Power Game
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47. David C. Jones, interview with the author, March 13, 1986.
48. Anthony Battista, interview with the author, March 3, 1986.
49. Warren Rudman, interview with the author, February 25, 1986.
50. Sam Nunn, interview with the author, March 10, 1986.
51. Richard Bolling, interview with the author, January 15, 1986.
52. David C. Jones, interview with the author, March 13, 1986.
53. James Woolsey, interview with the author, February 14, 1986.
54. Melvin R. Laird, “Not a Binge, but a Buildup,” The Washington Post, November 19, 1980, p. A17.
55. Dave McCurdy, interview with the author, February 26, 1986.
56. Sam Nunn, interview with the author, March 10, 1986.
57. Richard DeLauer, interview with the author, March 4, 1986.
58. Caspar Weinberger, interview with the author, March 28, 1986.
59. Robert Dole, interview with the author, February 24, 1986.
60. Les Aspin, interview with the author, August 1, 1985.
61. Sam Nunn, interview with the author, March 10, 1986.
62. William Cohen, interview with the author, March 12, 1986.
63. Pete Domenici, interview with the author, April 11, 1986.
64. This account comes from Pete Domenici, interview with the author, April 11, 1986; Steve Bell, a senior aide to Domenici, and two senior officials who were in the room with President Reagan.
65. The President’s Blue-Ribbon Commission on Defense Management, “An Interim Report to the President,” February 28, 1986, p. 5.
66. David C. Jones, interview with the author, March 13, 1986.
67. E. C. Meyer, interview with the author, May 22, 1987.
9. THE NEW LOBBYING GAME
1. David C. Jones, interview with the author, March 24, 1986.
2. James A. Baker III, interview with the author, April 5, 1986.
3. Howard H. Baker, Jr., interview with the author, January 14, 1986.
4. Doug Bloomfield, interview with the author, October 28, 1985.
5. Thomas Dine, interview with the author, July 3, 1986.
6. Ibid.
7. Doug Bloomfield, interview with the author, October 28, 1985.
8. Bob Asher, interview with the author, July 16, 1986.
9. The Wall Street journal, June 24, 1987, p. 21, showed eighty pro-Israel PACs with expenditures of $6.9 million, but this includes operating expenses. The political donations were about $4 million.
10. Daniel Evans, interview with the author, June 25, 1986.
11. Christopher Matthews, interview with the author, August 7, 1985.
12. William Greider, The Washington Post, November 5, 1978, C1.
13. Norm Ornstein, interview with the author, July 9, 1986.
14. David Cohen, interview with the author, March 25, 1986.
15. Terry Lierman, interview with the author, July 2, 1986.
16. Tony Coelho, interview with the author, March 20, 1986.
17. Wayne Thevnot, interview with author’s researcher Lauren Simon Ostrow, July 17, 1986.
18. Charles Peters, How Washington Really Works (Boston: Addison-Wesley, 1980), p.6
19. Anne Wexler, interview with the author, July 23, 1986.
20. Tom Korologos, interview with the author, July 11, 1986.
21. Jim Mooney, interview with the author, July 11, 1986
22. Gray’s strategy was outlined by Sheila Tate, who was with Hill & Knowlton in 1979–80, interview with the author, February 20, 1986.
23. Betsy Weltner, interview with the author, February 10, 1986
24. Roger Stone, interview with the author, February 13, 1986.
25. Robert Beckel, interview with the author, March 3, 1986.
26. Robert Beckel, interview with the author, February 5, 1986.
27. Fritz Elmendorf, interview with the author, July 22, 1986.
28. Mike McAdams, interview with the author, March 19, 1986.
29. Lynn Pounian, interview with the author, March 19, 1986.
30. Samples of the material and internal memos from Matt Reese’s companies were obtained from Reese’s aides and other sources by the author.
31. Jonathan Perman, an aide to Percy, shared findings and letters with the author’s researcher Lauren Simon Ostrow, May 22, 1986. Also see Ann Cooper, “Middleman Mail,” National Journal, September 14, 1985, pp. 2036–2041.
