An American Life

by Ronald Reagan

  I’ve always believed that when it comes to foreign affairs, both parties must get together at the water’s edge. Until the 1970s, that’s the way it was: America had a strong tradition of bipartisan consensus in foreign policy that was based on the support of peace, democracy, individual liberty, and the rule of law. Then came a rash of congressional initiatives to limit the president’s authority in many fields—trade, human rights, arms sales, foreign assistance, intelligence operations, and the dispatch of troops in time of crisis. In claiming new prerogatives, the Congress has often failed to speak in a single, cohesive, and responsible voice, suggesting to other countries that U.S. foreign policy is in disarray and making it difficult for our diplomats to conduct a coherent policy. I’m not saying there aren’t many patriotic and reasonable men and women in Congress, or that they shouldn’t fight for principles they believe in. Congress is a partner with the president in foreign affairs as well as domestic matters; wisdom is not limited to the occupant of the White House. But there are some situations in which only the president can and does know all the facts; he should be permitted to lead the nation and make decisions based upon what he knows and the trust placed in him by the voters—although I never felt these views should justify overriding or ignoring validly enacted laws.

  Too often, in my experience, Congress reminds us that it is a political organism. The central preoccupation of too many of its members is getting reelected; too often, instead of legislative statesmanship, this produces cynical posturing and pandering to the campaign contributors that have the fattest wallets.

  In 1984, 1985, and 1986, as Tip O’Neill and his allies intensified their campaign to abandon the Contras, the Nicaraguan freedom fighters began to face shortages of guns and ammunition, sometimes even of food and medical supplies. It didn’t help matters when Tip, declaring he was going to retire in 1986, asked fellow Democrats to vote against the Contras as a farewell gift. Now we had the emotional sentiment surrounding a very popular Speaker of the House involved in setting foreign policy.

  While I battled with Congress to get support for the Contras reinstated, I felt we had to do everything we legally could to keep the force in existence. I told the staff: We can’t break the law, but, within the law, we have to do whatever we can to help the Contras survive.

  I knew that there must be among our allies other countries that shared our concern about the threat to democracy in Latin America, and I believed we should communicate to them our strong convictions regarding the importance of tangible international support for the Contras. Several countries responded and extended help—a case of friendly nations believing we all had a stake in fighting for democracy.

  I believed, then and now, that the president has the absolute constitutional right and obligation to share such thoughts and goals with leaders of other nations.

  At about the same time, churches and various groups around our country began forming committees with the intention of helping the freedom fighters and refugees from the Sandinistas. They were made up of private citizens worried about the threat of Communism in Latin America and about things they had read in papers concerning the misguided actions of Congress.

  I didn’t want anyone in the administration to engage in active solicitation of contributions from these citizens. But, I said, “there has to be a way to help these private citizens who otherwise wouldn’t know how to get help to the Contras or buy the supplies they need; there must be ways we can help or counsel them if somebody says we’ve raised some money and want to help the Contras; somebody ought to be able to tell them what channel to use.” The staff also asked me to thank citizens who had contributed humanitarian assistance to the Contras, and I was happy to do so. But I repeatedly insisted that whatever we did had to be within the law, and I always assumed that my instructions were followed.

  While I continued trying to educate the American people and seek their support in persuading Congress to provide badly needed aid to the freedom fighters, dedicated Americans began contributing money and supplies—one woman contributed enough to buy a helicopter—and helped buy advertising to counter the Sandinistas’ Madison Avenue disinformation campaign. I regarded them as patriots, people from the grass roots of America who were voluntarily trying to bring to our neighbors in Central America the same kind of freedom we enjoyed in the United States.

  It was only later, when the Tower Board and Congress completed their investigations, that I learned that some on the NSC staff had gone farther to help the Contras than I was aware of.

  Let me be clear. I wanted the Contras maintained as a force, to the fullest extent that was legal, until I could convince Congress to appropriate new funds for the freedom fighters; but I was distressed by the investigations’ conclusions that the NSC staff had been so heavily involved in the Contra operation. Press reports appeared suggesting that the NSC and the CIA had gone beyond limits set by the Boland Amendment, and were conducting what some members of Congress claimed was an illegal war in Nicaragua. When I inquired about this, I was told the reports were inaccurate. I later repeated some of these assurances to the American people, and assured them we had been abiding by the law.

  In 1986, an American was shot down over Nicaragua with a plane loaded with supplies bound for the Contras. I read a newspaper account of this incident and asked about the report. I was told that this individual had no affiliation with our government; I told the American people that. Later, of course, I learned that the flight had been a supply mission apparently arranged by people reporting to the NSC. When reports were published about other alleged illegal activities by the U.S. government in Central America, Bill Casey said the articles were wrong or distorted, and I accepted that. I trusted and believed in Casey, who had taken an agency that during the previous administration had become badly demoralized and turned it into one of the world’s greatest intelligence services again.

  Since then, investigations have suggested that under Casey the CIA did a number of things that were improper, and that it exceeded limits imposed by the Boland Amendment. Because Casey is dead, he cannot defend himself and we may never know the truth—but I do know that, during part of this period, a fatal tumor was growing next to Casey’s brain. Respected neurosurgeons have told me that this could have affected his judgment and behavior during the last part of his life.

