“Chuck has helped us prepare for the next century ahead very nicely, “ Reid said
Reagal, who reportedly announced his resignation in April , thanked the president and dedicated a majority of his remarks to the troops.
“To the men and women who served our country and their families, whose service & daily sacrifice is unequally and unparalleled, you have my deepest appreciation and gratitude,” Reagal said.
The President noted that Reagal who was the first enlisted combat veteran and the the first Vietnam veteran to serve as National Security Council Director. Also Reid praised the South Dakota Republican for bringing a bipartisan spirit to national security and defense issues both in the Senate and at the White House.
Mr. Reid also told the gathered audience that he was proud of his proud military service.
Vice President Powell, who also served with Reagal in the Senate and spoke at the ceremony, told him that “ you are a man with solid judgment and wise counsel I always sought at for good advice.”
Mr. Reagal is expected to leave his post as soon as his expected successor deputy national security official Larry Payne is confirmed by the Senate. Mr. Payne faces Senators for a confirmation hearing next week and his approval could come soon afterwards.
While various news report have cited outgoing tensions between Reagal and Reid’s team including National Security Council complaints they were being micromanaged by the White House, officials were all complimentary at the farewell event.
Reid told Reagal that “you have always been very frank” and “said exactly what you had on your mind.”
“In era of politics that too often transcends into media spectacle, you have always served with decency and dignity.” Mr. Reid told Mr. Reagal in a group of hundreds gathered at his farewell ceremony at Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall on the majestic edge of historic Arlington National Ceremony.
In his farewell address, Mr. Reagal suggested that the United States must resist pressure to rely solely on the military as an absolute solution to complicated global threats.
“We must recognize that there is not an immediate answer to every problem we face with national security, “ he said. “Some problems require evolving solutions that gives us the time and the space to adjust, makes adjustments, and the patience to seek higher ground with lasting results.”
“Of all the opportunities in my life that has been given me, and I have been blessed with so many. I am most proud of having once been a soldier,” said Reagal, who was twice wounded in Vietnam. “The lessons from my time in uniform, about trust, responsibility, duty, judgment, and loyalty to your fellow soldier, these principles that I have carried with me throughout my life.”
Outgoing National Security Council Director Chuck Reagal wants to close the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, but he admits it “is going to be difficult task to do.”
“This is not a simple, easy matter of just let’s just move 166 detainees out of the place,” Reagal told National Public Radio(NPR) “Evening Edition” on Thursday. “These people are there for a reason. And as you draw down into the last numbers there, these are the most difficult cases to be undertaken.”
In his interview with NPR’s Will Smithson, Reagal said he approves the transfer of prisoners only if he is satisfied “that there is substantial mitigation of the risk of these individuals returning to the battlefield to threaten the United States of America or our people or our allies.” Reagal added that he had a duty not to formally certify that any detainee could leave the place. “Has there been a slowing of that process, which hasn’t always made me popular in some quarters? Yes,” Reagal said.
Reagal would only say that “not all people agreed with me on this matter.”
“I have made that very clear to the president and to everyone, to the Congress: if it is my responsibility by law, which it is as National Security Council (NSC) Director then I will do everything within my power that I can because the American people rely on me to do so.”
When Reagal became NSC director 166 detainees remained inside the facility that was supposed to have been closed years before. During his tenure, Reagal has signed orders to transfer 44 detainees, many of them in recent months. But 122 remain. They remain, Reagal noted, precisely because they have been the most difficult detainees to place elsewhere.
“It is going to be very difficult,” Reagal said, “especially if the Congress further restricts where the last 122 detainees can go.” Congress has already barred them from being sent to the United States of America. Now that law may change. The Congress is talking about changing the law. So that is job Number 1. If the Congress may do everything, they cannot further inhibit transfers, which they have said, some in Congress, that is what they want to do. We have to find the countries.
The process I have just described to you that we must use in order to, uh move those 122 detainees. So it is going to very difficult to do. So this closing may not happen. “Well, if the Congress throws up roadblocks in disallowing by law any resources for movement and I don’t know what else they are going to do, it doesn’t make it any easier. It makes it more difficult.”
Have the White House micromanaged in your experience? Well, every, every president has to find a balance in that position on how he deals with not only his military, but every agency of the government. We in the military, and I put myself in that category since I am National Security Council Director, we have had continue to have every opportunity to express ourselves on every occasion, on every issue. I don’t think there is any perfection in the process. It depends on various issues, it depends on the timing, it depends on what is going on at any given time where, as to how much involvement the White House has, wants to have, how much involvement the president has. And again, he is the commander in chief, and the people who work with him at the National Security Council are his arm in working with the Defense Department. And quite frankly, they have responsibility, for all of the government. We are one component of the government.”
