Transcripts For CSPAN3 Working In The Reagan Administration 20170325

Be more informal recollections about what it was like working in the administration for president himself and the atmosphere at the time. Each of our panelists will offer 10 to 15 minutes of prefatory comments, and then we will turn it over for q a. Especially for the historians, my fellow historians in the room, this is your time to do the expert interviews you have been wanting to do. Introducing my three panelists, the man who needs no introduction. I mean that literally, because i introduced him three hours ago. Ambassador ken adelman. For our purposes here, he served as one of president reagans ambassadors to the u. N. And was also a troubleshooter in another way. I want to talk to you about your role in putting together the iran contra. In the middle here, again, a man to those of us who here in austin and many other americans, admiral bob inman. He holds the centennial chair, a alum of thent Reagan Administration as well. He was the nsa director and was referenced by one of the speakers in the earlier panel, and then was the Deputy Director of Central Intelligence for the first few years of the administration. And admiral, i do not know if i have told you this before, but a couple of years ago, i came across a fascinating letter from Barry Goldwater to then president elect reagan to urge him to appoint admiral inman to be the director of the cia. I will just leave it at that. Andes to me is closest to me now is dr. Henry nau, one of the directors of Economic Affairs for the first he was the senior director of the Economic International Affairs for the first several years. Before we turn it to the panelists, we have an enormous breadth of expertise represented on the panel. Henry worked at the white house. Then admiral inman and master itll men as various agencies. It they all spam the first and second term, so we have a pretty good breadth of experience. We will start with ambassador aleman adelman. Mr. Adelman i will be, as henry viii was with his various wives, i will be brief. Because i had my time. I will mostly react to things that were said. Let me say and react first to the panel. Before, there was a wonderful, wonderful panel. So kudos for everyone in it and for willow for putting it together here at the clements center. The whole question of agency and how much a president actually does is an age old question. At home, i have all of the Time Magazine persons of the year since 1927, because i believe that people really do make history and really do change things. Of the flowtoy idea of the times is, i think, a good excuse for those getting in and flowing. Who really do not want to change much. There is a big difference between transactional president s and transformational president s. A transactional president is an inbox president. And a transformational president oneutbox president who really wants to make a change. In my area, as i said in the talks, the fact is there were four pillars of Ronald Reagans strategy. Whether he thought this was a strategy or not, i have no idea. Whether he really put the 4 together, i have no idea. But they were very distinct. Number one was the delegitimization of the soviet leadership. Started the First Press Conference he had as president. They lie, cheat, steal to further their aims, and ended with his speech to the nation right when he left office. And the suspicion about the soviet leadership and the system was prevalent. No other president had done anything like that. Nixon, carter, nobody had done delegitimized the soviet union like that. It was not done. It was brandnew. Second was, like i say the , overall defense buildup. That, i concede, was more of a republican view than anything at that time. So i would say it out of the four, that is the closest anyone would have done was as ever public and president. Number three is the fbi. That would not have happened without Ronald Reagan. People at ask all the time, at reykjavik, people were trying to get reagan to accept gorbachevs talking. But to tell you the truth, the issue never came up. Why . Because reagan knew what he wanted. He did not want the fdi to be cashiered in any respect. So that was pretty well set with him. So these kind of factors were from reagan and from his thoughts. The fourth was, of course, the real reduction in Nuclear Weapons. Not the limitation of increases. Again, nothing that carter ever thought of or wanted or advocated. Nothing that nixon ever thought of or wanted or advocated. Nothing that ford ever thought of or advocated. Nothing that we in the business ever thought was doable. But it was startling, and reagan insisted on it. Out of those four things, at least three and a half of them are unique to Ronald Reagan. No one else would have done that. The second overall point i would make is on the very good panel before us, which i learned a lot from, the question of the human rights. A very nice job on that. But i would make three overall points. Number one, the rap that Ronald Reagan, in retrospect, gets for really going after human rights against communism, not against authoritarian south african, south american bad guys around the world. I think it was totally justified. Authoritarian dictators never massacred tens of millions of people as communism did. Authoritarian governments can change. South korea goes from authoritarian government to a free government. Taiwan goes from authoritarian government to a free government. Chile goes to an authoritarian government to a freer government. Communist till the end of the cold war never changes. So i think the idea lets really stress human rights against communism rather than against authoritarianism, i think it is totally justified. Second overall point on human rights is i am sure it is in your paper, but this is a gigantic factor. The gigantic factor is, of course iran. , the shah was a bad guy. Khomeini is much worse. Ronald reagan comes in, he is sworn in 30 years ago, and that day was when the hostages were released from iran. There was a trauma in the United States about iran. There was a clear evidence that if you go, like carter did, to remove, all too late, the shah, you get something maybe a lot worse. You know what . In iran . You got something a lot worse. People said it could not be worse. By the way, it was. I was very fortunate that, at the inauguration i went to the inauguration. I had a blacktie party at my own house. The night of the inauguration, i had my parents in town, my brothers, my wife, jeanne kirkpatrick, george will, rumsfeld, the cheneys, all kinds of people we were friendly with kid it was so cool, because that night, i left my own blacktie party and went over with jimmy carter, who welcome exhostages, the who had just been released. But the idea of the experience in iran was a gigantic overhang for the human rights situation. During the Reagan Administration. The third point i would make is you have to grade on the curve on human rights. Carter spoke about the human rights policy. I do not know if it was any different than the reagan policy. Iran ased the shah of an island of stability in a turbulent area. I do not think that was great human rights. I do not remember carter taking a stance on south africa, south america, or other places. That was radically different from the reagan situation. Speeches thanmore reagan did on human rights, but i do not see any policy. Do i see the difference is i do not want to give a rap on carter i do not see any differences in other president s. President obama talk to but human rights. For a longto mubarak time, when everyone thought he was on his way out. He had acceptances, certainly the most horrendous Human