What one needs in life are the pessimism of intelligence and the optimism of will.
This has been interpreted to mean that the beginning of wisdom is the realization of how little one truly knows.
Iraq’s Baathist regime was at the time the bitter adversary of two nations that threatened the interests of the US — Syria and Iran. Syria, under President Assad, was a leading supporter of international terrorism and occupied portions of Lebanon, a country that when left to its own devices favored the West. Iran had been a close friend of the US until the 1979 coup by militant Islamists.
Iraq sat between these 2 menaces — Syria and Iran. It must have taken a good deal of effort, or more likely some mistakes, for America to be on the bad side of all 3 countries.
But as we exited an elevator and started down a hall on an upper floor of the Foreign Ministry headquarters, two armed, unsmiling Iraqi guards broke me off from the group. While my startled staff was lead straight down the hall, I was turned down a dark corridor to the right. I couldn’t help but wonder for the briefest of moments how many Iraqi citizens had been taken alone down dark hallways by men with guns, wondering what might be next.
For the next 2-plus hours we had an intense, candid, rapid-fire discussion about my mission to Baghdad and the relationship between our two countries. Aziz seemed well versed on the Reagan administration and my role as the President’s envoy. I found myself favorably impressed by his knowledge and interest in the world beyond Iraq.
In an effort to show America’s resolve, Vice President Bush was dispatched to Beirut. “We’re not going to let a bunch of insidious terrorists, cowards, shape the foreign policy of the US,” Bush vowed.
The caricature often used by Reagan’s critics was that he was good-hearted but not particularly bright — an “amiable dunce,” once said. I had heard the same charge of low candle power made against nearly every Republican president in my adult lifetime, usually by those on the other side who couldn’t imagine how anyone intelligent could possibly disagree with them.
“My idea of American policy is simple,” he told aides when asked his view on the Soviet Union. “We win and they lose.” Critics scoffed at that statement as simplistic bravado, but in truth it was a big idea, bold and transformative. For a number of years before Reagan took office, the architecture of the federal government and the foreign policy establishment had been built around the notion of peaceful coexistence, or “detente,” as it was called, with the Soviets. It was not fashionable to look at the Cold War as a win-lose proposition. The Soviet Union was considered more an unfortunate fact of life.
I was uncomfortable with that classification. Anyone who claims to be an expert on the Middle East is starting off on the wrong foot.
From a safe distance in Washington, it was easy to American leaders to say that we’d never let terrorists defeat us in Lebanon or push us to withdraw. But it became apparent that fulfilling that pledge would have required far more than Americans were prepared to muster. There was little appetite anywhere to increase our military commitment to Lebanon, especially after the outrage over the Beirut bombing dissipated.
During the late phrase of the Vietnam War, Congress had passed the War Powers Resolution, which required a withdrawal of American military forces deployed to another country within 60 to 90 days absent the explicit authorization of Congress. The resolution, despite its questionable and still untested constitutionality, undercut the President’s ability to convince troublemakers of America’s staying power. It was clear to anyone with a newspaper that Congress wanted out.
If a problem has no solution, it is not a problem to be solved but a fact to be coped with over time.
I also wondered whether the US was playing too prominent a role in Lebanese politics. By the time I arrived on the scene, there seemed to be an expectation that we would help select the Lebanese cabinet, notwithstanding our country’s limited familiarity with the intricacies of Lebanese politics. To me, this was the diplomatic equivalent of amateur brain surgery.
During my first 12 days in my new post, I held 26 official meetings in 9 countries, traveling over 25K miles, to develop a better understanding of America’s options for our involvement in Lebanon.
My own doubts about our ability to remain were growing. As I often do when dealing with a seemingly intractable problem, I developed an options paper. In tough national security decisions, I’ve often found that there are seldom good options — only the least bad.
The way Syria operated during the Lebanon crisis provided an interesting insight into how smaller nations can manipulate a superpower.
She noted that even when the US challenged Syria, some American officials behaved in a way that signaled to the Syrians that we lacked the will or cohesion to actually follow through. A mixed message was the worst kind to send to an authoritarian regime, she noted.
