A NEW REGIME?

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000503820004-3
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 20, 2012
• Sequence Number: 4
• Publication Date: March 6, 1987
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/01/20: CIA-RDP90-00965R000503820004-3
MTICLE APP R
ON PAGE
ABROAD AT HOME
f Anthony Lewis
A
New
Regime?
BOSTON
' f President Reagan does as he
says, we are going to see an ex-
traordinary kind of palace revolu-
tion in Washington. The king will. still
be there, but he will preside over a
radically different Government.
"I h}ve directed that any covert ac-
tivity be... in compliance with Amer-
ican values," Mr. Reagan said in his
speech on the Iran affair. "I expect a
covert policy that if American saw it
on the front page of their newspaper,
they'd say, 'That makes sense.' "
In that one example of the Presi-
dent's promises one sees the pro-
found possibilities for change. The
special stamp of his foreign policy
has begn the frequent use of covert
violence precisely because the public
would not approve an open policy of
that kind. Thus most Americans have
consistently opposed the covert war
on Nicaragua, the mining of harbors,
the arming of terrorists.
The Reagan years in foreign policy
have also been marked by disregard
for law and by fierce resistance to
Congress when it asserted its role. In
the Iran affair, for example, the
Tower commission reported that
Lieut. Col. Oliver North and the
others scarcely paused to consider
legal constraints. And the covert
policy in Iran was not reported to
Congressional intelligence commit-
tees as required by law.
It was startling, therefore, to hear
Mr. Reagan say Wednesday night
that he had told N.S.C. staff members
he "wanted a policy that reflected the
will of the Congress as well as the
White House." Just as striking was
his disclosure that he had created the
position of N.S.C. legal adviser - "to
assure a greater sensitivity to mat-
ters of law."
NEW YORK TIMES
6 March 1987
Anyone who doubts that those are
changes of potential significance
should look at the reaction among Mr.
Reagan's hard-line conservative sup-
porters. They are in a state of agita-
tion at what they fear is the end of the
conservative wave in Washington.
The Wall Street Journal had an un-
commonly revealing editorial the
morning before the President's
speech. It urged him, in effect, to
tough it out, to assert plenary power
in foreign policy. Congress's attempts
to legislate in that field, it said, were
"dangerous and perhaps unconstitu-
tional." The President should rely on
"the evident will of the people."
The Journal's editors must have
written with a glum realization that
Mr. Reagan was unlikely to follow
their advice. He had already signaled
a different course by choosing How-
ard Baker as his chief of staff. To
movement conservatives Mr. Baker
is The Enemy: someone who would
take the Republican Party back to-
ward the center. That is why they
treated him so badly at the 1984 Re-
publican convention.
Mr. Baker is not the only harbinger
of change. The President's nomina-
tion of William H. Webster as Direc-
tor of Central Intelligence also sent a
message unwelcome to the extreme
right.
William Casey was a powerful en- /
give o conservative ideology at the
a ups Bung- o for covert ac-,
tion against leftist governments.-
around the world. He slanted intelh
Bence ana yses to fit. He decefiv~id
Congress. In athose thin2s. u ae -
Webster's instincts will be the oppo-
s e.
In looking to the future of the Rea-
gan Administration, there is of course
still the big if of the President's physi-
cal and mental energy. The Tower
commission found him amazingly ig-
norant of what went on in the Iran af-
fair, almost uninterested. His pas-
sivity in office long antedated Iran.
There is every effort now to make
him look energetic. But can he really
change?
What has to be understood is that
Reagan passivity will have a very dif-
ferent effect now from the time of
Casey, Poindexter, North, Regan et
al. Presidential detachment will
leave more to figures whose instinct
is for moderation, who want to work
with Congress and respect the law.
Conservatives obviously do under-
stand : hence their anger.
The largest issues will still require
more of Mr. Reagan than he has been
prepared to give. The immediate ex-
ample is arms control. An agreement
with the Soviet Union on intermedi-
ate-range missiles in Europe is
plainly now attainable. Will the Presi-
dent at last be willing to override his
own Administration's dogged oppo-
nents of arms control?
How much his Administration and
Mr. Reagan himself can recover in
these last two years remains very
much a question. But the direction
has changed in Washington. In the
phrase of Senator Alan K. Simpson,
the Wyoming Republican, the White
House is no longer filled with "guys
who act like 9-year-olds playing with
rubber guns." ^
Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/01/20: CIA-RDP90-00965R000503820004-3