PRESIDENTIAL RESTRAINT

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000504100026-7
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 20, 2012
• Sequence Number: 26
• Publication Date: June 18, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/01/20: CIA-RDP90-00965R000504100026-7
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Presidential Restraint
President Reagan, in the hostage
crisis, is trying to show concern
but not of the consuming kind. He
seems to have before him the memory
of President Jimmy Carter, who
wrapped himself around the hostage
crisis in Iran-and went down with it.
Over the weekend, the television
networks went all out with anchormen
recounting the hourly horrors aboard
TWA Flight 847. The president, who
has a deep aversion to negative
situations, went off to Camp David,
finally returning at midmorning Sunday.
From the first minute of what was to
be a 444-day captivity for American
hostages in Iran. Carter sought by
every means to convey to the country
his obsession with their fate. As the
weeks turned into months, he forswore
to leave the White House, doing
penance, it seemed, for the great
shadow that had fallen on the country.
Candidate Reagan berated Carter for
his "vacillation and weakness" and
inveighed against the "rabble" in
Tehran. But his campaign staff feared
what they called "an October surprise,"
by which they meant the release of the
52 Americans, and Reagan backed away
from his angry rhetoric. Once October
had safely passed, he returned to his
theme that the hostages' continued
captivity was "a humiliation and a
disgrace to this country."
When the hostages were
released-Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini
meanly held them until Reagan had
been sworn in, with a drained and ashen
Carter by his side-Reagan received
them at the White House and assured
them that a new day was dawning for
the likes of their tormentors.
"Let terrorists be aware," he said,
"that, when the rules of international
behavior are violated, our policy will be
one of swift and effective retaliation."
But now that he is undergoing the
"humiliation and disgrace" of Americans
being held captive, abused, beaten and,
in one instance, killed, be is markedly
less militant.
The White House watchword is
business as usual. The public is not to
be unduly reminded of facts that, in
Carter's time, proved intolerable to the
country's image of itself as standing
tall.
The president is ostentadously
keeping his schedule, to show, as
spokesman Larry Spokes said, that he
can cope with the crisis and also deal
with regular business.
Spokes showed a president talking
to senators about a textile bill and
meeting with legislators about chemical
warfare. He also made a ceremony of
receiving members of a bipartisan
commission that is to investigate
possibilities of "improving internal
methods and procedures in the making
of defense decisions."
Speakes frowned at a question about
progress in the hostage situation,
saying stiffly that he wanted to exhaust
questions about the new conanission
before plunging into a downbeat topic.
He suggested that Reagan, up
against the realities that faced Carter,
may have moderated his views about
how to deal with terrorists. Asked how
Reagan could justify inaction, Speakes
replied that it was not clear that this
was "state-sponsored
terrorism"-although Reagan had not
made that distinction.
The hijackers were from some
"shadowy" group, Speakes said, even
though a Shiite Muslim leader named
Nabih Berri, who has stepped forward
to take responsibility for the situation at
the Beirut airport, is justice minister in
the Lebanese Cabinet.
"He hasn't changed," Speakes said of
Reagan. "The world is changing."
What he means is that Reagan, who
brought America back to its position of
pride and prestige in the world, is in the
hands of a Middle Eastern politician
who passes for a "moderate" in those
demented circles and that the world
now looks different to him.
Retaliation, revenge and retribution
are blood-stirring words. But they do
not help when a powerful leader is
impotent and faced with the necessity
t
of saving American Lives while no
losing face for abandoning a stated
principle of never negotiating.
But countermeasures can be more
ormation of a counterterrorist teem 11 t went on tb own dr
innocent eo o y s atrocities are.
being jus i by the Flight
gun 847
men because of that misbegotten
lurch toward retaliation.
A return of sky marshals to
international flights would do much
more and at less expense. And banning
Greek flights to the United States until
security at Athens airport, where Flight
847 began its nightmare sig-sag
through the unfriendly skies, is brought
up to standard would stop smug2bg of
arms and grenades onto planes and
might preclude the kind of vigil the
country is keeping now.
Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/01/20: CIA-RDP90-00965R000504100026-7