The On-Site Factor

...One does not havetobeanEdith Wilson, running the government in place of her stricken husband in 1919, to affect decisions...

...Although the flurry caused by the First Lady actively orchestrating, and then accelerating, the departure of Donald Regan as White House chief of staff has died down, she remains a factor to be reckoned with in what used to be called the corridors of power...

...President Reagan's last justification for the arms deal—that he had helped Iranian supporters of terror, but not terrorists—evaporated with word that $2 million or $3 million of the proceeds had landed in the Swiss bank account of the Global Islamic Movement, which bankrolled the hostage-holders in Lebanon...

...However, the Marshal stressed, verification had to be a two-way street allowing "on-site inspection by each side on the territory of the other...

...Yet, incredibly, for all the rehearsals, for all the assurances of briefing books studied and lessons learned, he still managed to make several misstatements...

...The President was in fairly good control of himself...

...The Marshal saw no problem with Americans witnessing the removal and dismantlement of SS-20 missiles, inspecting storage depots and production facilities, and making unannounced visits to suspected sites...

...In addition to Russian officers roaming around a Lockheed plant, that would mean commitments involving the Western European countries having missile sites— Britain, West Germany, Italy, and potentially the Netherlands...

...As though uncomprehending, or perhaps denying to himself, the titanic struggle Regan had waged for weeks to cling to his job, the President subsequently went on the radio and simply said his chief of staff had indicated "some time ago" that he would like to return to private life...

...When I see them at night, I talk with him about three minutes, and with her 20 minutes...

...It reportedly plied the Mediterranean carrying $30 million or $40 million in boxed hundred-dollar bills, to be used for the ransom of hostages...

...Furthermore, the cruise missiles deployed by the United States present an especially knotty problem: Short of looking inside them, there is no fool-proof way of knowing whether they contain nuclear charges...

...In fact, as McFarlane has clearly testified, he first discussed the proposal while visiting the hospital on July 18, 1985...

...It is too early to say theUSSR has called theU.S.' bluff on verification...

...It all came home to me when I read in Newsweek about the Danish-flag freighter Erria, one of the ships of Lieutenant Colonel Oliver L. North's "Democracy Project" fleet...

...Nonetheless, Soviet Party General Secretary Mikhail S. Gorbachev appears ready to challenge the Reagan Administration on openness to arms control inspection...

...A President's wife as counselor is no novelty...

...At the same time, power behind the throne must remain behind the throne if it is to enhance and not diminish...

...A carefully crafted Presidential speech on March 4, reacting to the Tower report, only whetted the capital's appetite to learn how Reagan would now perform without a teleprompter...

...The First Lady has gone back to exercising her influence inconspicuously, having come to realize that her centerstage role in the contest against Regan tended to defeat her purpose—to make the President look strong and decisive...

...Would that, perhaps, mean that the kidnappers felt entitled to be reimbursed for food and lodging...

...Now that has changed...

...During that strange period, at the end of February, it came out that Ronald Reagan was a passive participant even in such a matter as replacing his chief of staff...

...An American proposal for verifying a ban on medium-range missiles in Europe, notable for its intrusive features, has been met not with the old-time secrecy psychosis, but with a reciprocity demand the United States may have trouble meeting...

...Reagan made a point of observing that "there are other people who don't remember...

...McFarlane, he suggested, was confused about whether the decision to authorize Israel to ship arms to Iran had been communicated to the President in a visit to the hospital where he was recovering from surgery or in a telephone call...

...Finally, on March 19, he did appear for a news conference in an atmosphere redolent of a gladiator contest...

...In the Reagan Administration there is a constantly shifting balance between the quest for new agreements and the yen to scrap old ones, beginning with the ABM treaty, and get on with testing an antimissile defense in space...

...A report in the New York Times said the money was supposed to defray "expenses...

