Authors: Hedrick Smith
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.
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.
18.
Thomas Foley, interview with the author, February 6, 1986 His version was confirmed by two of Speaker O’Neill’s aides.
19.
Ibid
.
20.
The Supreme Court struck down the enforcement mechanism in the Gramm-Rudman law by ruling that the comptroller general was an agent of Congress who could not give orders to executive branch departments to cut their budgets. For him to do so, the Court said, would violate the separation of powers.
21.
James A. Baker III, NBC
Today
, September 24, 1987.
22.
James Exon,
Congressional Record
, September 23, 1987, S 12575.
1.
James L. Sundquist, “Strengthening American Political Parties,” an unpublished paper presented at Brookings Institution, April 7, 1987, p. 9.
2.
William Schneider, “The New Shape of American Politics,”
The Atlantic
, January 1987, see especially, pp. 44–47.
3.
Kevin Phillips, interview with the author, January 21, 1985.
4.
See the biennial National Election Studies by the Center for Political Studies of the University of Michigan. For extensive analysis of political realignment in the South, see Ray Wolfinger and Michael G. Hagen, “Republican Prospects: Southern Comfort,”
Public Opinion
, October–November 1985, pp 8–13. When independent voters leaning to the two parties are counted, Democrats led Republicans in the South by only 46–39 percent.
5.
The New York Times
/CBS News election-day exit poll on November 6, 1984, showed that blue collar voters went 54 percent to 46 percent for Reagan over Mondale
6.
Horace Busby,
The Busby Papers
, November 14, 1984, p. 3. Busby points out that in the 128 years since the Republican Party emerged with Lincoln in 1860, Republicans have occupied the White House 80 years, or 62.5 percent of the time; and since 1860, Democrats have controlled the House roughly 60 percent of the time.
7.
Horace Busby, “The Republican Lock Revisited,”
The Busby Papers
, May 17, 1984, p. 3, has a state-by-state breakdown of the GOP presidential base.
8.
Paul Laxalt, interview with the author, January 11, 1985.
9.
The New York Times
, December 24, 1984, p. 9.
10.
See
The New York Times
/CBS News election day exit polls of 1980 and 1984 for significant shifts in the party vote of many groups.
11.
Kevin Phillips,
The American Political Report
, January 11, 1985, p. 2.
12.
Lou Cannon,
The Washington Post
, November 3, 1986, p. A10.
13.
The Washington Times
, November 6, 1986, p. 6A.
14.
Martin P. Wattenberg,
The Decline of American Political Parties, 1952–1984
(Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1986) p. 144–145. The biannual National Election Studies show a striking contrast between the types of support won by Eisenhower and Reagan, by income brackets.
15.
Kevin Phillips,
Los Angeles Times
, November 9, 1986, Part V, p. 1.
16.
Actually, the swings in popular sentiment in Senate races are less dramatic than shifting control suggests. In 1980, when the Republican majority took over, a shift of 24,000 votes in five states would have left the Democrats in control. And in 1986, when the Democrats regained control, a shift of 36,000 votes in six states would have left a Republican majority.
17.
Previously, the longest spans of partisan control—by the Republicans—were sixteen-year spurts from 1858 to 1874 and again from 1894 to 1910.
18.
Walter Dean Burnham, “A Continuing Political Gridlock,”
The Wall Street Journal
, June 24, 1985, p. 18.