemies. Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., complained in the Wall Street Journal, “The true-hearted conservatives conducting the transition in Washington are staging a bureaucratic orgy that those ancients who recall the transition from Eisenhower to Kennedy in 1960 can only watch with stupefaction and incredulity.” Reagan and Meese shrugged off the criticism. How else can you organize such an enormous enterprise?

  The most important staffing choice came not from one of Reagan’s old hands but from the George H. W. Bush campaign. James Baker had been Bush’s campaign manager and had become an advisor for the Reagan campaign in the general election. But he was not part of Reagan’s inner circle, which was dominated by Meese, Deaver, and Weinberger. So he was surprised when he got a call from Reagan the day after the election at his hotel in Los Angeles. Reagan asked if he could drop by to talk. To Baker’s astonishment, Reagan offered him the position of chief of staff. Reagan realized he needed more than his California team; he needed a Washington insider.

  Baker accepted, but he could feel the unwelcoming vibes from the California gang and, indeed, from many Reagan supporters. Even so, Baker was a consummate professional, a skilled organizer, and a loyal aide. His job, he knew, was to serve the president, not to fight with him or undermine him in any way. “The chief of staff truly holds what is potentially the second most powerful job in Washington,” he wrote of his role, “but the rule to remember is that the power comes from the position not the person. The chief of staff is what the title says—staff.”

  Meese might have seemed to be the obvious candidate for chief of staff. He’d been at Reagan’s right hand for so many years, had led the transition, and shared his ideology in a way that Baker might not. There was some grumbling among conservatives when he was passed over. Reagan appointed him counselor to the president, showing that Meese had his ear, but with two strong men at the helm, there was bound to be some jockeying, and the media took delight in suggesting that there were tensions between Baker and Meese.

  Deaver had surprised Reagan after the election by saying he didn’t want to go to Washington, mostly because his wife was balking at the move. “Well, if that’s the way you feel,” Reagan answered unhappily. Deaver returned home after their meeting and was opening a bottle of wine to celebrate with his wife when the phone rang. “Gosh, Mike,” the president-elect said. “I’ve been thinking about this, and I really need you to come back there with me.”

  “I just don’t think I can do that,” Deaver said, glancing at his wife.

  “I just can’t go back without you,” Reagan insisted. “So come back for one year.”

  Deaver said yes and hung up the phone to find his wife in tears. She hadn’t heard the full conversation, but she knew.

  Deaver would be deputy chief of staff under Baker, but Reagan gave him a plum office, the study right off the Oval Office that usually belonged to the president. “I can’t take this,” Deaver protested. “Where are you going to go when you want to get out of the Oval?”

  Reagan laughed. “Look,” he said, “I’ve tried for twenty-five years to get that round office. Why would I want this little square office?” So, Deaver said, “That’s how I got the best real estate in Washington, D.C.”

  In that way, Baker, Meese, and Deaver became the most powerful troika in modern presidential history. Their role said a lot about Reagan’s governing style. As Hedrick Smith wrote in the New York Times, “The Meese-Baker-Deaver combination fits Ronald Reagan’s concept of the Presidency and his style of leadership just as surely as Sherman Adams suited Dwight Eisenhower. With his chairman-of-the-board approach, Mr. Reagan delegates substantial power to subordinates and deliberately holds himself aloof from a lot of decisions that used to absorb Jimmy Carter. And he seems comfortable with the dispersal of power beneath him.”

  Thanks to the team of Baker, Meese, and Deaver, the early period of Reagan’s presidency was viewed by many as well organized. But it would be wrong to paint an entirely rosy scenario. Lyn Nofziger, who was appointed as assistant to the president for political affairs, was not particularly fond of Baker; he never trusted him—he wasn’t a Reagan man. And there were others like that making their way into positions of influence. “We spent a lot of time making sure that Reagan people were getting into government, and that non-Reagan people were being kept out of government,” he said. He saw that as his role, the longtime aide turned protector of the vision. But the White House operation was far more complicated than a gang of loyalists in California. In the end, it was a salty mix of true believers and pragmatists.

  Caspar Weinberger, who had been Reagan’s finance director when he was governor and then chairman of the Federal Trade Commission, was tapped for secretary of defense. It might have seemed odd picking a finance guy for the role, but Reagan respected Weinberger’s leadership skills and was confident that he shared his ideals. Weinberger recalled, “He notified me on December 1—which I remember because it was my father’s birthday—that he wanted me to be secretary of defense. He started out by saying, ‘I know you have a very full and a very rich and a very satisfying and a happy life.’ And he said, ‘I want to spoil the whole thing.’ ”

  For secretary of state, Reagan looked outside his circle, choosing Alexander Haig. Haig had a strong résumé, having been supreme allied commander under Ford and briefly Carter and chief of staff for a year under Nixon, but he wasn’t necessarily an obvious choice. It appears that Reagan was influenced by the pro-Haig entreaties of none other than Richard Nixon, who had begun sending letters of advice during the campaign. No one denied that Haig had talent. However, he was the antithesis of a team player, imperious and full of self-regard, jealous of his turf, and besieged by grievances that he frequently took to the president. In his diary, Reagan complained about Haig’s regular threats to quit—he was said to carry a letter of resignation in his pocket.

