CHAPTER 19
Since Joyce and I had left Washington in 1977, the national political scene had changed markedly. As President Carter’s administration seemed to lurch from one crisis to another, his popularity cratered.
Since my meetings with Carter and his new team at the end of 1976, I had had two other noteworthy encounters with his administration. The first came in 1978, when Carter asked the CEOs of large Fortune 500 companies to support wage and price controls to deal with inflation, an effort akin to what President Nixon had attempted. Having been the director of Nixon’s Cost of Living Council, I felt an obligation to share my experiences, even if the administration might not welcome them.1 As diplomatically as I possibly could, I explained what I thought of Carter’s plan, which was that it was unworkable and unwise. Carter ignored all warnings and went ahead with his “voluntary” wage price controls. Inflation soared anyway.
Then, in December 1979, not six months after Carter signed what he viewed as a landmark arms-control agreement, SALT II, with the Soviet Union’s leader Leonid Brezhnev, Soviet tanks rolled into Afghanistan. The invasion stunned Carter, who seemed amazed that the country he saw as his partner in peace would be engaging in such warlike and expansionist behavior. Carter made an infamous and revealing statement that he had learned more about the Soviets in one week than he had during his entire administration.* I found the idea that the President of the United States was surprised by the Soviet Union’s capacity for mendacity and aggression embarrassing. The generally sympathetic Time magazine characterized Carter’s comment as “strikingly naïve.”3
After I had studied SALT II, I agreed to testify against it before the Senate Armed Services Committee. Given the Soviet Union’s past behavior, it seemed to me dangerous to believe that the Soviets would not exploit the treaty in order to pursue their goal of military superiority.4 Eager to ratify the treaty, Carter and his supporters in the Senate dismissed such sentiments, but only until the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
As the Afghanistan crisis threatened to unravel U.S.-Soviet relations, I was invited to attend a meeting at the White House with President Carter and Secretary of State Cyrus Vance. The gathering, on January 9, 1980, was billed as an insider discussion. When I arrived I found about forty people, including a range of current and former officials. The discussion was really more of a briefing.5
I was struck by the administration’s tone. The Carter team had invested so much into believing that the Soviets were well-intentioned that they found it almost impossible to reverse course. They seemed proud that their subdued, diplomatic response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan had been, by their assessment, “measured” and “predictable,” so as not to enflame the situation. But I saw little reason for them to be pleased. Telling the Soviets that, in effect, we would not respond to their provocations was tantamount to a green light for further aggression.
Those present from the administration seemed unclear about what they were going to do next. During his briefing, Secretary of State Cyrus Vance announced emphatically that it was U.S. policy to not sell weapons to the Soviet Union. I was astounded that the Secretary of State felt compelled to make that point.
As I expressed at the gathering, was anybody seriously suggesting or even contemplating selling arms to the Russians?6
When Carter spoke, his manner was grave. He suggested that the Soviet invasion was more serious than when the Soviets invaded Hungary in 1956 or Czechoslovakia in 1968. Someone even suggested reinstating the draft. Carter mentioned retaliatory options such as reducing the number of Soviet personnel allowed at their Washington embassy or restricting Soviet aircraft flights.
Though I was discouraged, I declined an opportunity to criticize the President before the television cameras that were outside the White House immediately after the meeting. With Soviet tanks rolling into Afghanistan, I felt it was not the time to highlight the Carter administration’s mistakes.
Eventually, Carter ordered an embargo on grain shipments to Russia, which had the chief result of angering American farmers. The action also contradicted his previously stated position that “food should not be used as a weapon” in international disputes.7 He also announced an American boycott of the 1980 Olympics in Moscow. Then, in an address to the nation outlining what apparently he thought to be his tough new policies, Carter offered this memorable line: “Fishing privileges for the Soviet Union in United States waters will be severely curtailed.”8Winston Churchill he was not.