...During the Reykjavik summit last October, Secretary of State George P. Shultz' adviser, Paul Nitze, met separately with Marshal Sergei Akhromeyev, the Soviet chief of staff, to discuss a possible agreement on medium-range missiles...

...It is nice to know that people who call America "the great Satan" still have confidence in our currency, and that the Reagan Doctrine has made all this possible...

...It is time to give a name to this medium of exchange represented by dollars circulating among arms merchants, Iranian officials and terrorists...

...One wonders whether he had really come to grips with the responsibilities of his office," said former Secretary of State Edmund S. Muskie, appalled by Reagan's cloudiness before the Tower Commission, whose report recounted, as civilly as it could manage, a tale of chaos in the White House...

...The President's old friend, former Senator Paul Laxalt, had the selection of Howard Baker fixed up with the First Lady before going in to the Oval Office to say, "I have a name you should consider...

...Maybe the chairmanof Iran's Council of Experts, Hussein AU Moutazeri, and the Speaker of Iran's Parliament, Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who are rivals in the struggle to succeed the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, are hedging their bets with investments in a Cincinnati shopping mall...

...The INF negotiations in Geneva have been bogged down over the question of whether shorter-range missiles should be included in a medium-range treaty, and much is expected to depend on Shultz' visit to Moscow starting April 13...

...Meanwhile, as Congress prepares to launch its joint Senate-House hearings on the Iran-contra affair in May, the continuing sagaofclandestinecash seems to produce bizarre new revelations every week...

...His least significant error was putting "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" in the Constitution rather than the Declaration of Independence...

...And what have we come to when this must be noted...

...Reagan listened without reacting...

...Since 1955, when President Eisenhower suggested an "Open Skies" plan to Nikita S. Khrushchev at a Geneva summit meeting (and later implemented it unilaterally with U-2 spy planes), it has always been Soviet resistance to on-site inspection by foreign personnel that stood in the way of nuclear test and arms control agreements...

...Later in the day he telephoned McFarlane to give him a green light to proceed...

...Well, why not...

...At a meeting of the National Security Council on August 8, in the face of sharp disagreement, Reagan announced no decision...

...A Newsweek source said, "The assumption was that the money would end up in the United States...

...Would he repeat the disaster of his news conference last November 19...

...If Europeans used to hold "Euro-dollars" in olden days when dollars were a "hard currency," and if funds recycled into American investment from oil profits were "Retrodollars," then surely the currency of terrorism should be called the Terrodollars...

...Reagan permitted herself to gloat in public, telling the American Camping Association that she was an expert in getting rid of leeches...

...has been added to the peace side of the balance, perhaps decisively...

...Still, one can foresee the day when the Soviet propaganda machine will be reprocessing for use against the Reagan Administration a generation of scorn for Soviet footdragging and secreti veness...

...The Nancy Factor A summit session in Washington this year remains high on President Reagan's wish list, in part because it is high on Nancy Reagan's wish list for him...

...Nitze came away amazed at the USSR's willingness, in principle, to accept every condition he posed...

...Later, after he had consulted with his wife, the fait became accompli...

...The Soviets have been pressing for an Intermediate Nuclear Force (TNF) agreement by summer to pave the way for a Washington summit meeting in the fall...

...Apparently the dollars provided by the arms sale profits and assorted potentates flowed in and out again from the automatic teller in the White House, falling into the hands of friend and foe, freedom fighter and hostage holder, almost indiscriminately...

...There was a bad moment, after Regan's ouster, when Mrs...

...The President may still be confused, but McFarlane is not...

...The Reagan Factor "I had countless times with the President when I felt he wasn't absorbing what I was telling him," said Robert C. McFarlane, the former national security adviser, whom I interviewed on his release from Bethesda Naval Hospital after his suicide attempt...

...A California intimate told Time magazine, "You want something done, then talk to Nancy...

...Reagan may not know much about missile throw-weight (as Donald Regan said in one of his varied indiscretions, women seldom do), but her considerable personal weigh...