32. Nicholas Bush, interview with the author, July 11, 1986.
33. Victor Kamber, interview with the author, November 18, 1986.
34. Federal Election Commission reports, May 10, 1987, p. 1, and May 31, 1987, p. 7.
35. Federal Election Commission report, May 21, 1987.
36. FEC report, May 21, 1987.
37. Barry Goldwater, testimony before the Senate Rules and Administration Committee, September 29, 1983.
38. Kenneth Schlossberg, The New York Times, May 14, 1986, p. 27.
39. Fred Wertheimer, interview with the author, March 26, 1986.
40. Lloyd Cutler, interview with the author, March 31, 1986.
41. Michael J Malbin, ed., Money and Politics in the United States (Chatham, N.J.: Chatham House and American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, 1984), 246–247.
42. Charls Walker, interview with the author, January 28, 1986.
43. Mark Green, “Eight Good Reasons for Reining in PACs,” The Washington Post, March 23, 1987, p. A11.
44. Thomas Edsall, The Washington Post, January 28, 1987, p. A19.
45. Anne Wexler, interview with the author, January 31, 1986.
46. David Cohen, interview with the author, March 25, 1986.
47. Robert Strauss, interview with the author, February 11, 1986.
48. Thomas Eagleton, interview with the author, February 21, 1986. In a survey of 114 members of Congress by the Center for Responsive Politics in Washington, released on January 12, 1988, 209 of the members admitted that campaign contributions affected their voting. Only half said that contributions did not influence them; the rest were more qualified in their assessment.
49. Mary Hasenfus, director of Political Affairs, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, interview with the author’s researcher William Nell, May 26, 1987.
50. Tony Coelho, interview with the author, March 20, 1986.
51. Brooks Jackson, The Wall Street Journal, October 24, 1986, page 58.
52. This figure is derived from two reports by the Federal Election Commission, on campaign spending and PAC activity, released in May 1987, in which it was reported that 395 House incumbents spent $149 million, of which $67.7 million came from PAC contributions.
53. Materials from Phillip Sterns’s lawsuit were obtained by the author’s researcher Kurt Eichenwald.
54. Fred Wertheimer, president of Common Cause, quoted by the Associated Press in The Washington Post, March 21, 1987, p. A3.
55. Fred Wertheimer, interview with the author, March 18, 1986.
56. Joseph Califano, interview with the author, May 10, 1987.
57. Ed Roeder, interview with the author’s researcher Lauren Simon Ostrow, August 5, 1986.
58. See Common Cause, Financing the Finance Committee, March 19, 1986.
59. See Common Cause, Financing the Finance Committee, March 19, 1986. The estimate of the Joint Congressional Committee on Taxation was that the administration’s first tax proposal in November 1984, would have imposed a new tax burden of at least $51 billion on the life, health, property, and casualty insurance industries and on employer-provided, union-sponsored fringe benefits. The final Reagan plan, sent to Congress May 28, 1985, reduced that burden to about $25 billion.
60. Bob Packwood, interview with the author, July 12, 1986.
61. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, interview with the author, July 2, 1986.
62. Donald Regan, interview with the author, June 12, 1986.
63. Material on the former officials who became lobbyists for foreign governments, including Michael Deaver’s contrac
ts, was obtained from Justice Department files by the author’s researcher Kurt Eichenwald.
64. Kenneth Schlossberg, The New York Times, May 14, 1986, p. 27.
10. SHADOW GOVERNMENT
1. David Brockway interview with the author, August 22, 1986.
2. Bob Packwood and Bill Diefenderfer interviews with the author, May 27 and July 12, 1986.
3. David Brockway, interviews with the author, June 13, August 8, and August 20, 1986.
4. Stuart Eizenstat, interview with the author, August 8, 1986.
5. Michael Malbin, Unelected Representatives. New York: Basic Books, 1979. pp. 30–38.
6. Bryce Harlow, interview with the author, November 13, 1985.
7. Michael Malbin, interview with the author, August 18, 1986. These figures are derived from Norman J. Ornstein, et al., Vital Statistics on Congress, 1987–1988 Washington: Congressional Quarterly, 1987.
8. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, lecture, March 28, 1978.
