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Reagan on War
A Reappraisal of the Weinberger Doctrine, 1980â"1984
By Gail E.S. Yoshitani Texas A&M University Press
Copyright © 2011 Gail E. S. Yoshitani
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-60344-577-1
CHAPTER 1
DEFINING and CHALLENGING the VIETNAM SYNDROME
ON 20 January 1981, Ronald Wilson Reagan was sworn in as the fortieth president of the United States. While every orderly transfer of power is a testament to the American democratic system, this inauguration possessed its own dramatic script. Mere minutes after Reagan delivered his inaugural address, having just promised his fellow Americans an "era of national renewal," a plane carrying fifty-two American hostages departed from Tehran after 444 days of captivity in the hands of the new revolutionary government of Iran. The drama was not lost on contemporaries. Time magazine captured the emotions of the country: "[W]ithin 41 minutes, a presidency began, an ordeal ended, and the nation was swept by a sense of shared emotion and exuberance not felt in years. Even Ronald Reagan, at ease with the implausibilities of fictive film, would have rejected the script as beyond belief.... Watching on television, getting the word from a neighbor or a passer-by on the street, ... Americans learned of the hostages' release and felt a surge of national relief, a rebirth of confidence and hope, however transitory, that rivaled the first landing on the moon."
Looking back at the news stories on that day, one cannot help but be struck by a number of contrasts. Pictures from the inauguration show Pres. Jimmy Carter ashen and depleted, while President-elect Reagan appeared remarkably well rested and ruddy cheeked. Carter had stayed up for two days straight, only taking an occasional catnap on a couch in the small study adjacent to the Oval Office, working desperately to get the hostages released on his watch. Michael Deaver, Reagan's deputy White House chief of staff, assumed that the president-elect would be practicing the most important speech of his life to that point. Instead he found Reagan on the morning of the inauguration still sleeping comfortably at eight o'clock.
Even the weather seemed to respond to each man's spirit. Caspar Weinberger, who was confirmed later in the day as secretary of defense, recounted in his memoirs: "[W]hen President-elect Reagan took the inaugural oath, his voice infused the air with his characteristic confidence and sparkling vigor, lifting the pall and almost literally parting the clouds. As I had witnessed many times before, Reagan effortlessly summoned brightness; a golden stream of sunlight broke through the dark sky, first shining only on him, then showering everyone present." There is an almost-religious connotation to the Weinberger description—dark forces gripping the nation were counteracted by light showering forth from a new, vibrant leader. A polar opposite, the exhausted Carter left after the ceremony and with his entourage flew to a dark, rain-soaked Plains, Georgia.
The most critical contrast between the old and new administrations came in the words that Americans heard from their new leader. In his inaugural address, Reagan told his listeners that there were no limits to what the United States could achieve. "It is time for us to realize that we are too great a nation to limit ourselves to small dreams. We are not, as some would have us believe, doomed to an inevitable decline. I do not believe in a fate that will fall on us no matter what we do." He called for his countrymen to believe in themselves and to believe in their individual and collective capacity "to perform great deeds, to believe that together, with God's help," they could "resolve the problems" facing the country. Reagan urged, "So, with all the creative energy at our command, let us begin an era of national renewal." It was a message that contrasted sharply with the one Americans had received from President Carter eighteen months earlier.
In 1979, in a Sunday evening televised address about energy and national goals, Carter had informed his audience that the true problems of the nation were much deeper than gasoline lines, energy shortages, inflation, or recession. Instead, he warned the more worrisome problem was that Americans were suffering from "a crisis of confidence" that posed a "fundamental threat to American democracy." The president informed Americans that over the last generation, their confidence in the future and their faith in the ability of "citizens to serve as the ultimate rulers and shapers" had declined. "For the first time in the history of the country," he declared, "a majority of our people believe the next five years will be worse than the past five years. Two-thirds of our people do not even vote. The productivity of American workers is actually dropping, and the willingness of Americans to save for the future has fallen below that of all other people in the Western world." Finally, he added, there was evidence of a growing disrespect for government, churches, schools, and media.
The roots of these problems, according to Carter, lay in Vietnam, Watergate, inflation, the country's dependence on foreign oil, and the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, and Martin Luther King Jr. These events had served to undermine many of the country's core beliefs: "ballots not bullets," invincible armies, just wars, honorable leadership, and limitless resources. The nation was at a historic turning point: Americans could decide to continue down the path of self-indulgence and consumption, which Carter described as a path fraught with conflict, chaos, and certainty of failure, or Americans could solve their energy problems through sacrifice. The president urged the path of sacrifice because not only would it resolve the energy crisis but also allow Americans to resolve their crisis of confidence by rekindling a "sense of unity" and "confidence in the future," giving the nation and each individual "a new sense of purpose." He concluded, "There is simply no way to avoid sacrifice."