O’Neil understood how complex and challenging the situation was. His newly elected members were of a different sort. As I was going to meet with this group, Tip pulled me aside. “Don’t look for much help for me on this, Don. I’m working with some crazies here.” By now America’s Lebanon policy had become simply a matter of arranging the details of an inevitable departure from the country.
The Lebanese leader was amazed to learn that America had arrived at this decision. Though I knew he had cause to doubt the depth of the American commitment to his country, he appeared to have not imagined that we would desert him altogether. Being involved in diplomacy on behalf of the US, I came to appreciate the perspectives many other countries have toward us. It sometimes seems to me we are looking at each other from opposite ends of a telescope. Smaller nations seem to look at us from the small end, through which we look enormous, even omnipotent. Americans have a tendency to look at other countries from the other end, and so their concerns seem smaller to us.
We experienced the risks of allowing our friends to become dependent on the US. The Lebanese military could not fill the vacuum after America withdrew, at least in part because they had not been trained for the type of fighting they’d face.
And we learned the Lone Ranger credo: “I believe that to have a friend, a man must be one. That all men are created equal and that everyone has within himself the power to make this a better world. That God put the firewood there, but that every man must gather and light it himself.”
For 2 years, Americans had followed the conflicts raging in Europe and Asia, but from the comfortable distance provided by 2 vast oceans. Many remembered the heavy American losses in WW1 a little more than 2 decades earlier and wanted no part in another territorial dispute far away.
No one could buy new care tires, because rubber was being used for military vehicles, so old tires were retreaded. The government rationed such staples as gasoline, sugar, butter, and nylon. There were few complaints — there was a sense we were all in it together.
An urgent announcement came over the loudspeaker: President Franklin Roosevelt had died.
I had become accustomed to thinking of the President as indomitable. He was the person we listened to on the radio and saw on newsreels, the one who I believed would lead us to victory and keep my father safe.
One of the major fears during the Cold War’s early days was that Communists would infiltrate Western governments. Indeed, one of the reasons the Truman administration stepped up to assist Western Europe economically through the Marshall Plan was out of concern that desperate countries might be ripe for a communist takeover.
Stevenson put the future into an important and new context for me. He talked about the responsibility of citizenship in whatever path we might choose, and the stark consequences awaiting us all if we failed in our responsibilities. “If those young Americans who have the advantage of education, perspective, and self-discipline do not participate to the fullest extent of their ability,” he warned, “America will stumble, and if America stumbles the world falls.”
Still, I loved everything about flying — the freedom, the speed, the excitement. “More than anything else the sensation of flying is one of perfect peace mingled with an excitement that strains every nerve to the utmost, if you can conceive of such a combination.”
He was a thoroughly decent human being — honorable, intelligent, sincere, and hardworking. Though I had no legislative experience, I think he identified with me. After my interview, I excitedly told Joyce, “I would pay to be able to work for this man.”
Though he seemed content with my performance, I found the job difficult. I had not written anything since college, except for an occasional letter home. During those first challenging months I felt like I was scrambling every day. Almost every night I would go home with my stomach in knots.
It seemed unusual that a senior member of Congress would take such an active interest in a young staffer’s career. His suggestion stuck in my head.
I found public speaking was like anything else: Unless you have some remarkable natural talent — which I didn’t — when you’re starting out, you don’t do it very well. But if you work on it and work on it, you can get better.
“I was picked as the lamb for the slaughter. This should serve as a notice to other party leaders that something is brewing.” As it turned out, Hoeven’s warning proved prophetic.
So my question is: Why are the VC not convinced of our national will? In what ways have we failed to convince them of this determination, and what is being done, or can be done, to convince them?
I watched in amazement — even embarrassment — as LBJ went on with his “woe is me” harangue.
As I listened to him personalize the growing criticism of the war, I thought to myself that Vietnam wasn’t LBJ’s personal problem. It was our country’s.
There was a strong deference to seniority and paying one’s due. Indeed, the attitude of many of the old bulls of Capitol Hill was that newly elected members should quietly stay in their place until we’d been around for a while — like a decade or two. I gravitated toward a different group.
