26. Thomas E. Mann, interview with the author, December 22, 1986.
27. Christopher Matthews, interview with the author, August 7, 1985.
28. Joe Foote of Southern Illinois University and former press secretary to Carl Albert, reported that O’Neill’s TV appearances from 1979 to 1985 averaged 120 annually, compared to forty for Albert and thirty for McCormack. Robert C. Byrd, the Senate majority leader in 1977–80, had eighty.
29. Kirk O’Donnell, “Political Agenda for House Democrats,” memorandum to the speaker, August 4, 1981.
30. This account comes from one of the participants, who asked not to be identified.
31. This account comes from interviews with O’Neill, Bolling, Ari Weiss, Howard Baker, Jim Baker, Stockman, Ken Duberstein, Kirk O’Donnell, Christopher Matthews, and Tom Griscom. Also see Martin Schram, The Washington Post, May 2, 1981, p. A1.
32. David Stockman, interview with the author, January 7, 1986.
33. Ibid.
34. Thomas P. O’Neill, Jr., interview with the author, October 16, 1985.
35. Jim Wright, interview with the author, December 18, 1985.
36. Thomas P. O’Neill, Jr., interview with the author, October 16, 1985.
37. Kirk O’Donnell, interview with the author, December 12, 1986.
38. Thomas Foley, interview with the author, March 22, 1986. O’Neill recalled to the author on October 31, 1986, that in early 1981 Haig had said, “We oughta be in Nicaragua … with our troops. No contras or anything else. They weren’t around in those days.”
39. Poll by Louis Harris, October 29–November 1, 1986, before the Iranian arms scandal was disclosed.
40. Thomas P. O’Neill, Jr., interview with the author, October 16, 1985.
41. Les Aspin, interview with the author, January 10, 1986.
42. Albert Gore, Jr., interview with the author, January 10, 1986.
43. Ibid., and Albert Gore, Jr., “The Fork in the Road,” New Republic, May 5, 1982.
44. Henry Kissinger, “A New Approach to Arms Control,” Time, March 21, 1983.
45. R. James Woolsey, interview with the author, January 8, 1987.
46. Les Aspin, interview with the author, January 10, 1986; and Brent Scowcroft, interview with the author, March 3, 1986.
47. Brent Scowcroft, interview with the author, March 3, 1986.
48. Thomas Foley, interview with the author, January 7, 1987.
49. Norman Dicks, interview with the author, March 21, 1986.
50. Les Aspin, interview with the author, January 10, 1986.
51. Norman Dicks, interview with the author, March 21, 1986.
52. Ibid.
53. The Washington Post, January 3, 1983, p. A13.
54. William Cohen, interview with the author, January 13, 1987.
55. Thomas P. O’Neill, Jr., interview with the author, October 31, 1986.
56. Thomas P. O’Neill, Jr., interview with the author, October 16, 1985.
57. Frank Fahrenkopf, quoted in The Philadelphia Inquirer, May 30, 1985.
58. Dan Rostenkowski, interview with the author, January 3, 1986
59. Henson Moore, interview with the author, December 18, 1985.
60. Dan Rostenkowski, interview with the author, January 3, 1986.
61. Ibid.
62. This account comes both from Rostenkowski and from high Treasury Department officials.
63. Dan Rostenkowski, televised speech to the nation, May 28, 1985.
64. Dan Rostenkowski, interview with the author, January 3, 1986.
65. John Sherman, interview with the author, October 19, 1985.
66. Dan Rostenkowski, interview with the author, January 3, 1986.
67. Thomas Downey, interview with the author, November 5, 1985.
68. James A. Baker III, interview with the author, February 25, 1986; and Dan Rostenkowski, interview with the author, January 3, 1986.
69. Dan Rostenkowski, interview with the author, January 3, 1986.
70. Marty Russo, interview with the author, December 16, 1985.
71. Dan Rostenkowski, interview with the author, January 3, 1986.
72. Marty Russo, interview with the author, December 16, 1985.
73. Dan Rostenkowski, interview with the author, January 3, 1986.
74. Thomas P. O’Neill, Jr., interview with the author, November 6, 1986.
75. Ibid.
76. One Washington humor group, The Capitol Steps, captured the mixed parentage of the tax bill. To the tune of “Supercalifragilisticexpialidoshus,” they sang, “ReaganPackwoodRostenkowskiTaxSimplification.”
