PICKING A NEW ROSTER OF KEY REAGAN PLAYERS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000100440009-7
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 28, 2011
• Sequence Number: 9
• Publication Date: December 29, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified and Approved For Release 2011/12/28: CIA-RDP90-00965R000100440009-7
WASHINGTON TIMES
OLD BEICHMAN
Fq '* -
cWng a new rosier
of key
n the early 1930s there
New York City mayor named
James J. Walker. He was a
witty, roguish Tammany Hall uAlgan players
Product. It was he who uttered the
line: "The
re comes a time in every
politician's life when he must rise
above principle."
There has never been a politician
in any democratic country who
didn't at some time or other "rise
above principle." There isn't a mem-
ber of the House or the Senate who,
in his endeavor to attain office,
hasn't at one time or another risen
"above principle."
There are times when we have had
to swallow hard and accept some
amoral compromise in the interest
of achieving some desirable moral
goal.
Should the United States in the
interest of pure morality have re-
fused to come to the aid of the totali-
tarian Soviet Union when it was at-
tacked by Nazi Germany in June
1941 because Josef Stalin, the Soviet
dictator, was in every way as brutal
and merciless as Adolf Hitler? That
was why Arthur Koestler described
World War II as a war against a total
lie - Nazism - in the name of a
half-truth - an alliance for freedom
which included the cruel Josef Sta-
lin.
Every day there is a new revela-
tion that President Reagan has risen
"above principle" in some given
event. How is it that the administra-
tion was making secret overtures to
Libya? Why not? Was there a pos-
sibility that such overtures would
betray American security interests?
Should we, in the interests of mo-
rality, stop negotiating with the So-
viet Union, a regime far worse than
Libya, on human rights, on arms con-
trol. on commerce, on cultural ex-
changes, and on a host of oth
Donaldsons of this world and their
congressional allies couldn't, try as
they might, lay a glove on him.
Has President Reagan overnight
become a villain, smiling while he
commits his acts of villainy? Was he
selling the pass when he sought ne-
gotiating channels to the enemy in
the hope of saving American lives?
Was it better to keep bombing Libya?
Was it better to do nothing? Was it
better to ignore Iran?
They sneer at the naivete of seek-
ing "moderates" in Iran but it is, of
course, sheer realism to define Mi-
khail Gorbachev as the moderate, as
the sneerers once defined Soviet
leaders Stalin, Nikita Khrushchev,
Leonid Brezhnev, Yuri Andropov,
and Konstantin Chernenko. Moder-
ates, by left-liberal definition, only
exist in Communist dictatorships.
If President Reagan can be
faulted - and I do fault him - it is
because he has appointed the wrong
people to the right places. Running
a Wall Street bucket shop (and in the
Boesky era, it looks like they're all
bucket shops) is no preparation for
running the government of the
United States. Successful public re-
lations strategy in the world of in-
dustry is no preparation for strategy
planning in the White House. Com-
manding a battleship is no prepara-
tion for the intricate problems of na-
tional security Marine heroism is no
preparation for undercover diplo-
macy. Being a successful music con-
tractor is no preparation for the
problem of U.S. information policies.
er ice guy-ism makes for fine
agreements because there are thou-
sands of forced-labor prisoners in dinner companionship and
Soviet concentration camps- hp_ little more. Ignorance of
cause Andrei Sakharov for so long 'Y' a r x i s m-Leninism and i t s
was a Soviet prisoner of conscience?
The very critics who sneer at
President Reagan for seeking 'mod-
erate" elements in Iran or for seek-
ing some breakthrough with Libya
are the very critics who condemn
him for not trying hard enough to
understand the Soviet Union, the
greatest enemy of human freedom
in modern history.
For six years, the Reagan admin-
istration has been free of acts of dis-
honor, of acts of corruption. The Sam
strategies does not prepare one for
the intricate strategies of Marxism.
Leninism.
World democratic stability hinges
on our realistic understanding of So-
viet history, Soviet ideology, Soviet
active measures, Soviet nationality
problems, the Soviet economy, the
future of Eastern Europe. Who in
President Reagan's entourage un-
derstands how to deal with this mili-
tant ideology which claims the right
to world domination?
Where is Richard Pipes, one of the
leading experts on Marxism
Leninism? After serving a couple of
years in the National Security Coun-
cil he was allowed to return to Har-
vard. Who allowed him to leave?
Where is Jeane J. Kirkpatrick,
one of the finest political minds in
contemporary America? Why is she
on the outside and George Shultz on
the inside? Who allowed her to leave?
Where in heaven's name did Rob-15 ert ac ar ane et his know-- ledge p~
omunism? Wh isn't Sen. Mal-
co m op a suita le andid t
run the CIA should Bill Casey be
T-15 to resume his duti c>
Tb put it as simply as possible:
how many knowledgeable, tough-
minded anti-Communists (horrid
word!) with a firm grasp of Kremlin'
world strategy are there in the White
House today? Put your thumb and
forefinger together and you get the
answer - Zero!
Because people like Mr. Pipes,
Mrs. Kirkpatrick, Mr. Wallop, and
others like them are on the outside
(oh, yes, they occasionally drop by
for a White House chat), the admin-
istration's foreign policy is a collec-
tion of hops, skips, and jumps with-
out rhyme or reason.
President Reagan had to cut out
his top Cabinet officers, his military
advisers, from any intimate
knowledge of his Strategic Iranian
Initiative (SII). What greater reflec-
tion on the quality of his ap-
pointments than that he felt he could
trust only men like Donald Regan,
Vice Adm. John Poindexter, Marine
Lt. Col. Oliver North but not his own
cherished secretary of state?
There is a still a chance to salvage
something out of the Iran-"contra"
mess before it becomes an irre-
trievable disaster for American se-
curity. Those of us who have been
faithful to U.S. foreign policy, as ex-
pounded (but not often imple-
mented) by President Reagan have a
right to ask that he clean house and
bring in people like Mr. Pipes, Mrs.
Kirkpatrick, or Mr Wallop and give
them the power to act, the power to
rescue a foreign policy now on the
skids. Things can't get any worse.
With a little bit of luck and courage,
they might even get better.
Mr. President, move. Please.
Declassified and Approved For Release 2011/12/28: CIA-RDP90-00965R000100440009-7