Arends was also the chairman of the Illinois GOP delegation. Among other privileges, he played the deciding role in all committee assignments for members from our state. I had been hoping for a spot on the Foreign Affairs, Armed Services, Appropriations, or Ways and Means committees. But helping Don Rumsfeld, a member of the GOP rebellion that threatened him, was at the bottom of Arends’ agenda. He adopted the philosophy of “don’t get mad, get even.”
But I looked at the idea of a lunar landing somewhat differently. Was that, I wondered, the best use of finite resources? The Soviets were not worried about demonstrating peaceful intentions. Indeed, they announced that they had no interest in putting a man on the moon and concentrated on less dramatic but more practical efforts, such as manned orbital missions and satellite technology.
“He behaved like a traitor. He smashed up half of London and other cities and he went crawling off to America with Germany’s secret and became a hero.”
Von Braun went to work for the US Army, becoming the first director of the Marshall Space Flight Center.
I’d like to think that if I’d dealt with the matter personally I might have found a way to meet the needs of both friendship and politics. I’ve always regretted how the situation ended up. Al wound up losing the campaign. He was understandably unhappy with me, and it hurt our friendship. I learned that the political world sometimes made things difficult for friends.
We like to believe our institutions can survive great trials, but in the hours after a cataclysmic event like the assassination of a president, it was difficult to shake doubt.
The nation felt a profound sense of loss. For some Americans, the sense of shock and grief we all shared turned to disillusionment and anger. Indeed, what I remember of the decade of the 60s — riots, demonstrations, marches, and angry protests — seemed to have its start in Dallas, on Nov 22, 1963.
To join the Kennedy ticket — a marriage of political convenience — Johnson had left his post as the powerful Senate Majority Leader, which had made him arguably the most influential man in Washington, and became VP, where he was not only virtually powerless, but visibly so. Johnson never seemed to fit in with the Kennedy team, and the differences in style were sometimes striking.
Despite his occasional coarseness, LBJ had a gift for smooth talk when it suited him. It was part of the patented Johnson treatment — his good cop bad cop routine — in which he sometimes played both roles simultaneously. I suppose this may have been what had made him such a formidable leader of the Senate, which he managed with a mix of patronage, forcefulness, and a generous helping of guile. When his almost shameless flattery failed him, Johnson deployed a strong arm. He was a large man, in both size and personality, and was not shy about touching people. I’d see him physically grab the arms of members of Congress he was trying to persuade. He’d wrap his massive hands around people’s shoulders and lean into them until about all they could see was his oversized earlobe next to their faces.
Lady Bird later reflected that she believed her husband might have been better served if he had replaced the Kennedy team with a team of his own. But for the most part, LBJ probably would have better off if he had never taken the VP. He might have become known as the most effective Senate leader in history. However, his congressional experience did help him realize what had to have been his most important accomplishment as president — one that many Americans thought was all but possible.
I also let them know that I was well aware that no piece of legislation, no matter how well meaning, could end bigotry, racism, or other human weaknesses. These problems — human by definition — must and can only be solved finally by human beings — not governments or laws, but in the churches, clubs, schools, businesses, and homes.
Amid anger and protest, Nixon offered himself as a source of reassurance and stability. For voters it was a welcome change from the anguished presidency of LBJ. But because he had been defeated in 2 high-profile elections during the past decade, he had to battle the impression that he was a loser.
It seemed to me that Nixon had spent much of his adult life getting ready to do something but not actually doing much besides running for the next office and serving in the standby role as VP for 8 years. As the campaign developed I was increasingly impressed by his steadiness and focus.
Though I remained impressed with Nixon, I found his selection process disappointing. The weakness of his VP choice eventually caused great problems for him down the road. Nixon’s real criterion did not seem to be competence or experience but rather finding someone who did not elicit opposition from any quarter. His intent may have been to preempt criticism, but if so, it was shortsighted. That no one spoke against Agnew was not an indicator that he had no flaws, but rather that no one yet knew of his shortcomings.