Rights Violations since world war ii, to tell you the truth, in syria, of which obama did nothing. I cant imagine a human rights situation where you have over a half a Million People in this situation, and an american president is basically mentioning a futile as a few that is atsk tsk, terrible thing but not doing anything about it. I think that is the most horrendous human rights record i have seen since world war ii. Those are my views on the past. Really quickly, i would have to say that working for Ronald Reagan was a delight. I was very lucky, because he was interested in certain things and he was not interested in a lot of things. There was sort of an odd situation in that i was lucky that he cared about my field. And he cared enormous for about my field. The year i was sworn in as arms control director, from the United Nations 1983, a very eventful year of which there were no talks ongoing, i went over to the white house i think withhing like 38 times meetings with the president. Almost once a week. I can imagine what it would be like if we had ongoing talks. There was always something. On the other hand, the reason for these meetings was because Ronald Reagan was interested in something. He liked to talk about it. When you look at the thousands or so Radio Broadcasts he did , thee becoming president years as governor and the for president , you think of the hot button issues that people used to get elected, especially together nomination in the republican party. And they were god, guns, and gays. The 3 gs. Ronald reagan spoke of practically none of them in the thousands of Radio Broadcasts. Abortionned i think was one out of 1000. Gun control may have been one. I do not know. And gays was none. Issuesere the hot button to the electorate. School prayer and all of those things. But they were not to Ronald Reagan. Over half of his talks were about soviet affairs or arms control. Them andd to choose did choose them. So it was i was lucky he was interested in this field. He knew what he knew. And he knew what he did not know. At reykjavik, as i said in my remarks, he asked the experts to get together that night. E gave us the overall view reduce by half. Try to get the soviets to go along. How that would be done. He was happy with whatever solution we came up with to do followed the as we overall thought and guidance we have. On fdi, which was really the hot button issue in reykjavik, he did not ask our opinion. He did not need our opinion. He had his own opinion. And he really led the way on sdi, which was his program rather than our program. Thank you, will. Mr. Inman gerald ford does not get the credit he deserves on human rights. He included that in the helsinki accords. When we talk later to those who survived the time, they said it is what gave them hope that there was external support that would eventually lead to the communist losing power. Minor reminiscences of a very nice individual who was approachable, likable, easy to work with. I First Encountered him at a place called bohemian grove. I was the guest of george h. W. Bush who was making a lakeside appearance. This is critical if you are aiming toward hoping to run for the presidency. There was a luncheon after the speech at bushs camp. Us there ashree of his guest. Us, governor reagan spotted he got the platform and he told barbarytory of the pirates and standing up to fight. When he finished, mr. President bush turned to him and said dam, he is good. Fastforward. The next encounter was the day after he had taken the oath of office. I had been approached in late november. Would i consider being the Deputy Director of Central Intelligence . I said hal, no. Said, hell, no. I was getting ready to retire. I was passing up promotion opportunities for people i had helped along. I went out to australia for a visit, got pulled out of a meeting, and he said you have to take this job. I said i was not going to. And then i got back from that trip and i had my First Encounter with weinberger. He persuaded me to go to the dci, he offered me a job in the pentagon. I thought it was exciting until my wife asked me if i was crazy. I turned it down and thought things were behind us. I was so immersed with president carter on the final negotiations for getting the hostages out. In fact, my last conversation with carter as president as the president elect is sitting next to him in the limo was to tell them that hostages were in the aircraft but not permitted to take off until carter was no longer president. Next morning, the secretary runs in and says the president is calling. I thought it was carter following up, but it was the president. He could not have been more charming. He went through the whole rationale. When they lost new hampshire, he invited bill casey to run his political campaign. He asked me what job i would like in the administration. Responded, if i cannot be secretary of state, director of Central Intelligence. They laughed. Go forward to tuesday night in november, and it is clear he won. Ey and says, are you ready to be director of Central Intelligence . He said, only if i cannot be secretary of state. [laughter] about an hour later, the phone rang. It was congratulations for winning the elections. He had one were crossed one request. I have a candidate for the director of Central Intelligence. He responded that he had already given the job to bill casey. There was a long silence. They thought about how to deal with it, and the president said i got more calls generated by about you than anyone else. Someone suggested doing a shotgun marriage where inman was the deputy. So, we did that. Now, we are in office, and speaking as your commanderinchief, i need you to take the job as bill caseys deputy. Under the circumstances, mr. President , i would be honored. Hopefully no more than 18 months, two years. He agreed to that, and then he thanked me. That is how this ersatz career ended up. It was very strange. I was confirmed on the 13th of february. When i took up the job, i was still the director of the National Security agency until the 30th of march, and we saw more problems between those two agencies in that six weeks. I learned about sending letters back and forth by the doe. Casey wanted to run totally different than any past director. Normally, the director deals with the outside world, and the deputy runs the agency. That was not what he wanted to do. He wanted to personally run the clandestine service, covert operations, and the analytical side. He did not want to do anything with a science, technology, administration, any of the community stuff. I had been in the job for six days, and i got a call that the president wanted to see me. I go down, and it was very simple and direct. It was the first time he ever called me by my first name. He said, bobby, bill told me you were going to do everything with regard to budgets and the rest, rebuild the Intelligence Community, and spend whatever you need to spend. Frank, you decide where to put it in the Defense Budget to make it happen. You could not have had more clear or simple guidance. We made a fiveyear plan and found that the drawdowns have limited the Training Establishments and had no real limits about how much you could rebuild or at what pace. Because he had asked for cabinet status, bill had been granted that which meant i was subcabinet. Casey never went to a Cabinet Meeting or an nsc meeting in the 18 months i was there. I went all of them. The only thing he went to was the National Security planning group, where they had the approval of covert offenses that were done. It was fascinating to sit up at the angle and watch the president. He was amazingly relaxed. What i picked up by the second or Third Session