Power Game
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39. Richard Wirthlin, interview with the author, February 18, 1986.
40. Ed Rollins, interview with the author, December 9, 1985.
41. Richard Wirthlin, interview with the author, February 18, 1986
42. Kirk O’Donnell, interview with the author, June 3, 1985.
43. James A. Baker III, interview with the author, November 7, 1986.
44. Donald T. Regan, interview with the author, April 26, 1985.
45. Arthur Burns, The United States and Germany: A Vital Partnership (New York: Council on Foreign Relations, 1986), pp. 12–14.
46. The New York Times, April 18, 1945, p. 1.
47. Michael K. Deaver, interview with the author, June 10, 1985.
48. William Woessner, interview with the author, September 18, 1986.
49. William Henkel, interview with the author, September 20, 1986.
50. Hans Tuck, interview with the author, November 5, 1986.
51. Stuart Spencer, interview with the author, March 8, 1986.
52. Ed Rollins, interview with the author, December 9, 1985.
53. Frederick Ahearn, interview with the author, January 5, 1987.
54. This account is drawn from interviews with William Henkel, September 20, 25, and October 16, 1986, and from two other close Reagan associates.
55. Michael Deaver, interview with the author, June 10, 1985.
56. Richard Wirthlin, interview with the author, September 17, 1986.
57. Michael Deaver, interview with the author, September 17, 1985.
58. Stockman, op. cit., p. 133.
59. Greider, op. cit.
60. See Economic Report of the President to Congress, February 1986 (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1986), p.254. Reagan’s average of 2.36% and Carter’s of 3.07% real growth were derived from the GNP figures year by year and matching figures from World Economic Outlook, April 1986 (Washington: International Monetary Fund, 1986), p. 180
61. David A. Stockman, interview with the author, January 6, 1986.
62. David Stockman, interview with the author, January 6 and 7, 1986; account partly confirmed by other officials speaking on background. See also Stockman, op. cit., p.97.
63. David A. Stockman, interview with the author, January 7, 1986.
64. William Schneider, Jr., “National Defense,” in Agenda for Progress (Washington: The Heritage Foundation, 1981), p. 8.
65. Richard A. Stubbing, interview with the author, November 3, 1986. A high Pentagon official, speaking anonymously, confirmed Stubbing’s account. Also see Richard A. Stubbing, The Defense Game (New York: Harper & Row, 1986), pp. 374–5.
66. William Schneider, Jr., interview with the author, October 28, 1986.
67. Caspar Weinberger, interview with the author, March 28, 1986.
68. William Schneider, Jr., interview with the author, October 28, 1986.
69. David A. Stockman, interview with the author, January 7, 1986.
70. Stockman, op. cit., p. 133.
71. Stockman, op. cit., pp. 97–98.
72. David Stockman, “Postscript: Who Shot John?” in The Triumph of Politics (New York: Avon, 1987), pp. 446–447.
12. THE IMAGE GAME
1. Sheila Tate, interview with the author, February 14, 1986.
2. Joseph Canzeri, interview with the author, February 5, 1986.
3. Christopher Matthews, spokesman and media adviser to House Speaker Tip O’Neill, coined the phrase “Hang a lantern on your problem.”
4. Fred Dutton, interview with the author, December 5, 1985.
5. Edmund Morris, The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt (New York: Ballantine, 1979) pp 648–657.
6. John Gunther, Roosevelt in Retrospect (New York: Harper, 1950), p. 62.
7. See Samuel Kernell, Going Public: New Strategies of Presidential Leadership (Washington: Congressional Quarterly Press, 1986), pp. 1–5.
8. Tony Schwartz, Media: The Second God (Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor Books, 1983), pp. 114–115.
9. Norman Ornstein and Michal Robinson, “The Case of Our Disappearing Congress,” TV Guide, January 11, 1986, pp. 4–10. Their study compares the coverage of the three networks in September 1985 and September 1975.
10. In Channels of Power (New York: Basic Books, Inc., 1983), Austin Ranney has an excellent chapter on “Bias in Television News” in which he argues that the “structural bias” of television news—the technical and dramatic demands of the medium—is more important in influencing coverage than the political ideology of network editors or correspondents.