I was struck by the fact that Nixon was running against a Democratic opponent who in many ways was his opposite. Aptly labeled “the happy warrior,” Humphrey was upbeat and engaging. Heh was also tough. Reciting the litany of previous incarnations of a new Nixon persona in 1952, 1956, 1960 and 1962, Humphrey noted, “Now, I read about the new Nixon of 1968. Ladies and gentlemen. Anyone who’s had his political face lifted so many times can’t be very new.”
As I made my case for not taking the post, Nixon kept telling me he did not agree and that I was the right man for the job. He left the impression that he had a personal interest in my future. And when the President told me he needed my help, I found it hard to keep up the fight. Nixon persuaded me to take on an assignment that I didn’t want, at an agency I had voted against, with a mission that Nixon didn’t like, for a purpose that was still unclear.
I had learned in managing Congressman Dave Dennison’s 1958 campaign how even the appearance of wrongdoing could be terribly damaging. A newspaper article, no matter how false, can stick to a public figure for decades. The old axiom about the press is that a politician should never engage in battle with an opponent that buys ink by the barrel.
The words steady and unflappable were frequently applied to him — and with good reason. Dick was an enormous help as we wrestled with the many heated controversies in which OED had become embroiled over its short life. In fact, the more difficult the situation, the more Dick seemed to like it.
If the goal was to end wage and price control as soon as possible, I saw a first step in that direction: the need to ensure that we did not hire a permanent staff and that would want to perpetuate itself. Instead, I borrowed individuals from other departments and agencies, particularly individuals who understood the dangers of wage-price controls, and who could be sent back to their home departments with the stroke of my pen.
In a presidential election year I considered it an amazing, indeed an almost unbelievable, accomplishment that there was not one instance of wrongdoing. Public officials generally don’t get credit or awards for avoiding potholes, but our group at CLC deserved an award for the many bad things that did not happen on our watch.
I believed Nixon did care about improving peoples’ quality of life but he just preferred to view and discuss things in theoretical, rather than personal, terms. That didn’t always come across positively in that new media age. “A danger for our administration is that in its competence we seem harsh, in our strength we seem tough, in our pragmatism we seem goal-less and ideal-less.”
In a time-honored diplomatic tradition, Francois and I frequently resorted to calculated ambiguities that allowed both Washington and Paris to interpret NATO communiques and declarations as they saw fit.
I suspected that my name was being thrown into the mix intentionally by Nixon and his staff to either heighten my visibility as a possible Senate candidate some day or, more likely, as a diversion — to make his announcement of someone else an even bigger surprise.
Once in the car, away from the press and cameras, Nixon’s face fell. His mood changed.
Referring to NATO staff members he had just met, Nixon snapped, “They’re a bunch of fairies.” The President apparently had assumed that the NATO staff was composed of State Department people. His WH prized “machismo and toughness” and Nixon tended to view people in the State Department as lacking grit.
Nixon looked out of the window, his face sullen. Perhaps in private, with people he knew, he allowed the strain of the events in Washington to show. When we arrived at the ambassador’s residence, the President got out of the right side of the car. Back in public, he was smiling and cordial again. I moved to get out from the opposite side. As I exited, Kissinger followed behind me. He grabbed my arm, gently tugging me to the left side of the car. When he was sure the President was out of earshot, Kissinger said to me quietly, “Rummy, we don’t argue with him anymore.”
The message was clear, both times: Richard Nixon was determined not to let his opponents get the best of him.
But he was a most unusual human being. He seemed unable to accept defeat. Instead, he went to work using his impressive strength and fine mind to contribute to the national and international dialogue on important public issues.
I don’t know to this day how to reconcile the man I knew with the tragedies that he inflicted on himself and the nation. Like the man, the Nixon era defied easy definition.
“He achieved greatly and he suffered deeply,” Kissinger pointed out, “but he never gave up.”
The role of the WH Chief of Staff is that of a javelin catcher.