was the role meese was playing. You had 10 minutes ago, and he would ask questions. The president would pick up his pencil, and the president would summarize the meeting. When he summarized were the ses questions. He knew he would get the essence of what was important. There were so many encounters. He loved to tell jokes. He did not need joke writers. He was natural. Early on, there was still separate men and womens press corps. Had six press corp new members, and they were all trying to be funny. The senator from new york said that the president knew i was going to solve the budgets deficit and show his old movies at the white house. They all finished, the president goes up, looks down at them, and says, if my movies made that kind of money, i wouldnt he here. [laughter] that was just his nature and his ease with dealing with them. He was not interested in the details unless they were pertinent to something that was on his mind, and he would pursue them, grasped them, and hold onto them. We were meeting about a year in, and he made a comment that nothing useful to the u. S. Had ever come from arms control agreements. Mr. President , i would like to suggest maybe sometimes there were. What . I talked about how they made the decision, given the limit, to do ssbns and do more mobile missiles as you came to deal with. He said no one has ever told me that. He picked it up and used it. It was classic. When he saw something, he would change his mind if he accepted the plausibility and move with it. The shift in his dealing with the soviet union posed a substantial debt to margaret thatcher. Gorbachev had come to power. Thatcher was the first one to meet gorbachev. She called the president and said, ronnie, this is someone we can work with. That began a process. At this point, i was on my way week,ut, my departing mrs. Thatcher had called. They had concluded that they urgently needed to be able to stage to Ascension Island to be able to support the foreign the forward deployment. It was an island that had been leased out to the nsa for collection purposes. We were being told this, and ambassador kirkpatrick at the u. N. Said, oh, mr. President , you cannot approve that. Oh, mr. President , you cannot approve that. It would destroy the hemisphere solidarity. Again, one of those unfortunate outburst, what hemispheric solidarity . The british have been with us since the war of 1812. He turned and said sorry, tell maggie she can move Ascension Island. One final note, it was clear from the beginning he focused on people and what motivated people and what the influences were on people. Knowing he was going to head for dialogue with the soviets, i introduced a character into the mix called suzanne massie. She was the former wife of a naval officer and had written a book called the land of the firebird. It is a magnificent book on russian art history. The soviets hated they did not get any credit for it. I recommended they bring her in to brief the president. He was taken with it, and have and had her back several times. She was the one who was insistent that the Intelligence Committee was totally wrong especially on religion. Communism has wiped it out. She says it is still alive, it is submerged in the process. Fastforward to george w. Bush with putin. He had been briefed that in fact, putin were across that his wore a cross that his mother a given him. When george asked him, putin showed him the cross. We had a year were things worked and one where they didnt. I am rambling too long, but what i meant convey was the warmth of the individual. How sharp the mind was, and, by and large, how little interest he had in details a broad he had in details. Broad policy. The contrast with president carter could not be more to distinct. Carter wanted every detail. It was quite the adjustment. Finally, on his attitude when he first got in office, during the transition, they brought the to the west coast. He told reagan that he was going to be challenged militarily by the soviets in his first year in office. That was why when they came to washington, Central America got a great deal more prominence , because they believed it was not just castro but it was the soviets. A cautionary note about who gets access to a president elect and talks to him during that transition. I better stop there. Mr. Nau when will told me about six months ago that he was thinking about a conference on reagan, i simply said to him, how long can i stay . There arent that many such events going on in the academic world, certainly not at our annual conventions in any case. I think this is extremely worthwhile opportunity. I am also humbled to be on this panel with these distinguished gentleman. It is probably the reason why i am not wearing a tie. But let me make a few comments about my impressions of reagan when i was in the white house. I was in the Transition Team and then in the beginning of the Reagan Administration through the fall of 1983. We ran a small shop, about five people on the international, economic side of things, and dealt largely with his domestic Economic Policy. Also its ramifications on the international policy. The summit process at that time, g7, was extremely important for both forcing us to think systematically about our own domestic policies and try to project to the other allies, and an effort to coordinate the policy. Those did not occur once a year, but about six or eight times a year. We had meetings once a month and exchanges back and forth. I was on the American Team under the secretary of Economic Affairs and the undersecretary of Monetary Affairs in the treasury department. I did not meet reagan until the early 1980s, february, when he came to washington after i had been asked to serve on the Foreign Policy advisory board. My First Impressions were very favorable. This was a meeting at the csis on k street, and we had assembled maybe 50 of us. The minute reagan walked i had never seen him personally but when he walked into the room, i often wondered what was it that struck me about him . He always surveyed the room when he walked in. He never just went to his seat. He walked in, looked around, made eye contact, anyhow is had and he about him always had this smile about him and his stature. Ive thought about that a lot over the years in writing about him, and i think one of his attributes as a leader at in this kind of situation was his presence and the concept of his presence. It is an actors concept. And so, he would fill the room with his presence. That was to some extent part of his charisma. He also made a comment that evening that endeared him to me as well. We were specifically about the policy aspects of what he would be doing if he was elected in february 1980. He said, look, i have plenty of people helping me with the campaign. I want you to think about what i should be doing once i get to the little white house down the street. He said, you know what . If i do not get into the white house, who needs it at my age . That could have been interpreted as a flippant comment, but i turned that as this was not about Ronald Reagan. This was about the country. There was some kind of selflessness. He was selfconfident, but not narcissistic in any way. Very comfortable in his own skin, and genuinely because of what he believed the ideas he had developed over the years. This sounds strange when you think of Ronald Reagan, because his image is one of an amiable dunce. At least, that was how he was identified when he came to washington by his critics. But he was extremely bright. I would urge people to examine the record and go back and look at his days in college. He was a very bright guy who had a very good memory who is interested in lots of