11. Jody Powell, interview with the author, September 16, 1986.
12. Theodore H. White, The Making of the President 1972 (New York: Atheneum, 1973), p. 245.
13. Lee Atwater, interview with the author, February 6, 1986.
14. Lloyd Cutler, “Foreign Policy on Deadline,” Foreign Policy, number 56, Fall 1984, p. 121.
15. Chris Wallace, interview with the author, September 23, 1986.
16. David Gergen, interview with the author, February 25, 1986.
17. David Gergen, interviews with the author, September 22, 1985 and February 25, 1986.
18. Steven R. Weisman, “The President and the Press,” New York Times Magazine, October 14, 1984, p. 37.
19. Ed Fouhy, interview with the author, March 4, 1986.
20. David Gergen, interview with the author, February 25, 1986.
21. Sam Donaldson, interview with the author, March 5, 1986.
22. David Gergen, interview with the author, February 25, 1986.
23. William Henkel, interview with the author, September 10, 1986.
24. Lesley Stahl, CBS Evening News, October 4, 1984. Stahl shared her script with the author.
25. Lesley Stahl, interview with the author, September 20, 1986.
26. Michael Deaver, interview with the author, September 11, 1985.
27. A Nation at Risk: The Imperative for Educational Reform, April 26, 1983, produced by an eighteen-member national commission appointed by Education Secretary T. H. Bell.
28. David Gergen, interview with the author, February 25, 1986.
29. Michael Deaver, interview with the author, February 4, 1986.
30. Richard Wirthlin, interviews with the author, September 17 and 21, 1986.
31. Newsweek, June 27, 1983, p. 61. The Gallup Organization interviewed 760 adults by telephone, June 15–16, 1983.
32. William Henkel, interview with the author, September 25, 1986.
33. Chris Wallace, interview with the author, September 23, 1986.
34. William Henkel, interview with the author, September 25, 1986.
35. William Henkel, interview with the author, September 16, 1985.
36. President Reagan, informal talk with the author and three other correspondents at the White House, May 20, 1985.
37. Lou Cannon, The Washington Post, March 5, 1984, p. 2.
38. George Tames, interview with the author, September 30, 1986.
39. Ronald Reagan, interview with the author, Bernard Weinraub, Gerald Boyd, and Leslie Gelb, all of The New York Times, February 11, 1985
40. See Robert M. Entman, “The Imperial Media,” in Politics and the Oval Office (San Francisco: Institute for Contemporary Studies, 1981), pp. 79–101.
41. Lesley Stahl, interview with the author, September 20, 1986.
42. Sam Donaldson, interview with the author, March 5, 1986.
43. Chris Wallace, interview with the author, September 23, 1986.
44. Sam Donaldson, interview with the author, March 5, 1986.
45. Leonard Downie, “How Britain Managed the News,” The Washington Post, August 20, 1982, p. 15.
46. See reports of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, printed in The News Media and the Law, January–February 1984, pp. 4–5.
47. As secretary of State, Dean Rusk frequently met on Friday afternoons with regular State Department reporters for a background interview. As one of those reporters, I remember the occasion on February 9, 1968, whe
n Rusk exploded with frustration at press reporting of the war, charging that reporters were more interested in winning Pulitzer prizes than helping their country, demanding, “Which side are you on?”
48. These findings are from telephone interviews of 1,249 adults nationwide taken December 8–12, 1983, by The Harris Survey.
49. Bill Plante, interview with the author, September 9, 1986, and transcript of White House Press Briefing, October 25, 1983, pp. 27–28.
50. Larry Speakes, “Bookshelf: Sam Donaldson’s Own Story,” The Wall Street Journal, March 18, 1987, p. 28
51. James A. Baker III, interviewed on the Public Broadcasting System program Inside Story with Hodding Carter, January 11, 1984.
52. Larry Speakes, in an interview on the Mutual Broadcasting Company, January 14, 1984.
53. See the index of administration actions compiled by the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press in March 1986. An earlier summary appeared in Floyd Abrams, “The New Effort to Control Information,” in The New York Times Magazine, September 25, 1983.
54. The photographs, apparently taken by a spy satellite, showed the Soviet Navy’s first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier under construction. They appeared in the August 1984 edition of Jane’s Defence Weekly.