15. THE FOREIGN POLICY GAME
1. Ronald Reagan, nationally televised campaign speech, October 19, 1980.
2. Alexander M. Haig, Jr., Caveat (New York. Macmillan, 1984), p. 12.
3. Stuart Alsop, The Center (New York: Harper & Row, 1968) pp. 97–98.
4. George P. Shultz, “The Abrasive Interface” in Harvard Business Review, November–December 1979, p. 93.
5. This line of analysis is well developed in an excellent book by Morton H. Halperin, Bureaucratic Politics and Foreign Policy (Washington: The Brookings Institution, 1974). Halperin’s experience as a Pentagon policymaker and as a national security deputy to Kissinger in the Nixon years gave him ample opportunity to develop his theories firsthand, and they are as sound today as when they were written.
6. Michael Pillsbury, interview with the author, June 28, 1985.
7. James Sterling Young, The Washington Community (New York: Columbia University Press, 1968), pp. 221–222.
8. Stanley J. Heginbotham, “Dateline Washington: The Rules of the Games,” Foreign Policy, vol. 53, Winter 83–84, pp. 157–172.
9. John W. Vessey, interview with the author, June 30, 1987.
10. The version given the author by a top national security official in three separate interviews, February 12 and 13, 1986, and June 29, 1987, was that Reagan had actually issued an order for American planes to attack, but Weinberger denied that in an interview with the author, March 28, 1986. “There was no order to me of any kind, has never been an order to me by the president that hasn’t been carried out and carried out immediately,” Weinberger said. Vessey also said he knew of no “execution order” or advance planning for a joint raid with the French.
11. George Shultz, interview with the author, January 27, 1986.
12. Morton Halperin in Foreign Policy and Bureaucratic Politics develops an analysis of the conflicting attitudes of careerists and in-and-outers. His experience as a former Pentagon and National Security Council official in both Democratic and Republican administrations has made him a superb student of bureaucratic game playing. In an interview with the author, January 29, 1987, he admitted: “I almost called my book on foreign policy, Games Bureaucrats Play. But it didn’t sound serious. It sounded too cute.”
13. Leslie Gelb, “The Mind of the President,” New York Times Magazine, October 6, 1985, p. 21.
14. This narrative is compiled from the accounts by three participants, each of whom spoke on condition that they not be identified.
16. THE OTHER FOREIGN POLICY GAME
1. Robert C. McFarlane, “McFarlane on Why,” The Washington Post, November 13, 1986, p. A21.
2. Henry A. Kissinger, White House Years (Boston: Little, Brown, 1979), p. 47.
3. In Our Own Worst Enemy (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1984), I. M. Destler, Leslie H. Gelb, and Anthony Lake use the analogy of cabinet barons and staff courtiers, in examining the power struggle between the national security staff and the secretary of State. See especially chapters iv and v.
4. Ibid., p. 265.
5. Richard Nixon, quoted by Jack Anderson, “Kissinger. One-Man State Department,” The Washington Post, October 18, 1974, p. D19.
6. Zbigniew Brzezinski, “Deciding Who Makes Foreign Policy,” New York Times Magazine, September 18, 1983, p. 62.
7. Ibid., p. 55ff.
8. Martin Anderson, interview with the author, February 11, 1987
.
9. Joseph Coors, interview with the author’s researcher William Nell, February 11, 1987.
10. Robert C. McFarlane, interviews with the author, March 20, 1986, and June 30, 1987.
11. Edward Teller, interview with the author, February 13, 1987.
12. James Watkins, interview with the author, February 18, 1987. The interview is the basis for the following narrative.
13. This account is based on interviews with four participants in the meeting, General Vessey, and General Meyer, Admiral Watkins, and one other official who asked not to be identified.
14. John W. Vessey, interview with the author, February 15, 1987.
15. E. C. Meyer, interview with the author, February 22, 1987.
16. Robert C. McFarlane, interviews with the author, June 29, 1987, and July 3, 1987.
17. Dr. George Keyworth, interview with the author, February 16, 1987. The subsequent account of Keyworth’s involvement is drawn mainly from this interview.
18. Richard DeLauer, interview with the author, March 19, 1986.
19. James Watkins, interview with the author, February 18, 1987.
20. E. C. Meyer, interview with the author, February 22, 1987.
21. John W. Vessey, interview with the author, June 30, 1987.
22. Richard Perle, interview with the author, December 5, 1987.
23. John Poindexter, testimony before the Joint Congressional Committee investigating the Iran-contra operation, July 15, 1987 (hereafter, the Iran-contra hearings).