I believed that Carter should have increased the U.S. defense budget in response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, set aside arms-control negotiations, worked with our NATO allies to encourage them to take an interest in problems outside the area covered by the NATO treaty, and provided assistance to Pakistan and other Afghan neighbors who could offer a hand to those Afghans resisting the Soviet forces. It also struck me that it might be helpful if Carter would stop making obviously inaccurate statements, such as that Soviet leader Brezhnev “shared our aspirations” when Brezhnev had demonstrated time and again that he did not.9
Proving again that weakness is provocative, on November 4, 1979, Islamist fundamentalists in Iran took sixty-six Americans hostage in the U.S. embassy in Tehran. Desert One, a U.S. attempt to rescue the hostages, ended with a tragic helicopter crash in the Iranian desert and the deaths of eight American servicemen. Between that failed mission and Carter’s weak response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, his decisions confirmed in the minds of many Americans that they had elected a president who lacked a sufficient understanding of the world we inhabited.
Ronald Reagan made his third run for the presidency in 1980. I readily agreed to serve as a member of his national security advisory committee during the campaign.10 As one of the individuals Reagan was considering as his vice presidential running mate, I was asked to speak that summer at the Republican National Convention in Detroit. I pointed out the mistakes the administration was making, including canceling the B-1 bomber, as well as the importance of recognizing the Soviet military buildup and our need to match it. I said Carter was “sleepwalking during four years of America’s decline.”11
At the convention, I was assigned a handler from Reagan’s campaign, whose assignment was to shadow me at all times so that Governor Reagan could reach me on the phone if he decided to select me.* But the vice presidential possibility getting the most talk at the convention was Gerald Ford. Ford had rebounded greatly in the public’s esteem since his loss to Carter. Perhaps it was a case of buyer’s remorse. Still, I thought having Ford as vice president was not a good idea for either Ford or Reagan. It suggested that Reagan needed someone to look over his shoulder. It also could have been awkward for Ford, having served as president, to be relegated to the number two spot. Some suggested that a Reagan-Ford ticket amounted to a sort of “co-presidency.” It would be like putting four hands on the wheel of the ship of state, which was a sure prescription for confusion.
I received a phone call from Governor Reagan. “Don, I want to thank you for being willing to be considered,” Reagan said, “but I’ve decided to go with George Bush.”
“Thank goodness!” I said, to his surprise.
I had feared Reagan was going to say he’d picked Ford. As it happened, the Reagan-Ford talks had collapsed after the idea of a co-president began to surface on television.
I told Reagan I was pleased that he decided not to go with Ford.
“Oh no, Don,” Reagan replied, “Jerry and I decided that together.” It was typically generous of Ronald Reagan to put it that way.
No one was more skillful at surveying the damage of the Carter years—toppled allies, emboldened enemies, and a diminished America—than the Great Communicator. Reagan conjured up four years of gas lines and high unemployment following Carter’s tax and spend economic policies. He declared that Iranian fundamentalists and Soviet aggressors had made advances as a result of American ineptitude. “Are you better off than you were four years ago?” Reagan asked the American people during the campaign. On election day, voters decided they were not, and put Ronald Reagan in the White House.
In the fall of 1982, as Searle was beginning to show a measure of success, I received a call from Ed Meese, who was counsellor to the president in the Reagan White House. The President and his new secretary of state, George Shultz, wanted me to serve as President Reagan’s emissary on the Law of the Sea Treaty.
The so-called United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea was designed to codify navigation rights in international waters. But it had grown into something considerably more ambitious, with a provision that would put all natural resources found in the seabeds of international waters under the collective purview of the treaty’s signers—a scheme that would result in substantial wealth being put into the hands of what was ominously called the International Seabed Authority.
Shortly after Reagan was inaugurated, he was invited to join a ceremonial treaty signing by some 160 nations in Jamaica. Reagan’s first secretary of state, Al Haig, reportedly asked the President who he thought should represent the United States. To nearly everyone’s surprise, Reagan announced he was not ready to agree to the treaty. Reagan believed rewards and investment incentives should go to those nations that had the specialized technology and capability to mine the ocean floor, not to the “Authority.”*
Reagan’s reversal of U.S. policy led to consternation at the Department of State, to which Reagan asked, “But isn’t that what the election was about?” Once I heard that story I knew that we had a vastly different president in the White House.