55. “Information and Personnel Security,” published by the General Accounting Office, September 1986, p. 3.
56. Jimmy Carter, interviewed by Hodding Carter on “Whose News Is It?,” Inside Story, aired January 11, 1984 on the Public Broadcasting System.
57. Austin Ranney, Channels of Power (New York: Basic Books, 1983), pp. 120.
58. Richard A. Darman, interview with the author, July 6, 1984.
59. Stephen Hess, The Government/Press Connection (Washington: The Brookings Institution, 1984), see Chapter 7, especially pp. 77–78.
60. James B. Reston, The Artillery of the Press (New York: Harper & Row, 1967), p. 66.
61. President Reagan, appearing before the American Society of Newspaper Editors on April 9, 1986. He and William Casey argued on behalf of their restrictive policies.
62. Henry Catto, assistant secretary of Defense for Public Affairs, briefing, January 14, 1982.
63. Four top officials involved in this episode spoke to the author on assurance that they would not be identified.
64. This account comes from the author’s interviews with two of the participants, who asked to remain anonymous.
65. The November 1 Reagan directive said that lie detector tests would apply to “all individuals with access to United States Government sensitive compartmented information, communications security information, and other special access program information” (The New York Times, December 20, 1985, p. 1.). The General Accounting Office estimated that 133,781 government employes and contractor personnel held clearances for “sensitive compartmented information” and another 49,231 were in other “special access programs” for highly classified information (The Washington Post, December 21, 1985, p. 1, 8).
66. Bob Woodward, The Washington Post, October 2, 1986, p. A1.
67. The New York Times, November 16, 1986, p. 1
68. Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman (New York: The Viking Press, 1949), p. 138. See an excellent piece comparing Reagan and Willy Loman by Philip Geyelin, “Death of a Sales Pitch: The Unmasking of Reagan,” The Washington Post, February 22, 1987, p. C1.
13. THE COALITION GAME
1. Howard H. Baker, Jr., interview with the author, January 14, 1986.
2. Newt Gingrich, interview with the author, January 22, 1986.
3. Howard H. Baker, Jr., interview with the author, January 14, 1986.
4. Max Freidersdorf, interview with the author, July 12, 1981.
5. Douglass Cater, interviewed in The Great Society Remembered, broadcast on PBS, October 28, 1985.
6. James A. Baker, interview with the author, November 7, 1986.
7. William Armstrong, interview with the author, November 17, 1986.
8. Howard H. Baker, Jr., interview with the author, January 14, 1986.
9. Jack Nelson, “The Reagan Legacy,” in Paul Duke et al., Beyond Reagan: The Politics of Upheaval (New York: Warner Books, 1986), p. 103.
10. Mark Nimitz, conversation with the author, January 17, 1985.
11. Mark Siegel, interview with the author, January 2, 1986.
12. The Washington Post, November 19, 1981, p. E1.
13. James Leach, interview with the author, November 10, 1986.
14. Richard Darman, interview with the author, November 23, 1986.
15. Howard Baker, interviews with the author, January 14 and March 11, 1986.
16. Pete Domenici, interview with the author, November 17, 1986.
17. Howard H. Baker, Jr., interview with the author, January 14, 1986.
18. Christopher Dodd, interview with the author, February 19, 1986.
19. Warren Rudman, interview with the author, July 30, 1985.
20. James A. Miller, interview with the author, January 13, 1986.
21. William Armstrong, interview with the author, November 17, 1986.
22. Kenneth Duberstein, interview with the author, February 3, 1986.
23. Robert Michel, interview with the author, February 6, 1986.
24. Phil Gramm, interview with the author, December 16, 1985.
25. Lee Atwater, interview with the author, July 17, 1981.
26. The Washington Post, May 10, 1981, p. 3.
27. Lee Atwater, interview with the author, January 14, 1986.
28. Bill Green, interview with the author, November 11, 1986.
29. Stockman spelled out his view of the numbers and his shock at the congressional action in The Triumph of Politics: Why the Reagan Revolution Failed (New York: Harper & Row, 1986), pp. 194–198.
30. Several of the White House officials who took part in that meeting gave me this account at the time, and it appeared in my article, “Coping with Congress,” New York Times Magazine, August 9, 1981, p. 12ff.
