AN ORDEAL OF REAGAN'S OWN MAKING

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000503810001-7
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 12, 2012
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: November 20, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/01/12 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000503810001-7
ARTICLE APPEARED
ON PAGE G / .0"s
NEW YORK POST
20 November 1986
AN ORDEAL OF REAGAN'S OWN
MAKING = By MAX LEaNE?
RONALD Reagan, in his sec-
ond term, is not being served
well by his presidential staff
and is not serving himself
well.
Amid the din of virtuous -
and mostly merited - casti-
gation of Reagan about the
Iranian blunder I miss any
positive note (from either
critics or administration)
about how to learn from it.
Before a blunder is produc-
tive we must recognize its
core, and move on from
there, instead of getting
mired endlessly in the
swamp of administration-
bashing and defensive dam-
age-control.
The National Security
Council has presented histo-
rians with a prime caseQyhiiss-
making.
You could try to hack out,
secretly, a new diplomatic
opening to Iranian "pragma-
tists." hoping that in some
post-Khomeini day one of
them would be at the power
center. Or you could try to do
the almost equally undoable:
persuade the Iranians to get
the Beirut hostages freed.
But you couldn't link one
with another, and "sweeten"
both with arms deliveries.
That way lies disaster.
Note that a sequence of for-
eign policy disasters started
with Bitburg and has stalked
Reagan ever since his over-
whelming second-term vic-
tory. In part it is because, an
optimist to his core, he has
than%ivit versify: 4
But there was also the
changing of the palace
guard, and his adoption of a
more flamboyant confronta-
tional policy.
The real key may be the
absence of a foreign policy
elite and of a political culture
in which it can flourish.
The great foreign policy
elite operated in the post-
World War II years as a
close-knit group of "wise
men." They included Dean
Acheson. Averell Harriman,
Robert Lovett and John
McCloy.
Add Paul Nitze (still in
government service) and
Eisenhower's John Foster
Dulles. Add also Nixon's
Henry Kissinger and Car-
ter's Zbigniew Brzezinski.
But since the Nixon-Kiss-
polit cad c1mate' 13 ' t41f'dtl
foreign-policy-making a
hard path. The relations with
America's far-flung world
allies have grown more fe-
brile. The post-Watergate in-
vestigative zeal and the leak-
ages have quickened even
while the need for secrecy
has intensified.
The intelligence com-
u
munity has been tied
con rpm ion oversig
grroups, with no trust of-ei-
ther int thother.
Worst o OF, the talent isn't
flowing, as it did earlier, into
policy-making posts. There
is too much money - and
quicker fame - in consult-
ing and commentary posts.
The hard road of coming
up througii_the foreign ser-
vice, the intelligence com-
munity and the ranks of pub-
jig ? mgta lour
them - that today is a road
less traveled.
The decisions, especially
the secret ones, still have to
be made out of deep knowl-
edge of history and long ex-
perience with men. The
President unwarily went
along with a decision that
cut away his senior advisers,
which left him naked to his.
enemies and to history.
He is paying for it by his
ordeal.
We need the National Se-
curity Council, now duly
chastened by its scarring
blunder. But even more we
need a Council of Wise Men
- with experience, knowl-
edge, perspective, but with-
out dogma.
They will be hard to find
and recruit because they
havetto be a council not paly
? fli'`tWe Also "-of of thee. s
turesome, spunky and wily.
Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/01/12 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000503810001-7