Tests for Bush
SCHORR, DANIEL
Washington Notebook BY DANIEL SCHORR Tests for Bush The soul of a Presidency is sometimes revealed in its response to an unanticipated emergency. For George Bush, one-time Texas oil man...
...He was quoted in a May 1,1986, secret memorandum of his National Security Adviser, Admiral John M. Poindexter, as saying that he intended to emulate President Lincoln, who, without authority from Congress, blockaded Southern ports, jailed Confederate sympathizers and freed the slaves...
...Hardly anyone remembered that in 1972 the Nixon Administration opposed a trans-Canada pipeline to carry oil from the North Slope of Alaska overland to Chicago and instead pushed through Congress the route to Valdez, a port for supertankers...
...In Nicaragua, with an end run around Congress, it failed...
...He always stood by us...
...He did not confront Congress...
...You are defaming Brezhnev...
...At Notre Dame, in 1981, he stated that to spread freedom " we must be prepared to respond to opportunities as they arise and to create opportunities where they have not existed before...
...Since hundreds of miles of shoreline were coated with oil, and a slick covering a thousand square miles was being carried south by ocean currents, it is hard to know what was meant by " better control...
...He assigned Secretary Skinner to coordinate an effort involving Armed Forces personnel and equipment, the Coast Guard and the Environmental Protection Agency...
...Poindexter advised the National Security Council staff, including Lieutenant Colonel Oliver L. North, that "the President is ready to confront Congress on the constitutional question of who controls foreign policy...
...Before the British Parliament in 1982, he spoke of America "in the vanguard of this movement to foster democracy...
...That looked like the theme of his visit to Havana in early April, especially when it did not live up to the mostly self-generated expectations of the American media for some dramatic clash of ideology and ego...
...Comrade Castro, let me be equally frank...
...In fact, Reagan acted not in Lincolnian but in Nixonian fashion...
...I can imagine a conversation between Fidel Castro and Gorbachev that might have gone something like this: "Well, Comrade Gorbachev, you certainly have put my little country in the limelight...
...It is an urgent necessity if Socialism is to survive...
...You have stopped exporting revolution...
...We will make no deal over your head...
...Reagan said, "If we can't move the contra package [through Congress] before June 9,1 want to figure out a way to take action unilaterally to provide assistance...
...Shall we review this treaty of friendship reaffirming our fraternal solidarity...
...What Reagan did not state was how he proposed to honor that commitment when, as in the case of Nicaragua, it was opposed by Congress...
...And now...
...Ignoring the qualms of his counsel, C. Boyden Gray, about precedents in power-sharing, the President sought and obtained the approval of four Democratic committee chairmen to continue aid past November...
...So often President Bush's last word on the subject turns out not to be...
...We are, in any event, in a time when the superpowers seem inclined to disengage from confrontation in the Third World...
...Well, Fidel, I suppose we cannot resolve all our differences in one visit...
...This is the chapter of the "Reagan revolution" that has been closed with the bipartisan agreement on Central America...
...The oil stain in Prince William Sound suddenly seemed very remote to the national capital...
...I see you have brought your bourgeois friends from Yankee television—Tom Brokaw, Peter Jennings and Dan Rather...
...So, when the Americans announce linkage and say you have put the heat on us if you want arms control and help for the Soviet economy, what then...
...That, Comrade Castro, sounds almost insulting...
...It is my intention to tell Baker—when he comes to Moscow, if not before then— that we do not accept such linkage...
...Clearly, though, oil man Bush had debated with environmentalist Bush, and the environmentalist had lost...
...Your glasnost andperestroika strike an old-fashioned Communist as revisionist —almost counterrevolutionary...
...It was his concept of the unilateral, covert Presidency that provided at least the philosophical underpinning for the Iran-contra scandal...
...Solidarity forever, of course...
...President Bush seems to harbor no burning ambition to carry on Reagan's war of anti-Communist liberation...
...Your toleration of dissidents makes problems for me in Cuba, because we have some and they want to make you their hero...
...As to perestroïka, the old system of centralized control and quotas was breaking down in the Soviet Union...
...In Afghanistan, supported by Congress, the Reagan Doctrine succeeded...
...Well, Comrade Gorbachev, I wish there were greater solidarity...
...The agreement on Nicaragua may also mark the twilight of the period in American history denoted by the "Reagan Doctrine," which tended to subordinate the requirements of constitutional government to ideological zeal...