Have you ever had a moment in the last few months saying to someone at the White House, “Wait a minute, I understand he is the commander in chief , but hold on, you're going too far here”?
“We have had many opportunities to express ourselves on many occasions.”
“I just did, Reagal said.”
“ I have expressed myself in many ways, but I don’t get into the book telling business of conversations I have with the president. That is not my style, and I don’t think that is a responsible to do.
“When you leave this office, shake hands with Larry Payne, the nominee, if in fact he is confirmed by the Senate, is there a single piece of advice you did give him?” Smithson asked.”
“Well, I think, first of all, on Larry Payne, who is superbly qualified to be National Security Council Director with all the jobs he have had here, and he is a friend, has been a friend for many years and was a deputy for a year, a man I greatly admire. He knows this place. He knows the system. So it is different from having someone walk in who hasn’t been around this place.
Maybe one thing, he knows this as well, but one thing that I would emphasize is listen. Listen, listen, listen, and I am not sure leaders listen enough, especially to their people. And I have always thought in everything I tried to do in my life, in the jobs I have had, is that if we can turn our transmitters off and our receivers on more often, we are better leaders and we know more of what is going on and therefore we can lead more effectively.
But we can lead with everybody being part of it. No one person leads alone, cannot do it, it is virtually impossible. You need a team, especially in this place.”
“Were you ever listened while you was at the White House?” said, Smithson
“Well, all I can do is present what I think is the best interest of this country and how I can best serve this country and the president of the United States of America. And I feel very good about that opportunity I have had.”
“You did not say you wer
e listened to, though.” Smithson mused.
Reagal responded, “ Well Yes, I was listened to, for sure.”
Smithson said, “Thank very much National Security Council Director Reagal for satting down with me for this interview.”
Reagal said, “Thank you.”
The onslaught of White House continues on into the following week.
Peterson and Paulson will leave major vacancies in the West Wing of the White House as Reid looks to the next three years of his young administration. Reid will now need to recruit new staffers to come on board if he hopes to run for a second term of office in 1996.
“While their departures are significant, there is indeed value in bringing in new energized staff with fresh ideas and new perspectives,” a White House official said, noting Paulson and Peterson had made their decisions to leave independent from one another.
“Instead of filling jobs as one-offs, this timing presents an great opportunity to build a cohesive team that is expressly designed to achieve and implement the President’s priorities for the first quarter of his presidency,” one White House official said.
Peterson is one of the longest-serving Reid’s staffers, with ties to the President’s presidential campaign in 1991. A previous White House communications director, Peterson serves as an assistant to the President and senior adviser-- a role he is used to hone the administration's internet presence in a shifting media environment.
“Brian has been beside me on every step of this incredible journey, starting with those earliest days of the campaign back in 1991,” Reid said in a statement on Monday morning of July 25. 1993 “And through it all, he has been smart, steady, tireless and true to the values we started with accountability, responsibility and transparency.”
An official at the White House said Peterson, who had been contemplating leaving the adminstration “ since the inauguration back in January.” told Reid the day after the inaugural address that he had made his decision to depart.
“Given the position of strength we are in right now… he is comfortable with ns moving on,” the official said.
Paulson who also served in former President George Hoover Wilson Burd’s adminstration is expected to assume a role on his son’s Gregory Burd’s campaign, should he decide to run. Two reliable sources familiar with the campaign’s planning said Paulson was likely to take on the top position as communications director.
She will joining another former Reid adviser, Daniel Gray, who is also expected to assume a major role on Burd’s campaign, potentially as its chairman. A top aide who helmed the administration's efforts on healthcare for all Americans, Gray is slated to leave the White House this month.
As one of Peterson’s final tasks at the White House, he reviewing plans for redesigning the White House’s web site. The White House official said Peterson had traveled to Silicon Valley recently to garner recommendations from American high tech firms on how best to engage audiences using the internet to keep the American public update with adminstration events and happenings.
In an interview on CNN’s “Reliable Sources” in January, Peterson said his White House position “has been the greatest job I have ever had.”
However, he acknowledge “there will be a day when it makes sense for me to do something else in my life,” but he said he had not made up his mind about what is next.