things. He read lots of things and in some ways unusual things. One of the things im working on currently is to put together what he read when and look at memoirs of people he was dealing with at that time. Like in his early hollywood years to see if they remember any of the conversations they had with him, because he was reading so much and was so interested in political questions when he was in hollywood. Bill holden tells a story during , when he camears into the cafeteria, people would try to sit someplace where he would not join them, because they did not want to have the debate and talk about politics during the course of the meal. The man was a good deal more intellectually active, and i think the record what we have now discovered in terms of the writings that he did, the speeches in the 1960s, the letters that he wrote, so far there have been more than 10,000 letters collected that Ronald Reagan wrote. Handwritten. Indeed, all handwritten. Jefferson only wrote 18,000 day that wasin his the only way to communicate. A manfully, he said, who writes a lot things a lot, and someone who thinks a lot probably has read a lot. There were a number of time for reagans press secretary asked if he would release the books he was reading . Reagan refused. He would say that was not necessary. Substantivesome books over the years. I mention this and emphasized that, because for those of you who are looking at the archival records and so on and be aware or at least double check any time you want to reach the conclusion it was not reagan who was doing this or have these ideas, but one of his staff people because reagan had a unique way of interacting with his staff. If you look at the issues he was concerned about, and in my case the economic issues, reagan needed every one of his staff people when thinking about Economic Policy. He did not need anyone. He needed them all. He was the only one who put together the pieces. When you think about Economic Policy, he had supply sliders, he had monetarists, he had trade andservatives, trade liberalization, all of these groups. His strategy had a way of putting those things together, and that story has been told. I have told it, by the way in a book that was published in 1990 by oxford called the myth of americas decline. It is a detailed account. I was going to raise it up. Will, you save me a little bit of embarrassment here with my little selfpromotion. But, there was a strategy. The most important thing to read when you are looking at those early years with reagan policies, whether it is Economic Policy or Energy Policy or anything, go into the nscds. Bill clark did in a normas job in enormous job as the National Security adviser for Ronald Reagan because he organized more than 100 National Security directives that were done during that times. Every one of those with a three or four months process will be brought together the agencies and try to integrate and organize reagans ideas with the details and responsibilities with the different agencies. Some of those, especially with ones with respect to the soviet union, are getting some attention, but there are a lot more in there. On the summit, i would urge them to read the memos that went to the president before those major summit meetings. There were three of them i was involved in. And there was a first summit with developing countries, which was a precursor of the g 20. It was the developing countries in october of 1980. This started with an intense, wonderful book. You have to read it. I was struck by the williamsburg summit. It was in fact the reykjavik summit of Economic Policy. It was a summer where we had some severe conflicts of the butes at versailles, williamsburg was where we got together and really began to see where we were going. From that summit, which had an annex, and details the kind of policy we were going to pursue. The french, within six months, were pursuing many of those policies. It became the basis for the washington consensus which format forimf Economic Policy in the that set 1980s. Out a very coherent set of economic policies that more or spread to other countries and many other developing countries. It coincided with one of the biggest booms that i call the great expansion. Not the great moderation. The great expansion that took place between 19802010. We have real, annual gdp growth during at that point in the world of about 3 . The chinese kept growing very effectively. You have to ask yourself the question, how did this happen . We have already heard this afternoon, and im sure we will hear it tomorrow and the next day, about all the factors that could have perhaps caused this. Maybe the first question ought these outcomes do they cause . Dont look for factors come because there are hundreds out there. Dont look for those that might account for why these things would have occurred, even without those agents. Ask questions about what the agents did and what did they think . How did they implement their thoughts, and here you need to trace reagans ideas into the policies he put in place. How do those change structures . Changed circumstances . In the case of the information revolution, which some people regard as the reason why the economy came back in the 1980s, the question is what it have come back if we had not revitalize the economy that existed in the industrialized countries and the developing world in the 1970s . Remember that . That was the whole decade of stagnation. No growth and high inflation, increasing trade protectionism, commodity pricing out of control. A very bad era, and somehow that got turned around. I think you could make a case, and i tried to make that case in my book, that reagan has something to do it that. About due to how agents think about a policy, whether or not the policies they can lament are consistent, and whether or not they can be linked in some reasonable way with outcomes. You can develop a nation which does not depend an explanation which does not depend upon this notion of things happening this way anyway. Why is it important, i suppose to Pay Attention to the role of, in this case, Ronald Reagan, who had some very clear ideas he formulated over a long stretch of time, put them into policies, and they coincided with outcomes we might have predicted on the basis of those policies. Every time we had moments where we have implemented policies like reagan did, monetary supplyside policy, some deregulation not massive but some, and trade liberalization every time where we had policies like that, we have extraordinary growth. Under harding, we had growth of 14 in 1922. If you look at william hardings policies that he put into place in 1921, took over a very stagnant economy from wilson. We had a boom in the course of the 1920s. It happened again under kennedy, and under reagan. Will happen again under trump . There is a good question for us to think about. There are many reasons it doesnt look like it will. Nevertheless, they try to make that case for agency before you revert to structure. The reason for doing that, just to make policy accountable, because it rings happen and agents are not important in terms of what happens, then you cannot hold leaders accountable. You have to look to faith, i suppose, or whatever those developments are you are pointing to that leaders either adjust to and succeed or do not adjust to and failed. Where did those general and structural changes come from . Reagans legacy, a final thought about that. I wonder about it, because i know, from my own personal experience in the academic world, there are very few people in the academic world who served in the Reagan Administration. By contrast, there are a lot of academic people who served in the Clinton