I met with Reagan in the Oval Office to receive his guidance on my new assignment. The President was gracious and personable. He had instincts about what he wanted to accomplish but, not being an expert on the treaty, he did not get into the details.14 Still, Reagan hit the important points he wanted me to convey to the leaders of the larger industrialized nations on my mission. It was the “experts,” after all, who had put our country into this unfortunate position on the treaty in the first place. He wanted me to reset the American position and gain the support of key foreign leaders to join him in opposition to the seabed mining section of the treaty. All of the momentum, of course, was pushing those countries in exactly the opposite direction and toward the fanfare of the treaty-signing ceremony.
I made several trips to Europe and Asia to make Reagan’s case. Two meetings particularly stood out as a study in contrasts. One was in Paris with France’s socialist president, François Mitterrand. True to form, as I outlined President Reagan’s objections to the treaty on free-market grounds, I could see Mitterrand growing increasingly enthusiastic about the aspects of the treaty we found most offensive.15
A few days later I met with Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher at 10 Downing Street in London. I explained my mission and Reagan’s concerns. Quite briskly, Mrs. Thatcher bore right into the heart of the matter.
“Mr. Ambassador, if I understand correctly, what this Law of the Sea Treaty proposes is nothing less than the international nationalization of roughly two thirds of the Earth’s surface,” she began. “And you know how I feel about nationalization.”
“I do indeed, Prime Minister,” I responded. Mrs. Thatcher had made transferring nationalized businesses, from utilities to mining companies, back to the private sector a hallmark of her premiership.
She smiled. “Tell Ronnie I’m with him.”16
Contrary to early expectations, Reagan ended up being quite successful in his efforts to defeat the seabed mining provisions in the Law of the Sea treaty. A number of the key countries I visited as his special envoy, including Germany, Japan, and the United Kingdom, did not sign. As of this writing, it still remains unsigned by the United States. The experience provided a useful lesson, as I indicated in Rumsfeld’s Rules, that “in unanimity there may well be either cowardice or uncritical thinking.”
In 1986, as Reagan neared the end of his second term, I started giving the possibility of running for president serious thought. I surveyed the field and felt that, based on my years of public service and my time in the private sector at a Fortune 500 company, I offered a breadth of experience that a number of the possible candidates lacked. I talked the idea over with Joyce and a few close friends—some of whom had been involved in my long-shot bid for Congress back in 1962—and decided to explore the possibility.
The logo for my brief presidential campaign was, appropriately, a dark horse.
I considered informing President Reagan personally about my decision, but I didn’t want to put him in an awkward position, considering that his vice president, George H. W. Bush, was the leading candidate. Instead, I went to see one of Reagan’s close friends and advisers, then Attorney General Ed Meese.
A respected figure among conservatives, Meese was a thoughtful man who always seemed to put loyalty to President Reagan ahead of his own ambitions. “Ed, I’m considering running for the nomination,” I told him. “I thought I’d let you know.”
Meese expressed his appreciation that I informed him personally. Although he said he was likely to stick with Bush, he welcomed me into the race. “It’s important to have alternatives available in case something happens,” he commented. I knew our conversation would find its way to President Reagan.
There was another person I wanted to speak to before I made any announcements. I flew out to meet with President Ford at his home in California. Despite Bush’s considerable advantage as the sitting vice president, Ford felt the 1988 contest was open. Very kindly, he told me that he had been describing me to his friends as the “competent” choice.17 But considering my time away from the public spotlight, Ford wondered how I could get from where I was to where I wanted to go.
Having participated in several presidential campaigns over the years, I was well aware that putting one together from scratch was a monumental undertaking, especially without being a front-runner and not currently in elective office or carrying a famous name. Bush had made light of the so-called vision thing, but I felt it was important for a candidate to be able to explain why he had decided to run for the country’s highest office.
I believed my national security background qualified me to uphold the Reagan standard of “strong and decisive leadership” with respect to the Soviet Union and the other threats that were gathering around the globe.18 I also wanted to focus on opportunities for all Americans, building on my experiences in Congress and the private sector.