31. Stockman, op. cit., p. 229.
32. Kenneth Duberstein, interview with the author, February 3, 1986.
33. James Sundquist, interview with the author, July 28, 1981.
34. Associated Press, November 8, 1984.
35. “Hill Backing for Reagan Continues to Decline,” Congressional Quarterly, January 11, 1986, p. 68.
36. Robert Dole, interview with the author, January 11, 1986.
37. Thomas P. O’Neill, Jr., interview with the author, November 6, 1986.
38. Jack Kemp, interview with the author, March 24, 1986.
39. Donald Regan, interview with the author, April 24, 1985.
40. Thomas P. O’Neill, Jr., interview with the author, October 31, 1986.
41. Thomas P. O’Neill, Jr., interview with the author, October 16, 1985.
42. Robert Dole, interview with the author, January 11, 1986.
43. Ibid.
44. Slade Gorton, interview with the author, July 26, 1985.
45. John Sherman, interview with the author, September 28, 1985.
46. Dan Rostenkowski, interview with the author, January 3, 1986; and James A. Baker III, interview with the author, February 25, 1986.
47. All five participants gave similar accounts of the meeting.
48. Robert Michel, interview with the author, Dec. 5, 1985.
49. The Washington Post, December 10, 1985, p. 1.
50. Jack Kemp, interview with the author, March 24, 1986.
14. THE OPPOSITION GAME
1. Franklin Delano Roosevelt, quoted in Richard B. Cheney and Lynn V. Cheney, Kings of the Hill (New York: Continuum, 1983), p. 172.
2. John W. Finney, interview with the author, January 13, 1985.
3. Thomas P. O’Neill, Jr., interview with the author, January 2, 1986.
4. Both Speaker O’Neill and his close aides, Ari Weiss and Kirk O’Donnell, emphasized this point repeatedly in several interviews with the author.
5. Thomas P. O’Neill, Jr., interview with the author,
October 16, 1985.
6. Thomas P. O’Neill, Jr., The New York Times, May 16, 1986, p. A35. He said many of the same things in 1981 and throughout his decade as speaker.
7. Kirk O’Donnell, interview with the author, December 12, 1986.
8. Dom Bonafede, “For the Democratic Party, It’s a Time for Rebuilding and Seeking New Ideas,” National Journal, February 21, 1981.
9. The Washington Post, May 8, 1981, p. 1.
10. Richard Bolling, interview with the author, January 15, 1986.
11. Thomas P. O’Neill, Jr., interview with the author, November 6, 1986.
12. Norm Ornstein, interview with the author, January 20, 1986.
13. Thomas P. O’Neill, Jr., interview with the author, November 6, 1986.
14. Thomas P. O’Neill, Jr., addressing the House Democratic Caucus, May 5, 1981.
15. Thomas P. O’Neill, Jr., interview with the author, October 16, 1985.
16. Ibid.
17. Dan Rostenkowski, speech to the Economic Club of Chicago, February 17, 1981.
18. Rather inconsistently, O’Neill contended both that the 1980 election had not been a mandate for conservative fiscal policies but only a repudiation of Jimmy Carter, and also that the nation’s mood was so conservative in 1981 that even Carter would have had to carry out much of Reagan’s program. In an interview with the author on November 6, 1986, he said, “If Jimmy Carter had been reelected president that year, you would have had a tax cut, number one; you would have had increases in the military, and you would have had cuts across the line in the budget.”
19. Thomas P. O’Neill, Jr., interview with the author, November 6, 1986.
20. Kenneth Duberstein, interview with the author, February 3, 1986.
21. Thomas P. O’Neill, Jr., interview with the author, October 16, 1985.
22. Richard Bolling, interview with the author, January 15, 1986.
23. Thomas P. O’Neill, Jr., interview with the author, January 2, 1986.
24. Christopher Matthews, interview with the author, August 7, 1985. Also, The New York Times, June 17, 1985, p. 1; The Washington Post, June 17, 1985, p. A1 and p. B1.
25. This account comes from aides to both President Reagan and Speaker O’Neill in background interviews in June–July 1981. A slightly different version appeared in Hedrick Smith, “Coping with Congress,” New York Times Magazine, August 9, 1981, pp. 12 ff.