Administration from earlier in the carter administration. There will be many coming out from the obama administration, including david axelrod, who is running in institute for politics at the university of chicago. They will be turning out a lot of legacy stuff on obama. Not much of that is being done on reagan. Ways, i thinky one of the most extraordinary president s we have had in the history of the country. Let me identify those two factors. First of all, he is one of five president s who led the country through an existential crisis. You have washington, lincoln, wilson, roosevelt, all dealing with wars, and reagan dealing with, in effect, the preemption of a war. The preemption of the cold war. Much more difficult to do, by the way, than to manage in some sense, and much more commendable , than to manage a war after it breaks out. Reagan preempted a war. Second, he is one of eight president s who was reelected twice and turned over the white house to his own party, which suggests not only that he was able to engineer outcomes, but he was able to bring the public along with him. He retired, of course, with a 68 approval rating. Only three of those other eight, by the way, were founding fathers. Jefferson, madison, and washington. Five of them included lincoln, mckinley, roosevelt, of course, and now reagan. In the 20th century, reagan is the only president other than roosevelt who was reelected twice and turned the white house over to his own party. I think that says something about both of those things in terms of what he accomplished and how he was able to bring along public opinion. It is the extraordinarily leadership of this individual. I will leave it at that. I will open it up to questions. Exec. Director inboden lets turn it over to the audience for two quick things. Of nancyxt, the role reagan. They had an immensely close and loving relationship. She was devoted to him, and determined to protect yourself. So, the instruction, the day we began the 21st of january, 10 hours a day, the president is available. If there is an evening function, that comes out of the 10 hours. She was unbending on that. It does bring discipline, and that is the second individual, jim baker, in the skill with which he brought time management. In the first year, many of the events were domestic. By the eighth year, 90 for were international. The impact of those two individuals around him in which the policies and developed. Exec. Director inboden we would turn it over to questions. I will ask that you wait until you get the microphone to ask your question. Please identify your name and institution for our friends at cspan. Hi, good evening. Thank you so much for the terrific talk. Im from the hebrew university. I am here with my colleague. We coauthored a paper on the Reagan Administrations reaction s and thoughts to the israeli strike in june of 81. There are several questions that interest us. I will maybe limit myself to one and a half. How was the strike actually perceived by the president himself and his close advisers . We have seen several accounts, and they seem to be clashing. There is a revisionist account which we have our own take on, but i would be very, very much interested in hearing your thoughts on it. Was it framed as a huge success in the frame of nonproliferation . Or was it framed as a stab in the back by an ally that did not consult before launching it . We will stop here so other people can have their time. Thank you. Mr. Adelman i couldnt hear the question. Exec. Director inboden what did you observe of president reagans response about israels response to the Iraqi Nuclear attack in june of 81 . There are competing accounts about if president reagan was upset about it or if he was supportive of it. Mr. Adelman surprised. The entire u. S. Government was surprised. Looking at 800 miles, the absolute outer limits of the aircraft to reach, do the strike, and come back, that meant Precision Targeting information. Only britain and israel could automatically requisition satellite photography. No one else could ask for. The question then was what is israel doing in the last six months . There were a lot of other potential targets as well. The decision, i took, was to constrain the automatic requisitioning. 200 miles, anything, that was defending. Four offensive purposes, they had to ask. Sharon was so furious, he came to the u. S. To try and overturn that. It was weinbergers strong support that kept it in place. The actual dialogue with the president about it was from weinberger. But it was a reaffirmation of that ifeady knew israel considered it to be potentially lifethreatening, they would not ask for permission. Ct. Y would a i do not believe that has fundamentally changed to the present time. Mr. Nau i was at the u. N. It was watered down to almost nothing, that it was not nothing. It was something. It is a situation where she could not stand voting for mild, almostt was unseeable condemnation of israel. But it was still antiisrael. I think Ronald Reagan, if i had to guess, i dont know, thought that the attack was totally justified. Part of the argument was that it was a preemptive attack. The nuclear reactor, as you know very well, had not gone critical. Why do you not just wait until it goes critical . The counter argument was very simple. Would you be happier if they went critical . Any cold that would happen in the middle east would be blamed on israel for putting all of this radiation in the air. I always thought that was kind of a stupid argument to tell you the truth, but i never heard Ronald Reagan say a word against it. I heard some speak against it and vote against it though. Exec. Director inboden henry, i know you were in the white house at the time. Mr. Nau i do not remember anything from that particular incident or stretch of time, but i remember reagans reaction of the versailles summit to be israeli invasion of lebanon, which occurred on the second day of that summit. Later on, immediately he changed the subject of the conversation, and the europeans, one after the other, came out strongly against what israel was doing. I remember the president jumped in and said, look, we need to look at the facts here. We need to see the kind of circumstances they were facing and not jump to conclusions. He was very protective, you could say, in that situation. Exec. Director inboden but after a while, he turned against it . Mr. Nau yes. Exec. Director inboden other questions . And here comes the microphone. I would love to hear your thoughts about Ronald Reagan and the iran contra issue. [laughter] if i could add one thing on this, the timing is eerie. As you may know, iran contra broke three weeks after reagan took office, so you have this summit where administrations are rising high, john dexter were the picture, and he was governor quickly after that. I had the same question. For the cameras, i am from the that was a professor from the university of virginia. Mr. Inman i was not there. But the president began his morning with the senior staff. Rather than intelligence coming to brief, the National Security advisor did, as does the left of the shift from mcfarland of poindexter. They ran through 10 or 12 items that had gone on. The president was doing good, but jim baker would stop it to say, how . When . What happened . The president would listen very carefully to what was spread spelled out. Then, you would have the bakerreagan shift. In reagans reaction, if the president said good, he was a he would say great. What the president lost in that change was somebody listening carefully as they are slipping pretty quickly through all of the things they are doing to raise questions. I suspect poindexter, and, by the