  Haig came out swinging right away. In a meeting in Baker’s office the afternoon of the inauguration, Haig was there with a set of demands. “Reagan told me I’ve got complete control of foreign policy.”

  “He didn’t tell you that you have complete control of foreign policy,” Baker countered.

  “Oh, no, no,” Haig said. “He did.” And it continued from there.

  Weinberger, who bore the brunt of much of Haig’s discontent, observed that “from the beginning he was obsessed with the idea that people were trying to undermine him. He was very worried about perquisites and his own primacy as foreign policy advisor. He disliked intensely anybody else commenting on any foreign policy matters in the presence of the president.” Haig’s bullish behavior would only get worse during the first year of Reagan’s presidency. In retrospect, most people agree that having a rogue character in the role of public diplomat might not have been such a good idea. It’s odd that Nixon pushed the appointment in the first place, since few people understood international diplomacy as well as he did.

  Filling out the foreign policy team was Richard Allen, another inner-circle choice—remember,
he’d been blown away by Reagan’s resolve to win the Cold War years earlier and had given up his own political aspirations to support Reagan’s candidacy. Allen was appointed national security advisor. He was quite familiar with the dynamics of the NSC, but one thing he didn’t like was the classic conflict between the NSC and secretary of state, which had been in evidence with Henry Kissinger and then with Zbieniew Brzezinski and Cyrus Vance during the Carter administration. He was determined to restore a sense of collaboration, and when he interviewed staff members he told them bluntly, “Look, the NSC is going to be a different place. We’re not going to fight for control of policy. Policy is going to be made in a collegial way, in the way it was always made before. . . . If you’re looking for the high-voltage action and the big visibility and all the other perks, don’t come to this NSC.” With Haig at State, that would be a challenge, however.

  Allen introduced Reagan to another key foreign policy player, Jeane Kirkpatrick, a professor of government at Georgetown University, whom he selected as ambassador to the United Nations. Allen had first brought Kirkpatrick to Reagan’s attention in November 1979 when he showed him an article she’d written for Commentary magazine titled “Dictatorships and Double Standards.” Reagan liked the article. “Who is he?” he asked.

  “Well, first of all, he is a she,” Allen said.

  When Allen arranged a meeting, Kirkpatrick was concerned. She was a card-carrying Democrat and thought that might be a problem. At the meeting, she put it to Reagan right away, asking him if he minded that she was a Democrat. He reminded her that he’d been a Democrat, too, for much of his life, and it didn’t bother him. What he cared about was her ideas—and those he liked. In fact, Kirkpatrick became one of his favorites for her boldness and her refusal to back down to the Soviets.

  William Casey, who had managed Reagan’s campaign after the Sears team was fired, was picked to head the CIA. That was part of Reagan’s international strategy as well. Reagan believed that the CIA should assert itself more aggressively in international hot spots, including conducting covert actions and supporting anti-Communist organizations abroad. Those efforts would lead to some successes, but also to failures that would plague Reagan’s presidency.

  On the domestic side, Reagan appointed Donald Regan, the chairman of Merrill Lynch, to be secretary of the Treasury. “Reagan without the A,” the president called him. Already accustomed to being the man in charge, Regan took firm control of the economic reins. Regan has received so much press on and analysis of his later role as chief of staff and his famous fallout with Nancy Reagan that many people fail to appreciate his contribution to selling and executing Reagan’s economic policy in the early years of his presidency.

  Straight out of the gate, President Reagan placed his primary attention on the economy, more than on foreign policy. The voters, in rejecting Carter, had given him a mandate that he was determined to use. Although polls showed that dislike of Carter had been a stronger motivation than an embrace of conservatism, he would show them that they’d chosen wisely. He had one important thing going for him: his unwavering belief in the principles he preached. He knew he had a small window in which to get his legislative goals executed: budget cuts to streamline the federal government and tax cuts, which he believed would spark economic growth. He was determined, as he told his cabinet at an early meeting: “We’re going to make history in that no government has before voluntarily reduced itself in size.” He instructed his cabinet, “Make sure bureaucracy can’t end-run us. Or we’ll booby trap their swivel chairs.”

  Reagan praised Regan for being a great salesman of his program, but he also had the boyish David Stockman, a numbers whiz, laying the groundwork as the director of the Office of Management and Budget. Feisty and outspoken, the two-term congressman from Michigan was not initially on board with Reagan’s supply-side philosophy, but he was a bear about cutting waste. Early on he tangled with Weinberger, arguing that the defense budget was out of control. In this case, Weinberger knew something about budgets; he also understood how to appeal to Reagan. He took graphics to a cabinet meeting to discuss the defense budget. One showed a slumping, dejected Boy Scout. “Is this what we want defending our country?” he asked. The next graphic showed a technological he-man, armed and ready. “Mr. President,” he concluded, “this is your choice.” He won that argument, but Stockman labored on in his mission to cut government waste, one of Reagan’s chief campaign promises.