  I knew Oliver North only slightly when he worked for the National Security Council. What impressions I did have of him were favorable. My main recollection of Ollie North, before the Iran-Contra affair erupted, was that he had a good record as a marine officer in Vietnam. Although press reports claimed that he told others that we met together privately many times, I knew little about him personally and never saw very much of him at the White House. I never met with him privately and never had a one-on-one conversation with him until I called him on his last day at the NSC to wish him well. I don’t believe he attended more than a handful of meetings where I was present, and then he was always part of a group, in the role of a junior staff member under Bud McFarlane or John Poindexter.

  McFarlane, Poindexter, Casey, and, I presume, North knew how deeply I felt about the need for the Contras’ survival as a democratic resistance force in Nicaragua. They also knew how frustrated I was over my battles with Congress. Perhaps that knowledge, along with their own belief in the importance of the Contras’ survival, their adherence to the code that absolute secrecy is necessary in intelligence operations, and a belief that the NSC was exempt from the Boland Amendment, led them to support the Contras secretly and saw no reason to report this to me.

  Even now, we still don’t have all the answers.

  As president, I was at the helm, so I am the one who is ultimately responsible. But to those who question why I wasn’t more aware of what was going on, I would say this: Central America was only one of many things that occupied me at the time. Besides trying to end the recession, we were working on modernization of our military forces, trying to get a new nuclear arms reduction initiat
ive off the ground, trying to cut federal spending, trying to end the fighting in Lebanon and the Middle East—and many other things were on my plate as well. A president simply cannot monitor the day-to-day conduct of all of his subordinates. He must concentrate as much as possible on setting the tone and direction of the administration, establishing broad policies, and selecting good people to implement these policies. Unfortunately, there will occasionally be transgressions; but had I attempted to involve myself in the details of the activities of the NSC staff, I would have been unable to attend to the other wide-ranging issues before me at the time.

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  TWO WEEKS BEFORE the bitterly cold weekend in early 1985 when George Bush and I were inaugurated for our second term, Treasury Secretary Don Regan and Jim Baker came to me separately in the Oval Office with a proposal. It was Regan’s idea. He said he was growing a little bored with his job as secretary of the treasury and had mentioned this to Jim Baker, who said he was getting tired of his job, after four years, as White House chief of staff. They told me they wanted to swap jobs. After I thought it over, I approved the switch, thinking the enthusiasm both would bring to their new jobs would be good for the administration.

  Four days after the inauguration, Don brought me a proposal for making some changes in the White House administrative line of command that he said would streamline operations and simplify the organizational structure. I approved the plan, not realizing how much it would enlarge Regan’s powers at the expense of others on the staff, restrict access to me, and lead to problems later on. We agreed that Jim Brady, a witty and courageous man who was still undergoing difficult therapy to overcome the effects of his shooting by John Hinckley, Jr., would keep the title of White House press secretary as long as I was living there.

  Over lunch, Don asked me what my principal goals were for the second term. On the domestic front, I said, I wanted to continue our efforts to reduce federal spending and bring down the deficit, to implement tax reform, and to continue the modernization of our military forces; on the international front, my goals were to negotiate a solid arms reduction agreement with the Soviets, to improve relations with our Latin neighbors while continuing to resist the Communist penetration of Central America, and to do the best we could to unsnarl the continuing mess in the Middle East. At that point in early 1985, it had been almost a year since the marines had left Beirut, and the situation in the Middle East was more tangled and more violent than ever:

  • Israeli and Syrian forces still occupied much of Lebanon. With Soviet aid, the Syrian government had undertaken a massive rearmament program to gain “strategic parity” with Israel. Meanwhile, taking sides in a dispute between moderate and radical elements of the Palestine Liberation Organization, Syria had offered refuge to some of this organization’s most fanatical members.

  • The Palestinians, who once seemed willing to let moderate Arab nations, including Saudi Arabia and Jordan, represent their interests whenever negotiations were held on a permanent peace solution, were becoming more independent-minded. The PLO was demanding a seat at the negotiating table. We knew the Israelis would climb the wall over that idea.

  • The unremitting violence of the Lebanese civil war was devastating what was left of that country, once a glamorous gateway to the Middle East.

  • Our intelligence experts were continuing to uncover new links between Libya and terrorism around the world.

  • In Teheran, the brutal regime of Ayatollah Khomeini was summarily executing hundreds of Iranians and trying to export the Islamic revolution to neighboring countries.

  • There were reports that the ayatollah was in ill health and that his death was near, raising the possibility of new instability in this strategic country that the Soviets almost certainly would try to exploit.

  • Stalemated in its war with Iraq, Iran was threatening to block lawful shipping through the Gulf of Hormuz, and both countries claimed the right to attack third-country oil tankers that got in the way of their troops.