way, we found the solution for funding. The president would say good. ,f he had still been there there would have been a discussion about what he was doing, and it would have surfaced in the process. It was the impact of a shift in principle advisors, and how they supported him. Of irancontrad from the flight back. In,hursday night, we came saturday, we didnt we did not get much sleep. Then i was asked late in the afternoon on sunday to go on the press plane and brief them the whole way back. Which was a pain in the neck, to tell the truth. I was probably largely incoherent. One of the reporter said, can i talk to you a minute . She promised everybody that it was just a subject not related to russia, the soviet union, or arms control at all. It was something totally different, so they let it go. I went to the other side of the plane, which was very noisy by the way, and she said i have this report about exchanging arms for hostages in the middle east. It came out of lebanon newspaper. I said, i dont know anything about it, dont take my word for anything, and, it sounds crazy. Sorry, cant help you. I continued to think it was kind of crazy and did not make any sense. Billays thought about casey and how he could allow Something Like that. It did not make any real sense to me to put Ronald Reagan in to me. To put Ronald Reagan in the picture, he had a soft side to him. Would take a relative of the hostages within into the oval office. Is a terrible thing for a leader to do, because you see them and you think you need to do something. People are being held hostage, what can i do . Then, you roll in with investor with poindexter and mcfarland, coming up with schemes about what they could do. It just led to very bad things. I think it would not have happened had reagan been otherwise advised. It would not have happened if reagan had the whole story. Poindexter was manipulative in his job. Mcfarland was looking for a way to be the Henry Kissinger of the middle east. A breakthrough with iran on it. As you said, will, i was in the arms control business and good friends with frank gallucci, who at thanksgiving had called me up after having thanksgiving dinner in North Carolina with my brother, and the president wants you to be National Security advisor tomorrow. Would you be my Transition Group . It was the worst job i have had in my life. What you did is you find out that the National Security whole group and nsa staff, which was then about 120. Now it has ballooned up. A lot of them have been there for six years. It was time for some new blood. A lot of them were responsible for all kinds of operations. That the job was not for the operations. Right after thanksgiving, for the next month, basically what i did was guillotine work. It was awful. B, andan office in the eo i remember calling in person after person and telling them that after six years we wanted them to find another job in the agency or outside of government. In essence, firing them. One afternoon was a heavy meeting schedule with very bad timing. Eob to had come into the sing Christmas Carols. So, there i am in the office while you hear these Christmas Carols outside my door. It was absolutely horrendous. Anyway, frank did not take the job because of various things. So, i was to lead the office when he got there. It was really a terrible, terrible position. I did it, and i thought it was the right thing to do. Thing ass the right well for someone else to do besides myself to tell you the truth in retrospect. The overall answer to the question is i think it was a real dark spot on the Reagan Administration. Nothing to be proud of. I think the president was ultimately responsible, as was said time and time again, but it came out of this idea of, i have to do something for these people. We have a question in the back. Hold on for a second. The microphone is moving get your way. Again, please identify yourself. Thank you for giving us this amazing talk. My name is brian gibson. I study u. S. Iraq relations. I know these questions seem to be focusing on iraq and iran. I have another one that is along those lines. Starting in 1983, the iraqi s started using chemical weapons against iran. They used it through war all the way up until the end. I am really curious about how that affected your job dealing with arms control as chemical weapons falls under that purview. How did it really affect you . How did it affect president reagan . What were his thoughts . Was it ever brought to his attention . Mr. Adelman yes, it affected everything. Not in the way and wanted to to be affected, to tell you the truth. There was clear evidence from the Intelligence Community that this was taking place. Saddam hussein was fighting with khomeini. Khomeini had started the war, basically although that is in dispute. The fact was anything was better than khomeini at that point because of his total hostility. Saddam hussein was seen as a monster, but he was in some respects cooperative to the United States in various realms. I, as director of arms control, wanted to at least sanction our relationship with iraq because of the chemical weapons. We were then promoting a ban on chemical weapons. Production as well as use. On production. Something that did happen years after i left office, but we started that in 1983. George Herbert Walker bush went to geneva with ideas on banning the production of chemical weapons. So, i thought it was just ally hypocritical to have proposing a ban on Nuclear Weapons that had been banned from use for 50 years, and agreeing not agreeing, but going along with iraq on the use of chemical weapons. I had argued about that with the state department. I personally argued with George Scholz on the issue. He told me, nothing is worse than khomeini. Saddam hussein is a terrible person, but has cooperated with us in several ways, so we will not abruptly change our policy. It was really a choice at that time between iran and iraq. You surely know a lot more about it than i do. Probably a Million People died in the war, Something Like that. 360,000 casualties were killed. [inaudible] mr. Adelman much higher, one million, or Something Like that. The idea was you had to choose one or another. You cannot just stand back and let it happen. I was very much in favor of sanctioning, doing something. I remember there was even a meeting about iran and iraq, or about the middle east, where i made my case. There was a narrow case. I was not secretary of state. I was just arms control director looking at the use of bad weapons. So, when scholz, who did not appreciate my views, and understandably so, contradicted what i said, and i was quite mad about it, i understand his point of view as well. He was looking at a larger perspective than i was involved with. I still think it was the right thing to do at the time. In retrospect, i hope it was the right thing to do to have a stand on this that it was unacceptable behavior. Thank you. Hunt of then university of southampton. Another question for you, ambassador, if you do not mind. This is somewhat at risk of my own presentation on saturday which is the followup to reykjavik. I was curious if you could characterize the interagency , intergovernmental squabbles that reykjavik set in motion. Looking at the documents in the Ronald Reagan president ial library, one of my favorite is the informational to the various agency heads about nsdd 250. They actually sent it out on a friday afternoon with instructions to return it. If i can actually read from the document, to return it by the subsequent monday. So, only giving the weekend to respond in order to try and camp down on thep division in the government. So, i was hoping you could speak on how reykjavik was