24. Oliver North, Iran-contra hearings, July 8 and 10, 1987.
25. John Poindexter, Iran-contra hearings, July 17, 1987.
26. Caspar Weinberger, Iran-contra hearings, July 31, 1987
27. Report of the President’s Special Review Board, February 26, 1987, p. C10.
28. George Shultz, Iran-contra hearings, July 23, 1987.
29. Fawn Hall, the Iran-contra hearings, June 9, 1987.
30. Robert C. McFarlane, Iran-contra hearings, May 11, 1987.
32. President Reagan, press interviews, May 14 and 15, 1987, and comments to reporters at a White House reception, May 16, 1987.
33. Robert C. McFarlane, the Iran-contra hearings, May 13, 1987.
34. Edwin Meese III, Iran-contra hearings, July 28, 1987.
35. Caspar Weinberger, Iran-contra hearings, July 31, 1987.
36. Oliver North, Iran-contra hearings, July 7, 1987, and John Poindexter, Iran-contra hearings, July 15, 1987. North prepared the order, and after Reagan signed one copy, Poindexter kept it in his safe, until he destroyed it in November 1986.
37. Report of the President’s Special Review Board, February 26, 1987, p. B. 36.
38. George Shultz, Iran-contra hearings, July 23, 1987.
39. John S. D Eisenhower, “The White House Mystique,” The New York Times, January 16, 1987, p. A31.
40. Henry M. Jackson, quoted by James Reston, The New York Times, July 23, 1987, p. A27.
41. My account draws on the Report of the President’s Special Review Board, February 26, 1987; the Report of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, January 29, 1987; and testimony before the Joint Congressional Committee investigating the Iran-contra operation, starting May 5, 1987.
42. Donald T. Regan, Iran-contra hearings, July 30, 1987.
43. George Shultz, Iran-contra hearings, July 23, 1987.
44. President Reagan’s Finding of January 17, 1986, and the January 17, 1986 memorandum to Reagan from National Security Adviser Poindexter were made available by the White House on January 9, 1987.
45. Richard Secord, Iran-contra hearing, May 5, 1987; and Report of the Congressional Committees Investigating the Iran-Contra Affair, November 17, 1987, p. 9.
46. Report of the President’s Special Review Board, February 26, 1987, p. IV-9; and Report of the Congressional Committees Investigating the Iran-Contra Affair, November 17, 1987, p. 18.
47. Oliver North, Iran-contra hearings, July 7, 1987.
48. Oliver North, Iran-contra hearings, July 10, 1987.
49. The key passage said “During fiscal year 1985, no funds available to the Central Intelligence Agency, the Department of Defense, or any other agency or entity of the United States involved in intelligence activities may be obligated or expended for the purposes or which would have the effect of supporting, directly or indirectly, military or paramilitary operations in Nicaragua by any nation, group, organization, movement, or individual.”
50. Robert Owen, Iran-contra hearings, May 19, 1987, and Tomas Castillo, Iran-contra hearings, May 29, 1987.
51. Robert C. McFarlane, interview with the author, June 30, 1987.
52. The New York Times, November 30, 1986, p. 26, and July 5, 1987, p. 10.
53. Oliver North, Iran-contra hearings, July 7, 1987.
54. Ibid.
55. Robert C. McFarlane, Iran-contra hearings, July 14, 1987.
56. George Shultz, Iran-contra hearings, July 24, 1987.
57. Caspar Weinberger, Iran-contra hearings, July 31, 1987.
58. Richard Cheney, Iran-contra hearings, July 20, 1987.
59. Report of the Congressional Committees Investigating the Iran-Contra Affair, November 17, 1987, pp. 423–27.
60. Lee Hamilton, Iran-contra hearings, July 14, 1987, and August 3, 1987.
61. William Cohen, speech on the Senate floor, January 12, 1987, Congressional Record, S-596-7.
62. Report of the Congressional Committees Investigating the Iran-Contra Affair, November 17, 1987, p. 22.
63. James R. Schlesinger, testimony before the House Armed Services Committee, December 2, 1986, and Schlesinger, “Reykjavík and Revelations: A Turn of the Tide?” in Foreign Affairs, vol. 65, no. 3, pp. 428–429.
64. Henry A. Kissinger, “Not Its Power, but Its Weakness,” The Washington Post, December 21, 1986.
65. This information comes from two participants in the top-level meeting of the National Security Planning Group on October 27, 1986, called by Reagan to go over the results of Reykjavík summit and consider future negotiating strategy.