...We also have had difficulty reporting your competitive election, which elevates demagogues like Boris N. Yeltsin...
...But under pressure of the spreading disaster in Alaska, Bush called one of his short-notice news conferences on April 7 and announced that the Federal government would get involved in the oil cleanup after all...
...Undoing the 'Reagan Doctrine' Another test of the Bush Presidency, less unanticipated and more successfully met, was securing the Congressional leadership's support for a program of $4.5 million a month in nonmilitary aid to the contras until the scheduled Nicaraguan elections next February 28...
...Perestroika is not an experiment aimed at undermining Socialism...
...How can I be of assistance...
...For one thing, Comrade Gorbachev, by not negotiating with the American imperialists over our heads and by not selling us out...
...Finding that no one was effectively in charge during the first few days, he suggested that the Federal government might have to take control...
...The more pragmatic, management oriented Bush ordered a team of officials to Alaska to ascertain what was needed, apparently in preparation for a Federal takeover of command...
...Let us make sure to disappoint them by our display of Socialist solidarity...
...But, let us turn to the international scene—your problems in this region...
...You admire Khrushchev...
...Secretary of Transportation Samuel K. Skinner, on the team's return to Washington, said the situation seemed to be under "better control" and Federal action should be "held in abeyance...
...Responding with a firm "No" to the question of whether he would review controversial plans for oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, he told a group of reporters on March 31," Well, we have to transport oil...
...It seems not to be working so well in Cuba either, and I would remind y ou that we not only end up paying for both but we cannot afford to do so indefinitely...
...Bueno, here goes...
...His first reflex seemed to be to focus on the dire need to expedite and coordinate the cleanup...
...The very idea might seem anathema to a free enterprise Republican, heir to Ronald Reagan, who vowed to get government "off our backs...
...We are becoming increasingly dependent on foreign oil, and that is not acceptable to any President who is responsible for the national security of this country...
...Unilaterally...
...And the answer would be 'No.' That would be irresponsible...
...And I'm not sure you can ever design a policy anywhere to guard against [an accident like the collision of the Exxon ValdeA...
...But sometimes I feel like the last Leninist...
...Support for freedom fighters is self-defense...
...Then second thoughts intervened...
...He put missiles into Cuba and, when Kennedy got tough, he panicked, took his missiles out without consulting us and betrayed us...
...Perhaps you would like to invite a dissident to dinner the way Bush did in Beijing...
...What price little Cuba when superpowers make big deals...
...I am not here to instruct you, yet perhaps you can learn from our experience...
...he circumvented Congress...
...This agreement, together with the swift nomination of Richard ?. Cheney as Secretary of Defense in place of the rejected John Tower, came soon after I wrote my column for The New Leader dated March 6 and, I must acknowledge, dispelled much of the pessimism I reflected about the prospects for bipartisanship...
...Secretary of State Baker made that official...
...For us, when it comes to revolution, it is export or die...
...Perhaps you would like to elaborate...
...Si, senor...
...Finally, in his second inaugural address in January 1985, he enunciated the policy of aiding "freedom fighters" from Afghanistan to Nicaragua, saying, "We must not break faith with those who are risking their lives on every continent...
...Fidel (may I call you Fidel...
...But it would be helpful if you would act a little more accommodating on Central America.' "That's easy for you to say, Gorbachev...
...Fidel, we will not let you down...
...Reagan would probably have reacted to the disaster with a television speech comforting and reassuring Alaska and the nation...
...We will tell him that he must talk to you directly and not through us...
...Bush is ready to call of f the cold war with you, but not the cold war with Cuba...
...I must confess that we are gravely concerned about the course that you are pursuing at home...
...For George Bush, one-time Texas oil man and latterday environmentalist, such a test was the Alaska oil spill...
...In a series of speeches President Reagan developed a commitment to support anti-Communist resistance groups around the world...
...We have to censor your speeches for our public...
...Should we shut down the oil fields of Louisiana because of this...
...The logical suggestion would be, well, should we shut down the Gulf of Mexico...
...He wouldn't sell us out to the Americans for an arms pact...
...Your dissidents are your affair...
...they are here because they expect some dramatic break between us...
...Top-Level Takin Havana Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev also appears anxious to cool it in the Caribbean, among other regions...
Vol. 72 • April 1989 • No. 7