  Stockman’s star might have risen farther had it not been for his foolish decision to give a series of interviews to The Atlantic during the first year. His candid tales of the inside workings of the White House’s legislative efforts were published in a lengthy December piece, “The Education of David Stockman.” In the article, Stockman was portrayed as a conflicted executor of the budget strategy, calling Reagan’s across-the-board tax cut “a Trojan horse” and sowing doubts about the core programs of the White House, which, he said, had been devised in haste and were flawed.

  When Reagan read the article, he was furious. Meese and Deaver thought Stockman should be fired, although Baker disagreed. In the end, he kept his job but was taken to the woodshed by the boss. Trust being the currency of an effective White House operation, Stockman never recovered his sterling reputation and was gone by Reagan’s second term.

  THE BIG EGOS OPERATING in Reagan’s orbit deferred to the president, if they knew what was good for them, and Reagan was a study in ego demolition. He despised the petty internecine warfare that was typical in administrations and refused to mediate disputes among his staff and cabinet members. “You work it out” was his typical reply when people complained about each other.

  Reagan’s management style was polite, even-tempered, and personable. He wasn’t a screamer; his honeyed voice seemed incapable of rising to that pitch. Famously, he had a big jar of jelly beans on his desk, and he liked it when visitors indulged. Glass jars of jelly beans were also at cabinet and staff meetings, where they were passed down the table, each person pouring out a handful and popping them into his or her mouth. (Reagan’s jelly bean habit became such a trademark that the artist Peter Rocha created a portrait of the president, composed of ten thousand Jelly Belly jelly beans, that is on display at the Reagan Library.)

  His approach was egalitarian. Martin Anderson, the assistant to the president for policy development, characterized it this way: “See, the thing about Reagan, the assumption is made that everything is divided in neat categories, and he didn’t work that way. In fact, at meetings he thought if the domestic people wanted to comment on the foreign policy and the foreign policy on the domestic policy, that was just fine. He wasn’t a stickler for you stay in your box and you stay in your box, which upset a lot of people on the staff, because they’re used to staying in their boxes.” Not only did he mix it up in cabinet meetings, he set up “supercabinet” committees, similar to boards of directors, to focus on key issues. He liked listening to a lot of different opinions, having vigorous debates, and getting input from people outside the cabinet offices. Needless to say, such power sharing was abhorrent to people like Haig, but it suited Reagan’s management style.

  One of Reagan’s most effective weapons was humor. When advisors filed into the Oval Office, the awe and sobriety of the place could put them on their heels. They were there for serious business, often divided into warring camps, ready to fight for their positions. Reagan disarmed them before they could get their hackles up. His personal assistant, Kathleen Osborne, recalled the frequent laughter that emanated from the Oval Office when staff members or visitors were present.

  Howard Baker, who served for a time as Reagan’s chief of staff in his second term, after retiring from the Senate, noted that “so many of his decisions were hung on the tree of humor,” comparing him to Abraham Lincoln in that respect.

  That was just one clue to his political success. David Gergen, the White House director of communications during Reagan’s first term, wrote of the president’s impressive emotio
nal intelligence, noting that his sunny personality, relentless optimism, warm manner, and humor weren’t only on the surface; they were who he was at the core. After four years of Carter’s puritanical disapproval, which had settled over the White House—and the nation—like a heavy cloak, perhaps people were ready for a little sunshine. The contrast was striking: Carter’s message of American malaise versus Reagan’s optimism. An aide, when asked “Why do you like Reagan?,” responded, “For one simple reason—he seemed to like me.” Americans felt it, too.

  Deaver recalled that Reagan kept several blank personal checks in the top drawer of his desk, and he would occasionally write checks to people he came across who were in need. One time, he noticed that a check he’d written to a woman hadn’t shown up on his bank statement, so he called her.

  “You know, you haven’t cashed that check,” said the president of the United States.

  “Oh, no, I framed it,” she replied.

  “Well, my God, I sent you that money so you’d have some money to eat. I’ll send you another check, you keep that one framed and cash this one.”

  “In my experience, the Reagan you saw in private was just the same as the one you saw in public,” Charlie Black said. “He was easygoing, he was very kind and polite. I like to tell the story of how in those days when a lot of people smoked, if you had a meeting in his office, he’d go around and clean up the ashtrays at the end of the meeting before the next crowd came in. He was just a good man, well motivated in all of his intentions and his philosophy. It took a lot to get him mad.”

  Not that Reagan was one-dimensional. He could get angry, but, as an aide noted, his displeasure was usually about issues, not people. He wasn’t known for his temper; quite the opposite. He was unfailingly courteous. The one “tell” that he was annoyed or frustrated was that he’d take off his glasses and throw them on his desk. On one occasion, that aide recalled, the glasses flew off the desk, disappearing onto the floor, and he and the president both got down on their hands and knees to hunt for them. Crawling around under the desk, they looked at each other and burst out laughing.