66. This account comes from two participants, two other American officials close to the negotiations, and Dr. Georgi Arbatov, an adviser to Mikhail Gorbachev and Director of the Institute of the U.S.A. and Canada. See also an excellent account, with some differences, by Don Oberdorfer in The Washington Post, February 16, 1987, p. 1.
67. This account comes from two participants in the meeting, who spoke on condition that they not be identified.
68. This account comes from two participants in the meeting with Reagan.
69. Speech by Secretary of State George Shultz at the University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, November 17, 1986.
70. Lee Hamilton, Iran-contra hearings, June 9, 1987.
71. Robert C. McFarlane, Iran-contra hearings, May 11, 1987.
17. DIVIDED GOVERNMENT
1. James Madison, Federalist Papers [originally published 1787–88] (New York: Bantam Paperback Classics, 1982), no. 51, February 6, 1788, p. 262.
2. Gerald R. Ford, “Imperiled, Not Imperial,” Time, November 10, 1980, p. 30.
3. David A. Stockman, The Triumph of Politics: Why the Reagan Revolution Failed (New York: Harper & Row, 1986), p. 454.
4. Hugh Heclo, “Reaganism and the Search for a Public Philosophy,” in John L. Palmer, ed., Perspectives on the Reagan Years (Washington: Urban Institute Press, 1986), p. 52, pp. 59–60.
5. Paul Weyrich, “Reagan’s Illusory Revolution,” The Washington Post, Aug. 23, 1987, p. C1.
6. See Congressional Quarterly, “Hill Support for President Drops to 10-Year Low, 1986 CQ Almanac, p. 21-Cff. Eisenhower’s high was 89 percent in 1953; Johnson’s 93 percent in 1965. Reagan’s support began with 82.4 percent in 1981 but fell year by year, to 59.9 percent in 1985, and to 56.1 percent in 1986. Nixon’s low was 50.6 percent in 1973, Ford’s low was 53.8 percent in 1976.
7. James L. Sundquist, “The Crisis of Competence in Our National Government,” in Political Science Quarterly,
vol. 95, no. 2, Summer 1980, p. 192.
8. Thomas Mann, interview with the author, July 10, 1987.
9. “Partisanship Hit New High in 99th Congress,” 1986 CQ Almanac, p. 29-C. Congressional Quarterly’s figures showed that a majority of Democrats lined up against a majority of Republicans on 56 percent of all recorded votes in 1985 and 55 percent in 1986, compared to highs of 48 percent in 1975 under Ford, and 47 percent in 1979 under Carter.
10. Norman Ornstein, “The Politics of the Deficit,” Essays in Contemporary Economic Problems (Washington: American Enterprise Institute, 1985) pp. 315–317.
11. On August 3, 1982, forty-nine of fifty voting Senate Republicans opposed an amendment by Paul Tsongas, a Massachusetts Democrat, requiring the president to submit a balanced budget starting in fiscal 1984, that is, in five months, rather than at some indefinite time, as under the Reagan-backed constitutional amendment. Senate Democrats split, twenty-two and twenty-three against Tsongas’s proposal. The lone Republican supporter was William Cohen of Maine.
12. Paul Peterson, “The New Politics of Deficits,” in New Directions in American Politics (Washington: Brookings Institution, 1986), pp 371–382. See especially the table on p. 375. Peterson asserts that Congress has followed the presidential lead on the overall budget, while being braver on raising taxes to counteract deficits. “In short, in the immediate postwar period, Congress was nearly as fiscally responsible as the President on tax matters, and recently it has shown more ‘courage’ than has the Executive Branch,” Peterson contends.
13. Stockman, op. cit., p. 455, asserts: “Ronald Reagan has no comprehension that Congress saved his fiscal lunch with this [1982 tax] measure and many more like it.”
14. Richard Wirthlin, interview with the author, January 31, 1986.
15. Phil Gramm, interview with the author’s researcher Kurt Eichenwald, November 27, 1985
16. Warren Rudman, interview with the author, December 6, 1985.
17. Donald Regan, in an interview with the author, June 12, 1986, disclosed that on October 3, 1985, he had sent Reagan a memo urging him to back Gramm-Rudman. The next day, after Reagan’s endorsement, Regan sent the president another memo warning that two thirds of the automatic cuts would fall on the Pentagon, but contending inconsistently that Reagan could still have three-percent real growth in military spending in his 1987 budget.
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