While Carter offered six steps for solving the energy problem, those points were largely subordinated to his broader argument that Americans were suffering a "crisis of spirit" and needed to be prepared to face limits and make sacrifices. At a press conference afterward, one of Carter's aides spoke of a "malaise" having "descended on American society." Although the president had not used the term, his address was soon dubbed the "malaise" speech by the media.
Carter seemed to have struck a chord with his fellow Americans. One poll found 77 percent agreed with the statement "there is a moral and spiritual crisis, that is, a crisis of confidence, in the country today." Additionally, his approval rating jumped from 26 percent to 37 percent following the speech. Although Carter did not officially announce that he was running for reelection until 4 December 1979, his "malaise" speech and subsequent request for the resignations of five cabinet members were largely seen as the start of his reelection campaign.
When Ronald Reagan announced his intent to run for president on 13 November 1979, his message was decidedly different. In his declaration of candidacy, Reagan repudiated Carter's calls for Americans to learn to live with limits and argued that the nation's crisis of confidence was not caused by a failure of spirit but by a failure of leadership.
Our leaders attempt to blame their failures on circumstances beyond their control, on false estimates by unknown, unidentifiable experts who rewrite modern history in an attempt to convince us our high standard of living, the result of thrift and hard work, is somehow selfish extravagance which we must renounce as we join in sharing scarcity. I don't agree that our nation must resign itself to inevitable decline, yielding its proud position to other hands. I am totally unwilling to see this country fail in its obligation to itself and to the other free peoples of the world. The crisis we face is not the result of any failure of the American spirit; it is failure of our leaders to establish rational goals and give our people something to order their lives by. If I am elected, I shall regard my election as proof that the people of the United States have decided to set a new agenda and have recognized that the human spirit thrives best when goals are set and progress can be measured in their achievement.
Reagan asserted that America's problems could be solved with sound leadership and policies rather than by placing limits and shouldering large sacrifices.
On 4 November 1980, Americans elected Ronald Reagan as their new president in an unprecedented landslide. Reagan won 50.8 percent of the popular vote, 489 electoral votes, and forty-four states, while Carter received 41.0 percent of the popular vote, 49 electoral votes, and six states and the District of Columbia. To that point in the twentieth century, only two elected incumbent presidents had failed to win a second term—William Howard Taft, whose party had split in 1912, and Herbert Hoover in 1932 during the Great Depression. Furthermore, Carter received the lowest percentage of the popular vote of any incumbent Democratic president in US history. Reagan asserted that he was a leader who could remove the roadblocks of government and help overcome the three issues he identified as undermining national confidence: a poor economy, an energy crisis, and a perceived weakness in defense. The election results appeared to validate Reagan and his roadmap for the future.
A "Referendum of Unhappiness" or a "Mandate to Rendezvous with Destiny"?
Despite the convincing victory, some post-election survey results suggested caution on the part of the new administration in interpreting its landslide victory as clear support for its conservative agenda. One conducted in January 1981 indicated that the election results were best construed as an overwhelming rejection of Carter and his administration, with 63 percent of respondents indicating the Reagan victory was mostly a rejection of the Carter administration, while only 24 percent answered that it was a mandate for Reagan's conservative policies. Carter's own polltaker characterized the election as "a referendum of unhappiness" on the president. Another pollster for Democratic candidates said that the 1980 results were indicative of "a call for order and stability" by Americans in the areas of foreign policy, world prestige, and the economy. "It [stability] was that side of the equation that people were buying into, not necessarily the change side."
Sources more generous toward the Reagan administration's agenda suggested that the dominant political ideology for the country had shifted to support conservative principles in solving the nation's urgent problems. Others went so far as to suggest that Reagan had received a mandate for his campaign pledge to "make America great again" in the world and for "dramatic economic innovation." In the end, the 1980 election was clear on what Americans disapproved—President Carter's leadership—but less clear on what it wanted or expected the Reagan administration to do differently.
Such an ambiguous outcome is not uncommon in American politics. V. O. Key and Milton C. Cummings, who studied the US electorate over a twenty-four-year period, posited that the electorate's role is best understood as an appraiser of past events. According to them, voters provide leadership direction only in so far as it is possible to see what actions citizens approved or disapproved in the past. Thus like its predecessors, the Reagan administration would have to figure out on its own what the electorate would allow.
Regardless, Reagan and his closest advisors entered office in January 1981 believing that the election had provided a mandate from voters to follow the domestic and foreign-policy agenda they had articulated during the campaign. In his first press conference, the president-elect was asked if he felt "totally wedded to the Republican Party platform" on which he had run, given the fact that he had received millions of independent votes. Reagan replied: "I am—I ran on the platform; the people voted for me on the platform; I do believe in that platform, and I think it would be very cynical and callous of me now to suggest that I'm going to turn away from it. Evidently, those people who voted for me—of the other party or independents—must have agreed with the platform also."