  • Meanwhile, the pro-Iranian Islamic Jihad and the Iranian-dominated “Party of God”—the Hizballah, a group of terrorists based in Syria and trained, equipped, and controlled by Iranian Revolutionary Guards—had embarked on what could only be described as a savage campaign of terrorism against American citizens. We believed that the Hizballah was responsible for the bombings of the marine barracks and of our Beirut embassy in 1983, and for the bombing of our embassy annex there a year later.

  Iran’s seizure of American hostages in Teheran and America’s frustrated response to it had given the barbarian Hizballah an idea. They had turned the systematic kidnapping and torture of innocent Americans into an instrument of war that was meant to persuade us to abandon our policies in the Middle East. At the beginning of 1985, they held five American hostages, including William Buckley, the CIA’s station chief in Beirut. Several days into the new year they added a sixth, Father Lawrence Martin Jenco, head of Catholic Relief Services in Lebanon. There would be others.

  No problem was more frustrating for me when I was president than trying to get the American hostages home. It was a problem I shared with Jimmy Carter, a problem that confronted me when I entered the White House and that was with me when I left it.

  During one of my morning National Security Council briefings on the state of the world someone handed me an album of photographs. At first they looked like ordinary aerial photos of a wilderness. Then I recognized Rancho del Cielo and my horse, El Alamein, and Nancy’s horse, No Strings, grazing in a pasture. The photos had been taken by one of our satellites from hundreds of miles out in space. Someone thought I’d enjoy seeing them.

  Our space satellites provided invaluable information to us in helping to assess the military strength of other countries. Through use of satellites and other technologies, we had great ability to learn things about nations that were hostile to us. We also had human intelligence agents—brave men and women whose names the American people will never read or hear—who risked their lives and prevented potentially devastating acts of terrorism against our country when I was president. Even now I cannot disclose details of these operations, because it would compromise people still at work.

  Yet, as good as our space-age technology was; as great an intelligence service as the CIA became under Bill Casey; as powerful as America was militarily, I learned, as had President Carter, how helpless the head of the most powerful nation on earth can feel when it comes to the seemingly simple task of trying to find and bring home an American citizen held against his will in a distant land.

  The terrorists who kidnapped our citizens in Lebanon relocated them frequently, usually at night, keeping them dispersed in different buildings, always on the move. Our intelligence community occasionally had a little success in trying to infiltrate the Middle Eastern terrorist groups, but never enough. There were dozens of these groups that shared a hatred for the United States. Some were splinter groups of splinter groups. It was extremely difficult to pinpoint which particular organization of cutthroats was responsible for a specific terrorist act. Most kept constantly in motion, taking refuge among the civilian populations of cities or hiding out in remote desert or mountain strongholds. Sometimes a group would claim credit for an outrage it hadn’t committed; sometimes, two or three groups claimed responsibility for the same atrocity.

  Although we never stopped trying to find them, it was very difficult to pinpoint exactly where a hostage was at any given time. Although we created special commando teams trained for the specific mission of rescuing hostages, we couldn’t just storm a building where we believed hostages were held, because of the risk that by the time we got to them, the hostages would be dead. Even a rumor or false newspaper report that we were going to try to rescue them might be fatal.

  Our hands were tied in other ways. We couldn’t negotiate with kidnappers. That would simply encourage terrorists to take more hostages. And as a nation we placed limits on how far we would go to counter terrorism. A few people withi
n the administration wanted to follow Menachem Begin’s slogan of “an eye for an eye” and assassinate leaders of the most bloodthirsty groups that had committed terrorism against the United States and its citizens—but this was a game that America couldn’t and didn’t play. Early in my administration, I signed an order prohibiting direct or indirect involvement in murder during covert operations. This was one reason why the CIA had difficulty infiltrating terrorist groups—many of which required new members, as a show of loyalty, to assassinate an enemy of the organization.

  Often, during our searches for terrorists, as after the marine barracks bombing in Beirut, we collected information that gave our experts reasonable confidence—but not absolute certainty—that they knew where the terrorists were located. I vetoed proposals to attack several of these sites. I just didn’t want to take the chance that we’d kill innocents. George Shultz and Cap Weinberger concurred in this position. We also knew, of course, that if we did strike a site where we thought the culpable terrorists were encamped, we might harm the American hostages. Our options were few, and I spent many, many hours late at night wondering how we could rescue the hostages, trying to sleep while images of those lonely Americans rolled past in my mind. In May 1985, another face joined the images in this nightly newsreel; David P. Jacobsen, an administrator at the American University in Beirut, became the seventh American hostage held in Lebanon.

  As president, as far as I was concerned, I had the duty to get those Americans home.

  Almost every morning at my national security briefings, I began by asking the same question: “Any progress on getting the hostages out of Lebanon?”

  I still believed that the key to achieving a permanent peace in the Middle East and ending the strife that had led to the taking of the hostages was to get other moderate Arab countries, in addition to Egypt, to help us work out an agreement that provided for the acceptance of Israel’s right to exist together with a land-for-peace concession that gave territory and autonomy to the Palestinians. The problems wouldn’t go away until we solved the problems of the Palestinians and until the security of Israel was ensured with adequate safeguards.