THE LONG ROAD BACK

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP99-01448R000301290011-2
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 23, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 21, 2013
• Sequence Number: 11
• Publication Date: March 16, 1987
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/05/21 : CIA-RDP99-01448R000301290011-2 STAT
)CLE
ON PAGEnr,? NE+.r.SWEEK
16 Mar ch 1987
The Long Road Back
Reagan's speech was a strong first step. Now he must show he's in charge
In the White House, they were calling
it Ronald Reagan's third term: a resto-
ration of his battered Presidency, be-
ginning with last week's mea culpa
speech on Iran, that would win back
America's affection and a measure of trust '
sufficient to let him serve out the next two
years with dignity. But that was by no
means a sure thing. The speech. straight-
forward and remarkably effective, won as
much ground as any speech could, but Rea-
gan had still to prove that he could take
control of his government. The paradox ?
was that the more his handlers tried to
depict him as energized, resolute and firm-
ly in command. the more he looked as if
somebody else were pulling the strings.
The speech itself was the centerpiece of a
week of frenetic activity for Reagan. He
showed up for a cabinet meeting, photo
sessions and brief press encounters: there
was a briefing on southern Africa to show
his concern with substance, and a visit with
the National Security Council staff to show
that he means to clean it up. Staffers were
planning a road trip and a symbolic visit to
Capitol Hill for him. Yet just as he had done
all through the worst crisis of his presiden-
cy, Reagan himself played only a figure-
head role, even when it came to the crucial
business of reshuffling the White House
staff, After Nancy Reagan and her cronies
( page 22) finally won their campaign to oust
chief of staff Donald Regan. it was the presi-
dent's friend Paul Laxalt who sounded out
and proposed former Tennessee Sen. How-
ard Baker for the job. Last week.aftrA) Rol"- ?
. ';,:er)t.,@atesnomination as CI ';'--\ direciar_ca.n
into trouble in the Senate. it was Raker And
/43 national-security adviser Frank CA rinrci
who offered up FBI chief William Webster
in his place. And it was Ba5_er whochsmissed
White House director of communications
John Koehler. who had assumed the post
only a week before. Baker considered
Koehler, a controversial appointment to
begin with, to be out of his depth in the job.
Nancy Reagan vetoed proposals for a presi-
dential press conference and recruited
speechwriter Landon Parvin to craft the
explanation to the nation. By his own aides'
accounts, Reagan took no initiatives.
A helping hand: As friends and critics alike
saw it, the president would have to take
charge and achieve something dramatic to
regain any semblance of his political magic.
He got a hand from an unexpected corner:
Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev suddenly
withdrew Soviet obstacles to an arms-con-
trol treaty covering intermediate-range nu-
clear forces in Europe ( page 36). New talks
wereset in Geneva. and the White Housean-
nounced that Secretary of State George
Shultz would visit Moscow next month.
Staffers said the trip could pave the way for
another summit in Washington next fall.
Some diplomats worried that Reagan might
be overeager for a deal in the scandal's
aftermath. but his advisers were delighted.
-It would be foolish not to respond" to such
an initiative, atop hand argued,andReagan
himself exulted: "If anyone tells you we are
just marking time for the next 22 months,
the business I used to be in said, 'Save some-
thing for the third act'?and we will."
In the White House, in fact. the mood was
nearly ebullient. "Spring came early," said
a senior aide. The new tone began with the
speech, with Reagan at his mediagenic best.
Though he himself had crossed out an "I'm
sorry" scribbled into the margin by presi-
dential counselor David Abshire. Reagan
swallowed enough crow to satisfy all but the
sternest critics. Conceding the Tower com-
mission's point that a diplomatic initiative
to Iran had turned into an arms-for-hos-
tages deal, the president admitted, -There
are reasons why it happened, but no ex-
cuses. It was a mistake." Accepting "full
responsibility" for everything that had
gone wrong, he said flatly: "As the Navy
would say, this happened on my watch."
And he concluded: "By the time you reach
my age, you've made plenty of mistakes.
and if you've lived your life properly, so you
learn . . . You change. You go forward."
Moving on: The president also promised
reforms. There is a new team in the White
House, he said; proper records are being
kept. The NSC staff has been told to obey the
law and stay out of covert action. From now
on, any undercover activity will be the kind
that Americans can approve of if it ever hits
the front page. And with that, he said, -The
business of our country and our people must
proceed." It was time, he said the next day.
to put the scandal behind; enough energy
had been spent on "inside-Washington poli-
tics?who's up and who's down. and who's
in and out."
Reaganauts rejoiced. -The Gipper's
back!" crowed Indiana Sen. Dan Quayle.
Democrats focused on the need for action,
not words; Massachusetts Rep. Barney
Frank commented that the Tower panel
hadn't said Reagan "was a lousy speech-
maker; they said he was a lousy president."