The Reagan Administration's Platform
At the heart of Reagan's platform was a promise to renew the nation's confidence to pursue its interests and to lead on the international stage. He identified America's poor economic outlook, strategic vulnerability, and weakness and vacillation under President Carter's indecisive leadership as the primary sources of the nation's faltering confidence. Reagan's promise of renewal would come through decisive leadership and the rebuilding and reasserting of US strength—economically and militarily.
Nevertheless, Reagan did not believe rebuilding economic and military power on its own was enough; in addition, a renewal of the American spirit and sense of purpose must also occur. An important component in that process of renewal was to rebuild confidence in the nation's ability to legitimately and decisively use the tools of statecraft—diplomatic, economic, and military—in pursuit of national interests.
Alongside Reagan's political rhetoric regarding the nation's security problems, one must also understand his interpretation of the nation's economic problems and his proposals to resolve them. As the administration made decisions regarding when and how it could pursue its policy objectives on the international stage, other agenda items, such as the economy, would play interrelated and influential roles.
Edwin Meese III, Reagan's counselor, recounted that on the administration's first day, everyone working in the cabinet knew what the president wanted to accomplish and understood the program he wanted to use. Meese explained that all knew the expectations because the ideas Reagan "spelled out in the campaign—and in all the years preceding it[—]were, essentially, the program. There wasn't the usual disparity between election rhetoric and governing agenda; what you heard was what you got." In an interview after leaving office, Reagan said, "I had an agenda I wanted to get done. I came with a script." That script was proclaimed by Reagan while on the campaign trail in 1980 to describe the economic and security problems facing the nation and how he proposed to resolve them if elected.
The Economy: The Problem and Reagan's Proposed Solution
In his speech at the Republican national convention in July 1979, Reagan metaphorically described the nation's economic problems: "First, we must overcome something the present administration has cooked up: a new and altogether indigestible economic stew, one part inflation, one part high unemployment, one part recession, one part runaway taxes, one part deficit spending and seasoned by an energy crisis. It's an economic stew that has turned the national stomach."
Many analysts agreed with his overall assessment, if not his specific diagnosis. The US economy was a mess in the 1970s, as was much of the world economy. Prices more than doubled in that decade, while output had only increased by two-thirds the rate of the 1960s. Unemployment kept creeping higher and was over 7 percent by 1980.
Throughout the presidential campaign, Reagan spoke about the nation's economic problems and offered a solution that rested upon two policies: cutting taxes and reducing government spending. Specifically, he called for a 30-percent reduction in income-tax rates over a period of three years and a hiring freeze and review of all federal programs. He told one audience in July 1980: "I believe it is clear our federal government is overgrown and overweight. Indeed, it is time for our government to go on a diet. Therefore, my first act as chief executive will be to impose an immediate and thorough freeze on federal hiring."
Justifying this governmental diet, Reagan invoked the Tenth Amendment, which he noted, "is explicit in pointing out that the federal government should do only those things specifically called for in the Constitution. All others shall remain with the states or the people." Reagan vowed to conduct a thorough review of the federal government and transfer unnecessary functions, and the sources of taxation to pay for them, to the state and local governments. He also promised to stop waste, extravagance, and outright fraud in federal agencies and programs and to place prudent limits on the regulation of business.
These proposals for cutting taxes and the size of the federal government were key components in what became known as "Reaganomics" or the "Reagan Revolution." Reaganomics rested on supply-side economic theory, which argues that tax cuts and deregulation afford businesses more capital that can be reinvested and turned into greater profits. Ultimately the increased profits increase tax revenues despite having lower tax rates. Supply-siders believe that taxation negatively affects the economy by lowering people's incentive to want to work, save, invest, and take risks. Craig Roberts, who served as Reagan's assistant secretary of the Treasury for economic policy and played a significant role in managing the administration's economic policy during its first two years, described the power in Reagan's supply-side platform: "It gave him an employment policy that did not rely on inflation and government programs. It gave him an anti-inflation policy that did not rely on the pain and suffering of rising unemployment. And it gave him a budget policy that eliminated the deficit through economic growth instead of balancing the budget on the backs of taxpayers." Reagan's optimism and belief in the capabilities of both the American people and the US economy contrasted greatly with the rest of the Republican establishment, prompting his primary opponent in the 1980 presidential campaign, George H. W. Bush, to call his policy "voodoo economics."
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Reagan on War by Gail E.S. Yoshitani. Copyright © 2011 Gail E. S. Yoshitani. Excerpted by permission of Texas A&M University Press.
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