9. David Aylward, interview with the author, February 4, 1986.
10. The New York Times, September 25, 1977, p E4.
11. This notion of tribal customs and relationships in Congress is developed by J. Michael Weatherford, an anthropologist and former legislative aide to Senator John Glenn of Ohio, in Tribes on the Hill (New York: Rawson, Wade, 1981).
12. William Cohen, interview with the author, March 12, 1986.
13. Tony Coelho, interview with the author, March 20, 1986.
14. Howard H. Baker, Jr., interview with the author, March 11, 1986.
15. This account, among others, is retold in detail by Rochelle Jones and Peter Woll in The Private World of Congress (New York: The Free Press, 1979), pp. 155–156.
16. The Washington Post, October 31, 1977, p.2.
17. The account of the debate comes from the Congressional Record, December 23, 1982, pp. S16047–S16060, and the account of the staff role comes from senators Warren Rudman, Alan Simpson, aides to Howard Baker, and from the Senate staff.
18. David A. Stockman, interview with the author, February 1986.
19. Pete Domenici, interview with the author, April 12, 1986.
20. This account was developed by interviews with these and other participants by the author’s researcher Lauren Ostrow.
21. Fritz Hollings, testifying before the Senate Appropriations subcommittee on the legislative branch, April 21, 1975, p. 1241.
22. Rudolph G. Penner, testimony before the House Committee on Government Operations, October 17, 1985, hearings, pp. 156–157.
23. Ted Stevens of Alaska at hearing of the Senate Appropriations subcommittee on the legislative branch, July 1986.
24. Dave McCurdy, interview with the author, February 26, 1986.
25. The New York Times, June 28, 1982, p. A13.
26. Robert Dornan, interview with the author, August 13, 1986.
27. Anthony Battista, interviews with the author, March 3 and 7, 1986.
28. Thomas Downey, interview with the author, February 21, 1986.
29. Samuel Stratton, interviews with the author, December 2, 1985 and August 15, 1986.
30. Thomas Downey, interview with the author, February 21, 1986.
31. Jimmy Carter, interview with the author, August 12, 1976.
32. Ronald Reagan, interview with the author, February 28, 1980.
33. Richard Darman, interview with the author, April 5, 1986.
34. This account of the workings of the White House staff came from about twenty background interviews of the senior staff members and their aides with the author in 1981.
35. This draws on the excellent account of the evolution of the presidential apparatus during six presidencies, Roosevelt through Nixon, given by Stephen Hess in Organizing the Presidency (Washington: Brookings Institution, 1976). The recent staff figures came from the Reagan White House in August 1986.
36. Paul Light, interview with the author, August 15, 1986.
37. Alexander M. Haig, Jr., Caveat (New York: Macmillan, 1984), p. 83.
38. Michael Deaver, interviews with the author, June 10, 1985 and January 24, 1988.
39. Haig, op. cit., p. 84.
40. Richard Darman, interview with the author, April 5, 1986.
41. Michael K. Deaver, interview with the author, June 10, 1985.
42. At the senior echelons of government, having cabinet rank is enormously important. After four years as White House chief of staff, Jim Baker wanted a top cabinet post to gain public authority and prestige. Jeane Kirkpatrick told friends that she probably would not have become ambassador to the United Nations if Reagan had not promised the post would carry cabinet rank.
43. Haig, op. cit., p. 12.
44. Haig, op. cit., p. 60.
45. This account comes from three senior White House officials and two State Department officials close to Haig.
46. Haig, interview with the author, February 20, 1985.
47. Haig, op. cit., p. 17.
48. Michael J. Blumenthal, interview with the author, November 25, 1986.
49. In Gambling With History (New York: Doubleday, 1983), Laurence 1. Barrett gives an account rich in detail on the Reagan White House in its first two years. The chapter on Meese is especially good.
50. Edwin Meese, in one of several interviews with the author during early 1981.
51. Tony Kornheiser of The Washington Post did an excellent story on Baker on a turkey shoot, January 18, 1981, p. G1.
52. From the author’s background interviews with several of those most closely involved.
53. James A. Baker III, quoted in press conference on The McNeil/Lehrer Newshour, aired on the Public Broadcasting System, January 26, 1981.
54. The account that follows is drawn from background interviews by the author with five officials closely involved, all of whom spoke on condition that they not be quoted by name.