Calls to the White House ran 93 percent in
Reagan's favor, and Vice President George
Bush, who said he was "catching the dick-
ens" from friends, reported happily that in
one day's campaigning in Iowa. only six out
of 55 questions concerned Iran. But the
broader reaction seemed more skeptical. A
NEWSWEEK Poll after the speech found a
predictable uptick in his approval rating. to
46 percent from 40 percent the week before.
But fully 59 percent of the sampling
thought that in the end, the president
would turn out to be more involved in the
scandal than he has admitted ( page 20).
011ie's army: Close readings of the speech
and the Tower report found a good many
troubling questions unanswered. Some
backers worried that Reagan himself could
turn out to be deeply implicated, especially
in Lt. Col. Oliver North's efforts to arm the
Nicaraguan contras during the two-year
congressional ban on military aid ( page 21.
Former Sen. John Tower and his colleagues
on the panel, former Secretary of State Ed-
mund Muskie and former national-securi-
ty adviser Brent Scowcroft, had bent over
backward to accept the president's word
that he didn't know when he had approved
arms for Iran or that profits had been di-
verted to the contras. But the report con-
cluded that he had probably consented to
the first arms shipment. and it seemed
hardly likely that he had done that so
casually that he could forget the incident.
George Shultz and Defense Secretary Cas-
par Weinberger, protesting the commis-
sion's criticism that they should have
argued harder against the policy, both re-
peated that they had objected loudly and
often?to the point, Weinberger said.
where -you run out of appeals."
The speech itself artfully skipped over
some pitfalls and blandly ignored others.
The president bemoaned the price he had
paid in public trust for his "silence- on Iran.
omitting any mention of the long chain of
contradictory misstatements he actually
made. He saidNorth and his swashbuckling
colleagues had been "free-lancing," though
the Tower record showed North had report-
ed what he was doing and had asked that
Reagan be briefed on most of his activities.
And the president consistently portrayed
his own sins as excesses of virtue: he had
been too trusting of aides who let him down:
he had allowed his compassion for the hos-
tages to affect his strategic judgment.
Whatever last week's verdict, all the nag-
ging questions will be ventilated thorough-
ly?some will say endlessly?in the months
tocome. Select committees in both houses of
Continued
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Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved
Congress will start hearing witnesses next
month, and the Senate panel was close to
granting immunity from prosecution to
North's boss, former national-security ad-
viser John Poindexter. That will force him
to testify or be held in contempt of Congress;
nothing he says can be used to prosecute
him, but special prosecutor Lawrence
Walsh can file charges based on evidence he
has collected and sealed before the commit-
tee's hearings. North has challenged the
constitutionality of the act creating special
prosecutors: Meese countered last week by
naming Walsh a special officer of the Jus-
tice Department. and North's lawyers chal-
lenged that move in turn. Meanwhile, there
were signs that the scandal might spread
further: investigators were taking serious-
ly an ABC News report that former CIA
Director William Casey might have se-
cured South African help for the contras in
exchange for the administration's opPosi-
t ion to sanctions against apartheid.
But all that was for the future. In the
White House last week, staffers were revel-
ing in the aftermath of the successful
speech and the relaxed new air Howard
Baker had brought to the West Wing. Quips
and smiles were the order of the day: at the
first senior staff meeting, Baker told budget
director James Miller: "Tell us about
the budget. if you've got the courage." Ba-
kers irreverence momentarily embar-
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\ LI', M,NAYIEE?N \k F.F.K
rassed him with the First Couple last week
when he had-to explain away past refer-
ences to Nancy Reagan as a -dragon- and to.
the president's -blank expression" when
reminded of conversations more than two
weeks old. But he ducked both punches with
style and grace. and his value to Reagan's
team was underlined as Congress got ready
for another fight over a S40 million aid
installment for the contras. With Baker in
the White .House, Senate Democrats con-
ceded, they probably couldn't defeat the aid
package. let alone override Reagan's veto.
Comeback trail? Ronald Reagan surety had
? a long road to travel to salvage his presiden-
cy and hold his own for the next two years.
But the first steps had succeeded. and per-
haps the most significant note of the week
was the renewed caution in many Demo-
crats' comments. -People realized old
Dutch may have some fight left in him.- a
senior aide said happily. Like a fighter com-
ing off the canvas. he was striking fear in his
opponents: -Nobody really wanted to go out
and be too critical just yet.- In correspond-
ing measure. old Dutch himself was regain-
ing his bounce. Late in the week his brother
Neil?in the tradition of presidential broth-
ers from Sam Houston Johnson to Billy
Carter?sounded off to an interviewer with
the speculation that the president probably
did start the Iranian deal as a way to fund
the contras, since -there's more than one
way to skin a cat.- When reporters braced
Ronald Reagan with that . wisecrack. he
boomed: ''My brother Said that? I'll -skin
him.- What might have been an embar-
rassment dissolved in laughter.
LARRY MARTZ with THOMAS M. DE FRANK
and ELEANOR CLi ET :a Wtt:51-lint,,,1
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/05/21 : CIA-RDP99-01448R000301290011-2