Accepting that the pardon was the right thing to do — and by now even many of Ford’s harshest critics have since conceded that it was — there is little question but that it could have been handled in a better manner. For one, Ford might have surfaced the notion with key leaders in the House and Senate, to keep them from being stunned. He might have talked it over with a trusted group of aides to ensure his announcement and tone were properly calibrated and supported by his staff. But he appeared to have done none of those things.
“You got me out, you sons of bitches,” he raged. “Now get off your ass.” His was a rather unorthodox motivational technique.
I was not surprised when I, too, became the target of Rockefeller’s anger and disappointment. By this point, Rockefeller increasingly seemed to be troubled and embittered by his frustrated ambitions.
History teaches that weakness is provocative. Time and again weakness has invited adventures which strength might well have deterred.
As we talked about my work on this book, Kissinger, an accomplished historian and author, went out of his way to be helpful. He provided some transcripts of telephone conversations we had had. And perhaps sensing my reluctance to dwell on our long-ago disagreements, he urged me to write the book as I remembered our relationship back then. “Tell it like it happened, Don. Don’t gloss things over. I didn’t.”
The good news is the war is over. The bad news is we lost.
With the war’s unfortunate end, a great many in our military and among the American people swore they would never again get involved in the tough, bloody business of counterinsurgency. Many wanted to turn inward, ignoring conflicts waged by the Soviet Union and its proxies. Instead of bringing us peace, I feared the chaotic conclusion of Vietnam could result in an even more deadly escalation of the broader Cold War struggle. The withdrawal from Vietnam became a symbol of American weakness — a weakness our adversaries would highlight for years — and an invitation to further aggression.
The Soviets weren’t incapable of reason, but we needed to understand that they looked at the world differently than Americans did. Because they were accountable to no one, the Soviet leaders had no obligation to tell the truth to their citizens, to us, or to the world. It seemed dangerous to me to try to predict their actions or their strategy based on thinking it would be a mirror image of how we in our free system might act if we were in their circumstances.
The US SecDef is not a super General or Admiral. His task is to exercise leadership and civilian control over the Department for the Commander-in-Chief and the country.
Control wasn’t what a lot of people had in mind, however. I quickly faced what successive SecDefs have faced: a powerful set of forces known as the iron triangle — a network of entrenched relationships among the military and civilian bureaucracies in the DoD, the Congress, and the defense industry. With more or less permanent positions, those in the iron triangle knew that the SecDef and the department’s political appointees of either party were temporary. They could delay and simply wait out policies they did not favor.
I listened to both sides in the assembled group in complete amazement. This was the biggest weapons decision for the Army in years. Yet they had arrived in my office with conflicting positions without giving me any advance warning or briefing to allow me the time to make an informed decision. Further, both sides insisted that I decide that complicated issue, which would have such long-term consequences for our country’s fighting force, then and there.
In truth, President Ford’s surprise moves flummoxed the wily Kissinger — a man not easily flummoxed. So entrenched was his well-deserved reputation as a master strategist who could predict the actions of leaders like moves on a chessboard, that some people even assumed he had to be the one behind the Halloween massacre, to eliminate me as an obstacle in the WH.
Kissinger and I led institutions that were different in mission and makeup: One focused on sustained diplomatic engagement; the other focused on preparing for, deterring, and when necessary, engaging in military conflict. Given the different perspectives, I thought it particularly important that Kissinger and I base our dealings on a common understanding of the facts and an open flow of information.
Kissinger’s immediate goals and mine were in conflict here. Kissinger wanted the perception of American superiority to aid his negotiating positions and to reassure our allies, and for the strong diplomatic position it would provide as he worked on arms agreements with the Soviets. In contrast, I needed us to acknowledge the truth of the US decline in our relative capability so that the American people and Congress would support the increases in defense investments necessary to reverse the adverse trends.
Brown had little patience with bureaucratic procedures and little political polish. He tended to say what he thought, including things that, on reflection, might have been better left unsaid.
I told the Pentagon press corps that General Brown’s comments were inappropriate, and that “the absence of a reprimand should not be taken as an endorsement of obviously inelegant phraseology.”
