Remonstrance in the Oval Office

You will recall that early in his Administration Ronald Reagan told his senior aides that he did not want any decision to be made or any action taken on the basis of whether it would help or hurt a potential second-term presidential bid by him. Since then, Reagan appears to have lived up to this gallant standard, and dramatically so in the gargantuan AWACS effort. Seldom, if ever, has any U.S. President risked so much political capital on one roll of the dice when the risk was—as in the case of AWACS—elu-dible. Such intrepidity has won him great respect around town, not only from supporters, but from intellectual and political adversaries as well. There are two qualities that everyone esteems Ronald Reagan for: 1) his psyche is eminently healthy (mirabile visu, in a politician), and 2) in the clutch he subordinates expedience to conviction.

Both were re-expressed, Winston is reliably advised, by the President in his hour-long remonstrance of Messrs. Haig and Allen in the Oval Office, the subject being The Feud. Reagan asked questions and listened a lot. Then he spoke to them with the bark on, i.e., in language of unsmooth surface, with several cutting edges. Look, he said, I was sent here by the American people to do a job. I take that responsibility very seriously, and 1 am not going to let anyone interfere with my doing that job, including either or both of you. Either you cut out the backbiting, or I’ll fire you. You leave me no other alternative. I am prepared to do that, and I couldn’t care less about bad press or public outcry or political damage. I’m not going to let politics—or anything— stand in the way of what the American people have told me to do. End of conversation. Lesson? Don’t fool with Mother Nature—or genial Ronald Reagan.

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You will recall that early in his Administration Ronald Reagan told his senior aides that he did not want any decision to be made or any action taken on the basis of whether it would help or hurt a potential second-term presidential bid by him. Since then, Reagan appears to have lived up to this gallant standard, and dramatically so in the gargantuan AWACS effort. Seldom, if ever, has any U.S. President risked so much political capital on one roll of the dice when the risk was—as in the case of AWACS—elu-dible. Such intrepidity has won him great respect around town, not only from supporters, but from intellectual and political adversaries as well. There are two qualities that everyone esteems Ronald Reagan for: 1) his psyche is eminently healthy (mirabile visu, in a politician), and 2) in the clutch he subordinates expedience to conviction.

Both were re-expressed, Winston is reliably advised, by the President in his hour-long remonstrance of Messrs. Haig and Allen in the Oval Office, the subject being The Feud. Reagan asked questions and listened a lot. Then he spoke to them with the bark on, i.e., in language of unsmooth surface, with several cutting edges. Look, he said, I was sent here by the American people to do a job. I take that responsibility very seriously, and 1 am not going to let anyone interfere with my doing that job, including either or both of you. Either you cut out the backbiting, or I’ll fire you. You leave me no other alternative. I am prepared to do that, and I couldn’t care less about bad press or public outcry or political damage. I’m not going to let politics—or anything— stand in the way of what the American people have told me to do. End of conversation. Lesson? Don’t fool with Mother Nature—or genial Ronald Reagan.