perceived. Also, trying to hazard a guess , you do nothe end have a start treaty. Mr. Adelman thank you for your questions. Thank you especially for using the word squabble. It really was not a squabble. It was an outright war. A bloody war at that. All of this was very heartfelt, very passionate, argued in front of the president at great length, and none of it mattered. It was one of those great eruptions that did not matter at all. Why did it not matter . A, the joint chiefs were absolutely furious that the head of the soviet military, chief of staff of the military, a wonderful, wonderful man at reykjavik. Spent his whole life in the army in the soviet union, and committed suicide when the soviet union fell. In his office, at his desk, hanging himself from his chandelier, a chandelier that he proudly showed me a year before when i visited. But he was furious, and he called me the morning after reykjavik asking me what had happened. His argument was do away with Nuclear Weapons when there was a conventional imbalance in europe, the same as maggie thatchers argument. When she rolled into camp david, thereafter, Prime Minister thatcher handbagged president it was nice to reagan, so. Here was no Nuclear Weapons eliminate all Nuclear Weapons that reagan and gorbachev had talked about for a brief amount of time. There was more controversy great more substance of substantive, to do away with Nuclear Weapons. That was proposed at the lunch on sunday. That is what bill crowell and myself said it was against the american fundamental interest were budget reasons and protection reasons. At least two legs of the triad were built on the base of the Ballistic Missiles. None of it ever mattered. The zero Nuclear Weapons were going nowhere. The Ballistic Missile proposal lasted 10 minutes of reykjavik. We went back to what we had done on saturday night which was a limit on strategic arms. And, the sunday morning on the euro missiles. Europe, andas in europe and asia. I let the industry two days after gorbachev left in december 1987. I left because i was actually sure there would not be a start agreement. Why was there no started agreement . Start it start agreement, which was the strategic arms, as opposed to missiles, a lot more complicated. Lots more categories to do. We had made a normative progress at reykjavik, but this was 1987. You had just had 1987 and part of 1988 to do that. There was no way looking at all the issues, that was in the start agreement, that there was no way you could ever get it done. I think two years into the bush administration, they wrapped it up. The subcategories, i have thought since that time, 30 years now. I have thousands of parts of my brain fills with these Weapons Systems that have no use for anybody, especially for me. All that time on the ss 17, circular error probable, but that is what you need to get an arms control agreement. There is no way, no matter what happened, that we would get strategic arms control. So to answer your question, there were enormous corruptions in the government, very bad will coming, coming on the heels of irancontra, almost at the same time. The place looks like it was absolutely splitting apart. You had the aftermath of reykjavik, irancontra, really questioning whether president reagan would make it through these crises. Reykjavik a lot less than irancontra. All kinds of arguments, but the arguments faded, and we went back to what we had done on saturday night. It was a glorious conclusion because reagan could do the euro missile and leave to his predecessor the outlines. They were enduring outlines. It was not just bush. After george Herbert Walker bush, clinton had another arms control reduction based on those limits and categories. Then, george w. Bush did the same thing. And, lastly, obama did. Each demonstration, we have taken the basic structure and had agreements on the strategic realm. A wonderful legacy. Verification, the ability to verify is a pretty heated topic in washington. Mr. Inboden a number of hands i am seeing. Here. Thank you, very much. Im from cambridge and, i have a very general question about transatlantic relations. How was reagans general attitude to europe, and western europe in particular . On one hand you have all of , these tensions, the pipeline, star wars, you name it, on the other hand, thatcher, did he regard them as helpful or, kind of annoying . [laughter] mr. Nau on the economic side and on the imf question, which was one of the new elements of the summit, of williamsburg, thats where they issued a communique on the imf weapons. On the subject, reagan was rocksolid behind the lines. Behind the alliance. That was pretty clear from the beginning. He understood that he had to first revive american selfconfidence, and of course, the american economy, but do his part in terms of military buildup. He also was not unhappy, in sort of bucking up the allies. I think the pipeline issue, which i was involved in peripherally i was dealing with mostly the western World Economics part of his interest, reagans interest, he made it very clear that it was to get the allies to understand and the u. S. Congress understand that he was serious about his Defense Program and the imf departmental. Departments. He could not understand how cooperating with the soviets in the production and export of gas would somehow or other make the european population and the u. S. Congress more willing to support a significant defense buildup and deployment. All of which he felt was important if you are to ever get arms negotiations. He was very clear, by the way, clear from the very beginning he talked about in the campaign he was doing all of this to not defeat the soviet union and in some kind of all out arms race, but create leverage, which would convince them that they could not win any kind of a contest outside of negotiations, and therefore they would get serious within the negotiations. By the way, it was a strategy he laid out very early. He talked about in 1963. Dont just look at what is happening in the president administration. 1963, he said the following, and repeated it almost word forward word for word in december 1981, before he went to europe, after the first site summit to meet with the pope. It is extraordinary. This is what i mean about strategy, and strategy can have an impact on events, if it is carried out with real convention. He said this in 1963. At that time, he is not even the governor perry he said, the only sure way to avoid war is surrender without fighting, but that way is based on wishing, not thinking. If the wish does not come true, then the enemy is much stronger. The other is based on the belief that in an all out race, but all but in an all out race, our system is stronger. He tells the popes emissaries in 1981 the very same thing. We could defeat the soviets with our ability to out fill build them, which the soviets know we can do. Then, we would ask the soviets to join us in the global economy. My goodness. I think that is extraordinary. That is an 18 year period. This man has some clear ideas he is implementing. I think one of the puzzles for me, and it relates to what ken is talking about with sdi, he was always clear about where he was going and what his goals were, but not always clear about his instructions. Why didnt he ask in the case of sdi, for instance, why did he not ask his staff or try to get some commissions on this. His idea was building up defense you would, then determine by mutual deterred protection. That was such an extraordinary idea. It needed all sorts of work. He was aware of the fact that this would create a problem on the conventional side, but he talked about tactical Nuclear Weapons. He was wrestling himself