My hope was to emerge at the top of the second tier of candidates, while the two front-runners, Bush and Bob Dole, faced off. It was a page from the playbook of my first congressional primary, when my plan had been to run ahead of the other second-tier candidates, and then try to persuade them to drop out and support me, leaving me in a one-on-one race with the front-runner. As in 1962, a great many things would have to fall my way for that plan to work. For one thing, the other second-tier candidates would have to falter. Second, I would have to raise sufficient funds to be able to hang on through Super Tuesday and beyond.
After having served by then as a member of Congress, an ambassador, White House chief of staff, secretary of defense, and a private sector chief executive officer, running for president was humbling. I remember going to speak to college Republicans at the University of Northern Iowa. The schedule my campaign group prepared said that three hundred students might attend. But almost no one showed up. The seats were empty, with the exception of the college Republican chapter president and a few of his friends. There, as at other events, my small staff may well have outnumbered interested voters.19 I participated in all of the presidential candidate forums to try to boost my candidacy, but they received very little coverage, because Bush, wisely pursuing a front-runner’s strategy, usually didn’t attend.
It was hard to raise money with low name recognition, but of course it was hard to increase name identification without spending money. Ironically, the new public-financing laws enacted in the wake of Watergate, supposedly to keep money from distorting the political process, favored incumbents. It made fund-raising for lesser known candidates an even steeper uphill climb. I now was barred by law from contributing more than $50,000 to my own campaign if I wanted to receive federal matching funds, which I knew I would need. In Illinois, I needed to deposit $6,000 on a $600-a-month office. “Multiply that 1,000 times around the country,” I said at the time, “and you see what candidates are experiencing.”20
I soon became concerned about running a campaign deficit. I had read about Democratic Senator John Glenn’s debt-ridden 1984 presidential campaign, and it raised concerns in my mind.21 Knowing Glenn from his days as an astronaut, I called him and asked about his campaign experience. He told me he had given the maximum a candidate was legally able to contribute to his own campaign, so to pay off his debts he had to try to raise additional funds. But few new donors were reaching for their wallets to contribute to a campaign that had already ended in a loss, and many of those who had contributed to his campaign already had given the maximum the law allowed or they could afford. The result was that members of Glenn’s campaign staff and a number of vendors were stiffed. It was a tough situation for an honorable man like Glenn, particularly since he had the financial capability to pay the debts personally. But many did not know the new campaign law prevented Glenn from doing so.22
If my campaign went on through the primary and we were not able to raise enough money, I knew I would be in the same position. As a conservative concerned about debt, the hypocrisy of running a campaign on a deficit was not appealing, particularly when I knew it would not be legal for me to personally pay it off. I concluded that I should not go forward, and announced my decision in April 1987, eight months before the first primary vote was scheduled.
From the sidelines, I watched the campaign unfold. In the Iowa caucuses, Dole from neighboring Kansas won, but Pat Robertson was a surprising second. Bush ran third. Then came the New Hampshire primary, where Bush had his longstanding New England roots and connections, his family name, and the money that came easily to an incumbent vice president and front-runner, allowing him to flood the airwaves and pull out a win, in part by attacking Dole as a secret tax raiser. Dole’s campaign began to falter.
At that point, I faced a decision. I could endorse no one, or I could endorse Bush, the likely winner, or I could endorse Bob Dole. I thought Dole would be a better president, so I endorsed him. So did Al Haig, another candidate who dropped out of the race about when I did. Bush went on to win the nomination and easily defeated his lackluster Democrat opponent, Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis.
For me, the bright spot in the new Bush administration was the secretary of defense. I had not spent much time with Dick Cheney since I left Washington in 1977. He had since been elected to Congress from Wyoming while I was working in Chicago. Contrary to what people might have expected, considering our relationship, I don’t recall having any conversations with Cheney about the Defense Department during his four years in the Pentagon running it. He may have been sensitive to President George H. W. Bush’s attitude toward me and kept his distance. In any event, Cheney and I were each busy with our respective careers, his in Washington, D.C., and mine in business ventures from New York to Silicon Valley.