'A MEAN-MINDED MINI-MEMOIR'

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000606490002-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 20, 2010
• Sequence Number: 2
• Publication Date: September 18, 1980
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/08/20: CIA-RDP90-00552R000606490002-6
ARTICLE A_'Pr-A
PAC;I;.
ON
,Philip +Geyelin,
THE WASHINGTON POST
18 September 1980
Consider how the stage was set in late
Summer. The 52 American hostages were
still locked up somewhere in Iran. Sensi-
tive initiatives were under way to secure
their release. Iranian militants were still
threatening show trials and demanding,
-among their terms, American repent
mice for a long history of deep intervea.
tion in Iran's internal affairs.
Eater (in print) William Sullivan, ca-
reer diplomat His final, thankless post
before retirement last yearwas that of -
U.S. ambassador in Tehran at the time of
'the decline and fall of the shah and the
:emergence of Ayatollah Khomeini as they
?impenetrable father figure of a revolu-
=tion composed of many disparate parts.
-..Does he practice a professional's dis.
creet restraint? No way. He charges,
head down, into the latest issue of For-
eign Policy magazine with a mean--
, inded mini-memoir. In it, he-chroni-
cles in minute detail his and rival Car
ter administration strategies and mas-
ter plans for intervening in the internal .;
Iranian power struggle in the most inti
mate and all-pervasive way.
There is much loose talk of secret
cables and telephone conversations "hi
the clear," of. irreconcilable schemes
for military coups to save the shah or to
preempt the revolution. Out of it, Sulli-
van emerges, not surprisingly, as a dip-
lomatic paragon, farsighted, tough-
minded, unfailingly right. The villain in-
the piece is President Carter's national
security adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski--
uniformly Impulsive, uninformed,.in-
discreet and wrong.
Sullivan. sees what ,he calls the
"Brzezinskfactor"'in almost every-
thing. When Carter, on a deep-sea fish
ing trip, made the "irretrievable" mis-
take of canceling a mission by a U.S. of-
facial to parlay with Khomeini at a criti-
cal juncture, only Brzezinski was with.
M
ed MIM-7 em- 01r
hint, Sullivan pointedly reports. (Brie-
zirxki says the decision was approved
by Secretary of State Vance.)
P;t another point, Sullivan. reports;
that he replied unprintably to a relayed
incguiiy from Brzezinski about chancesi
for a military, coup. (Brzezinski says a
co>p was not even his. first, choice.
among three on which the embassy'si
ophuion was being solicited by a Nai
tioraal Security Council subcommittee
of-which Brzezinski happened to be
chairman.)
And that, we are supposed to believe,,
is how Nye lost Iran..
All right, I've oversimplified a bit:
But-that is pretty much the burden of:
the political tract Sullivan has chosen;
to throw into the thick of the presiden-'
tial -campaign. And the irony of it is:
thatit actually does shed quite a lot of.,
light on how things went so terribly,
wrong for American interests in Iran-.
though not, of course, the light that
Sullivan had in mind.
.At some -critical points, Sullivan's
blinkered, self-serving account is over.
wrought or dempnstrably inaccurate.
But for the same reasons that Sullivan
should-not have started the argument,
the administration's hands are tied in
trying to answer it.
Irt any case, Sullivan's strategy of eas-
ing the shah's departure, maneuvering
to-hold-the-armed forces together and
seeking accommodation with Khomeini
was never really tested. Neither was the
Brzezinsld strategy to save the shah (or a'
front man for him) by manipulating the'
armed forces to suppress the revolution.
That's the point: no clear course of ac-'
Lion was ever put to-a fair test. There was-
a profound division among the presi-
dent's principal advisers, and the presi
dent never did resolve it. But Sullivan
has his teeth so firmly clamped on
'Brzezinsk's ankle that he offers only
fragmentary glimpses of this administra.
tion:,vide collapse in crisis management.,
. Far more valuable evidence is avail-
able, however, in a cogent and compre.
hensive analysis of the administration's'
handling of the Iranian crisis. In a-recent t
issue of the Washington Quarterly, pub-
lished-by the Georgetown University
Center for Strategic and' International
Studies, Michael A. Ledeen and William
H. Lewis painstakingly trace' he develop---
ments leading up to the departure of the
shah and the triumphant return . of
Khomeini from exile...
The picture is of a policy-making
process put pretty much on automatic,
with the loudest voice (more often than
not Brzezinski's) prevailing and the-
president's hand scarcely.' visible. De-
fense Secretary Brown "never took a.
strong position during the crisis." CIS?
Director Stansfield Turner "generally
took cautious positions..:." Supportive
messages trom Brzezinski to the. shad
via Sullivan were simply not delivered.
An important ~ Sullivan Proposal? for
Washington's approvalwasnot,evenac.
knowledged.
At one point, Ledeen and Lewis do
suggest, ins extenuation, that perhaps
the crisis managers were trying to man-
age the unmanageable. "The most im:.
portant part of the outcome of the-Ira..
nian crisis," they write, was "the:politi
cal dynamics of the country itself; and !'!
the critical role of the shah, and his as.
sociates.
But their conclusion--the one Sullivan
never gets around to-is an indictment
of presidential management. With a i
choice, between promoting gradual
evolution to a ."reformist government"
c and. encouraging use of the 'Iron fist,"
the administration "did . neitlier-..it'
hoped for thebest;, and got the worst.".
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/08/20: CIA-RDP90-00552R000606490002-6