with the implications of this. I always wondered, why didnt one of his staff pick that up, and get a Committee Going on it. I dont think we have done it on this present day. We are still going after news without a sense of deterring in a world with no nukes. It was a real odd thing about reagan. I think they both had clear ideas, the believe you had to move circumstances in line with the ideas, but also this optimistic sense that everything would turn out all right. We just stay the course. I can tell the story in a minute, but i will stop. Mr. Inman it was the image of it that attracted to him. It was the image of it that attracted him. There were a lot of people saying it wouldnt work. And, the key point here is the soviets believed it would work. They had been doing some research on it. That is why im surprised a staff member did not say it would not work. Mr. Inboden anything more on transatlantic relations, especially in the first term . Mr. Adelman mrs. Thatcher was key. As much as mrs. Merkel has been, and thatnt figure continued in to the george h. W. Bush time as well. Other players came in and out. There were occasional conversations with mrs. Thatcher, getting her assessment of the other leaders. She had a pretty dominant role in influencing him about what he thought about european leaders. That said, there were a surprising number of disputes between all of them. They wanted rights for british airways, all of these things. One of the wonderful episodes from the reagan years, to me, which says a lot about reagans character. It was after grenada invasion. I had a dinner for senators, and the various members of the house of Commons Group dealing with foreign affairs. A fellow, i think the chairman of the committee, had just a few minutes with reagan to try to get him to understand the british position on grenada that had already happened. The military operation that had already happened. He basically got nowhere. Thatcher got even madder and madder. Call, time to talk to Ronald Reagan. Mike was on one end of the call, and she had her personal on her end, and everyone knew there was one person on the call as heads of government were talking to each other. Thatcher started off saying, you know, our countries are the closest, we have professional relationships, and she said, you and i absolutely agree, and we really went through so much so sher, yeah, we did, is getting absolutely nowhere. [laughter] consequently, being satcher, being very sensitive, and getting nowhere, she gets madder and madder. Mike was across the oval office, sitting on the white couch, reagan is behind the desk, and hand bagging him, going on. Finally, they break the protocol and say, you are speaking with the president of the night states, Prime Minister. He is going to do it, his face is red, getting shaky, and then he looks over. He says, mike. What is its mr. President . Mike, isnt she marvelous . [laughter] he just could not be mad at anybody. He started laughing, held up the phone, and did not interrupt her. Eventually, about five minutes later, she abandoned, said goodbye, hunger up the phone, and said, she is just wonderful. There was great affection there. A very interesting character, a socialist, far left, where reagan was far right, and he adopted reaganomics. He did it in a way that is beyond what the germans did, and pretty much anybody but the british on that. He liked the individual leaders. The only leader i ever saw, and henry, you probably know this more than i do, that he really did not like trudeau of canada. He would go at him, especially at williamsburg, and probably before. Ronald reagan would show his distain. Is he put offot his glasses and said, well pierre. It was using the word pierre as a class difference. [laughter] trudeau would say, you are the first president since Grover Cleveland not to have a summit with the soviet leader. He would put down his glass and say, well, pierre. They keep dying on me. And they did keep dying on him. [laughter] he was the only one who really got reagan out. He had a wonderful ability to shrug off opposition, not Pay Attention to opposition, and give everybody the benefit of the doubt. 1984, a wonderful time in where he is going to detroit, i the motorcade is going very slow because they are approaching something. Motorcade isthe screaming he is the worst leader we have had in American History. Just screaming his head off. Reagan turns to the person sitting next to him and says, frank, you see that guy there, put him down as undecided. Hes [laughter] probably leaning, but undecided as of now. Just a wonderful treat and wonderful to remember, especially now. I think it is a great trait of leadership. Mr. Inman as we go into all of this, his respect for the presidency. The instance that comes back to me, he was out in the rose garden and a hot sticky afternoon. He would come back into the oval office. He said, mike, i could never take off my jacket in this office. On january 20, he said, this is sacred territory. Then, he just looked down. Reagan wasthough very courteous, maybe once i saw him a little heated. He had all of these ways of letting these things go by. At times, he was very stubborn. Those times proved to be very important. Was,all vividly that there this argument that he reversed himself in 1983. All of these events occurred in 1983. Those told him, wait a minute, i am an enabled archer. So, there is a theory out there that these policies may cause world war iii, and he shifted. The fact is, if he was going to shift, the time he would have shifted would have been 1982, the fall of 1982. Nothing was going right. The economy was completely in the doldrums. The arms control negotiations were going nowhere. Way, 26 seats in the elections in 1982. If you want to look at a time where it would those really bleak where it was very. Tried to launch a trade route. We didnt get anywhere. I was supposed to tell the president about that. A couple people were reporting on the situation in the soviet union. Bill clark asked the president should we looking should we be looking for a plan b . Reagan sort of sat there, seemingly unaffected and said, i do not so, i think the soviet union, my economic plans are in place, so we will see if they work or not. It was not until spring 1983 that the Economic Situation began to improve. He said, i think the soviets will come around, lets just give it time. Then, he looked at clark, rocked back in his chair, and said, what is the worst thing that can happen to you and me if none of this happens, if we go back to the ranch, what would be so bad about that . The guy had a commitment to his policies, in the worst time of his presidency, i think. Close. Ntra comes pretty nothing was working in the fall of 1992, but he thought, if it does not work, i will be happy to go back to the ranch. It wasnt about Ronald Reagan. Mr. Inboden we are past our time. Please join me in thanking this panel. [applause] interested in American History tv . Visit our website. Cspan. Org history you can view our tv schedule, preview upcoming programs, and watch college lectures, archival films, and more. American history tv at cspan. Org history. 100 and 50 years ago, the United States purchased alaska for 7. 2 million. After the attack on pearl harbor in 1941, the territory became strategically vital in the war effort for its close proximity to demand to japan. Up next, a 45 minute War Department film from the 1200 between the u. S. And russia. About thentary tells early stage of the Aleutian Islands campaign in world war ii. Andepicts the harsh weather Living Conditions faced by u. S. Forces. The islands are situated at the North Pacific ocean. It extends about 1200 miles towards