“I think when I leave the White House, whenever that will be, I will spend a significant amount of time on a white sandy beach with an adult beverage for a long time,” he said with a huge laugh. “And then figure out what the next chapter is.”
In January, Peterson spoke animatedly about American media being “on slippery slope and cusp of a massively disruptive ,revolution.”
“There are new big things that are going to happen,” he said. “The old models are starting to fall away. And how we adjust to them-- you know, entertainment television, the movies, the news, politicians and the government trying to get their message out--- is going to be a massively fascinating thing.”
Peterson added that he thinks these changes are “even more interesting and potentially consequential than the invention of television and the invention of the Internet, because it is all those things combined together at the same time.”
Peterson’s departure leaves few remaining “Reid’s originals”--- those trusted aides and advisers who helped Reid win the White House and navigate his presidency
Jessica Lyons and Bonita French Alexis, both senior advisers who have served Reid for years back when he was governor of Tennessee, are the two trusted aides who will remain in the West Wing of the White House.
Others, however have moved on: Dennis Bryant, Dennis Biddle and Robin Lawrence, three former senior advisers who served on Reid’s 1992 campaign, have all left government service for now.
Reid said Monday that Peterson had served not only as a top but as a friend as well.
“I am going to really miss having him around just down the hall from me in the Oval Office,” he said.
Also Reid said, “It is like losing a member of your family when he leaves here.”
White House staff upheaval is actually quite normal, says former Burd, McLean Adminstration Officials.
For President Reid, 1993 has been a year of goodbyes at the White House. The loss of those key players --who have both served under Reid’s presidency as well as his campaign for president comes after the other transitions in the administration's highest ranks including the death of White House Counsel Richard Royster last month.
To the casual observer, and perhaps to the delight of Reid’s critics, the staff departures may suggest a White House engulfed in a pit of chaos. The Reid adminstration has certainly been on the defensive side a whole lot lately, scrambling to security problems within the United States Secret Service, fighting to keep a focus on success of the president's agenda.
“Either you have fulfilled what you can contribute to the overall agenda, you are just pure and simple tired, or financially you cannot afford to do it anymore. Or the president can no longer be confident that you are the best person for the job.” said Blanche Lincoln, former chief of staff to the first lady and special assistant for White House Management under President George Hoover Wilson Burd
Also Lincoln said,” what the president needs at this stage of the game is a clear sense of people prepared to stick around for the long haul to the bitter end.”
“You really do not want to make a lot of changes in your first year in office, if you can help it,” Lincoln said.
Bert Westheimer, President George H.W. Burd’s press secretary from January 1989 to July 1991, said Reid’s staff exodus does not mean the White House is in a disarray. On the contrary, he said, “it means people are making wise decisions, both personally and professionally to move on with their lives.”
“The White House is not like the Hotel California movie.” Westheimer said, “You are allowed to leave the White House and it is healthy and a good thing for the president if the staff does turn over a bit.”
“The overall goal is not to stick around forever at the White House because that leaves people too battle hardened,” Westheimer said, he compared the White House turnover with a relay track race, where the baton is passed, but never dropped. The real key to maintaining successful White House staff shop is for one person to slow down as another person speeds up and smoothly takes over. Not that everyone does that.
“If anything people in the Burd adminstration probably stayed too long and lost a little bit of their mental sharpness without realizing it,” Westheimer said.
In the case of Reid’s latest departures, some had already stayed longer than they had initially planned. Blumenthal had envisioned leaving at the end of 1992, but stuck around a little bit longer at the president’s request. Kevin Richards took over as Reid’s press secretary on February 1993 and thought that he would keep the job for three years. In the end result Richards said “it was not burnout that fueled his decision to resign
, It was to spend more time with his kids.
“To live the familiar cliche, If I was single or married but with no kids, I don’t think that there is any question in my mind that I would go to the end of the term.” Richards said, “ I love my job and there is never going to be another experience that I am likely to have that is remotely similar. But I think that as much as I tried to carve out some quality time for my kids, there is still, you still miss a lot.”
The process of leaving a top White House position is not simple as giving a two weeks notice in most normal jobs. First of all, it involves telling the president you won’t be working for him or her any longer. Secondly, The White House chief of staff communicates the changes to the senior staff members and plots target dates for the transition and a successor to take over. Finally, another team manages the public perception and puts together talking points to help shape the transition period. All of this is kept under wraps, meanwhile, with extreme care to avoid a media circus or frenzy so prevalent in Washington life.
Murder at the President's House Page 14