Setting goals were the most important task we faced, because it forced us to decide what our priorities were. We also needed broad agreement on the priorities among the directors and senior managers sot hat everyone was pulling in the same direction. It was critically important to ensure that those goals and priorities were known throughout the organization.
Over my 8 years at Searle, I became a believer in the rule that “What you measure improves.” A corollary rule in the military is that “You get what you inspect, not what you expect.”
There is a danger that CEOs and senior executives can get too engaged in details, which can prevent them from having the necessary distance to see trends and the broader picture. When I was a flight instructor in the Navy I noticed novice pilots often took control of an airplane by grabbing hold of the stick too tightly and overcontrolling. As a result, the motion of the plane became jerky. It can be similar in any organization, whether in business or government. An executive who holds on to everything too tightly can lose sight of the larger issues.
It was not a pleasant task for a new CEO to have to tell longtime members of the board of directors that it was necessary for them to leave the board, but the reality was that we needed new talent at the top if we were to succeed.
My words to them were that I felt would be helpful to me if I were in their shoes. I knew they would have to go home and explain their situations to their spouses, children, friends, and neighbors. I told them the truth — that the decision did no reflect on them. The reality was that the pharmaceutical industry and the company were both changing; US companies, including Searle, needed to adjust to globalization.
I never cease to be amazed at people, particularly lifelong politicians of both parties, most of whom have never created anything of value, savaging those who do.
I was learning the critical difference between the federal government and the private sector. People in the public sector tend to be praised and rewarded for their efforts or intentions, rather than judged by the results of their actions. What government does is assumed to be respectable and in the interests of the public. The FDA, for example, is criticized only if it errs and approves a drug that turns out not to be safe or effective — as it should be. But there is no criticism of the FDA if it delays the approval of drugs that are safe and could save or extend lives.
Unlike in government, good intentions are not what are rewarded in the business world — results are.
And regardless of its mistakes, the federal government does not go out of business. If businesses make mistakes, they suffer, loose money, managers are replaced, or the companies go into bankruptcy.
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.
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.
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.”
My hope was to emerge at the top of the 2nd tier of candidates, while the 2 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 2nd-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.
An intelligent man with excellent political instincts, Clinton had a talent for locking you in his gaze and saying insightful things you were interested in hearing. He had a passion for domestic policy and could hold forth on the subtleties of single-payer health care without losing his audience. But Clinton had a manner somewhat different from presidents I had especially admired, such as Eisenhower, Ford, and Reagan. They were modest people who seemed almost surprised to be in the WH — in Ford’s case, it was genuinely surprise. By contrast, Clinton seemed to have been aiming for the presidency practically since childhood, and he appeared not at all surprised that he had attained it.
In San Diego, I noticed that the relatively new 24-hour TV era had turned Washington politicians into celebrities. Republican delegates treated the most recognizable faces in the party as if they were movie stars. I also noticed another change from my days in Congress. As the size of congressional staffs had increased, so had their power. In the old days on dealt directly with a member of Congress on policy issues. By 1996, one often dealt with a member of the congressman’s staff instead.
After the campaign I went back to the business world, serving on various boards of directors. As the collapses of Enron and WorldCom demonstrated a few years later, one of the important roles of outside directors is to try to look around corners and identify any problems with a company’s strategies or management.
The post-Cold War holiday from strategic thought that characterized much of the prior decade turned out to be not a luxury but a dangerous misjudgment. Overconfidence had spawned complacency. US intelligence capabilities had atrophied, and US operations from Somalia to Haiti had communicated uncertain American resolve.
“What’s the one big thing that keeps you up at night?” the Kansan asked. There were a number of things I might have mentioned — North Korea, Iran, Iraq, nuclear proliferation, cyberwarfare, or terrorism. But if anything were to keep me up at night, I knew it was my concern about the quality of our intelligence. Our country’s most important national security challenge was “improving our intelligence capabilities so that we know more about what people think and how they behave and how their behavior can be altered.” We need an ability to uncover what our enemies were thinking and what motivated them.
If you are not being criticized, you may not be doing much.
A searing reality was that there were people in the world who were working hard to think of novel ways to harm us.