55. This account is constructed with interviews from two senior White House officials, both or whom asked to remain anonymous.
56. Richard E. Neustadt, interview with the author, November 14, 1986.
57. Ellen Hume and Jane Mayer, “The Rise and Fall of Don Regan,” Regardie’s, January 1987, p. 96.
11. THE AGENDA GAME
1. Thomas E. Cronin, The State of the Presidency (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1975) p. 84.
2. Harry McPherson, A Political Education (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1972), p. 268.
3. See Tom Wicker, JFK and LBJ (New York: Morrow, 1968), pp. 135–48.
4. James B. Reston, The New York Times, November 15, 1963.
5. Mark Siegel, interview with the author, January 2, 1986.
6. Robert Shogan, Promises to Keep: Carter’s First Hundred Days (New York, Crowell, 1977) p. 204.
7. James MacGregor Burns, The Power to Lead (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1984), p. 34.
8. This account comes from both Carter and Reagan White House officials and draws on Countdown to the White House—the Reagan Transition, a documentary produced by WGBH-TV in Boston and Harvard University’s Institute of Politics, aired on WGBH, January 21, 1981.
9. John Rogers, interview with the author, October 17, 1986, and Eugene Eidenberg, interview with the author, October 22, 1986.
10. Reagan’s Chicago speech on September 9, 1980, the foundation for Reagan’s agenda in 1981, had five goals: (1) controlling the growth of government spending; (2) cutting personal income tax rates and reducing business taxes; (3) trimming back government regulations; (4) sound, stable monetary policy; (5) consistency in economic policies.
11. David Gergen, interview with the author, August 6, 1985.
12. Cronin, op. cit., pp. 264–5.
13. Reagan transition team, unpublished Final Report of the Initial Actions Project, January 29, 1981, p. 5.
14. David Gergen, interview with the author, August 6, 1985.
15. Jude Wanniski, The Way the World Works (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1983), pp. ix–xxxvii. His book is a supply-side bible.
16. Ibid., p
p. xii–xiv.
17. Burns, op. cit. pp. 59–62. Burns neatly divides the New Right into the market right and the moralistic right.
18. Thomas P. O’Neill, Jr., interview with the author, October 31, 1986.
19. David Gergen, interview with the author, August 6, 1985.
20. David A. Stockman, interview with the author, January 6, 1986.
21. Stuart Eizenstat, interview with the author, August 8, 1986.
22. David A. Stockman, interview with the author, January 6, 1986.
23. Countdown to the White House—the Reagan Transition, a documentary produced by WGBH Boston and Harvard University’s Institute of Politics, aired on WGBH January 21, 1981.
24. David A. Stockman, The Triumph of Politics: Why the Reagan Revolution Failed (New York: Harper & Row, 1986), p. 87.
25. Richard Wirthlin, interview with the author, November 1, 1985, gave an account of the meeting and Reagan’s reaction.
26. Summary of the final report of the Initial Actions Project, January 29, 1981, p. 22.
27. Stockman, op. cit., p. 56.
28. Pete V. Domenici, interview with the author, April 11, 1986; and Steve Bell, interview with the author, January 26, 1986.
29. James A. Baker, III. interview with the author, January 26, 1986.
30. Howard H. Baker, Jr., interview with the author, January 14, 1986.
31. David A. Stockman, interviews with the author, January 6 and 7, 1986.
32. This account comes from interviews with six senior Reagan lieutenants, all of whom asked to remain anonymous except Stockman.
33. William Greider, “The Education of David Stockman,” Atlantic Monthly, December 1981, pp. 46–47.
34. Christopher Matthews, interview with the author, August 7, 1985.
35. Dennis Thomas, interview with the author, January 8, 1986.
36. See Martin Schram, “GOP Shot Across Democrats’ Bow Fizzles in Barrel,” The Washington Post, August 11, 1984, p. A8. House Republican budget experts also tried comparisons with a putative Mondale-Ferraro budget, but Reagan’s deficits were still roughly double potential Democratic budgets.
37. James A. Baker III, interview with the author, February 25, 1986.
38. Ed Rollins, interview with the author, December 9, 1985; and Richard Wirthlin, interview with the author, February 18, 1986.