THE ISSUE: REAGAN'S JUDGMENT

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000605450007-8
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 3, 2012
• Sequence Number: 7
• Publication Date: November 16, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/05/03: CIA-RDP90-00965R000605450007-8
~ RAZ Ar
PE NEW YORK TIMES
ON
16 November 1986
WASHINGTON
="a es Reston
The Issue: Reagan's Judgment
WASHINGTON
t 's easy to understand the uproar
in Washington over President Rea-
gan's swapping spree in Iran, but
it's hard to understand why anybody
here is surprised. He has been play-
ing these covert games for almost six
years; the only difference now is that
he's getting caught.
The Democrats profess to see all
sorts of dark motives behind this lat-
est effort to deal with the tangles in
Teheran. The President, they charge,
is evading the Congress, corrupting
the National Security Council, and en-
couraging terrorism by trading guns
for hostages.
Of course he is, but the problem is
more serious than that. For what he
calls his latest "Strategic Diplomatic
Initiative" - as if one S.D.I. wasn't
bad enough - dramatizes the great-
est weakness in his misconduct of for-
eign policy, namely that he simply
will not think through in advance the
consequences of his words and ac-
tions.
There's nothing wrong with trying
to get in touch with "moderate ele-
ments" in Iran, assuming that such
exist, but to ship arms to Teheran in
order to show our "good faith" to a
nation that has mocked and humili-
ated the United States is almost ob-
scene. And to insist that this had noth-
ing to do with the hostages or the
Iran-Iraq war is an insult to normal
intelligence.
The issue is not the President's mo-
tives but his judgment. Obviously,
Iraq is not consoled by the Presi-
dent's statement that the arms were
merely "defensive," since defensive
weapons are precisely what Iran
needs to deal with the Iraqi air raids.
Also, one official explanation here
is that the Ayatollah Khomeini is old
and therefore it's reasonable to trade
with politicians who may soon re-
place him. But Mr. Reagan, who isn't
young, presumably wouldn't like it if
Iraq or any other government sent se-
cret agents into the United States to
negotiate with his potential succes-
sors.
The Iranian fiasco has created a
stir here because it follows several
other examples of Presidential mis-
judgment. Perhaps the most serious
was Mr. Reagan's offer at the Reyk-
javik summit with Mikhail Gorba-
chev to eliminate all nuclear missiles,
meaning all nuclear ballistic mis-
siles, without realizing the vast differ-
ence between the two. That one sent a
hiccup through the Senate and a shud-
der through the alliance.
The Iranian
operation had
consequences
he should -
have foreseen
Earlier," an American plane
manned by former C.I.A. employees
and carrying weapons to the contras
was shot down over Nicaragua with
the official explanation that the U.S.
Government had no part in this defi-
ance of Congressional legislation.
Just a bunch of American patriots
helping the Nicaraguan "freedom
fighters," the President explained.
Ws usual. the cover-ups were more
damaging than the covert deals.
the denials that the C.I.A. had mined
the harbors of Nicaragua. When in
trouble, the Administration swaps an
American reporter for a Soviet spy
and says it isn't a swap but a humani-
tarian arrangement. Or it approves a
"disinformation" memorandum
written by the head of the National
Security Council and says this was
not intended to mislead the American
press but merely to worry the terror-
ists in Libya.
Usually, the President has gotten
away with these "terminological
inexactitudes" by proclaiming wor-
thy objectives and glowing visions of
balanced budgets and nuclear shields
in a terror-free world, or by letting
his aides assume the blame for his
bloopers, but this time on Iran, he had
to take personal responsibility for the
arms shipments and the conse-
quences he didn't foresee.
In this case, he used members of
the National Security Council and for-
mer N.S.C. officials to carry out the
operations, with fake passports;
against the advice of the Secretary of
State and the Secretary of Defense.
It Is his view, against the legislation
and tradition of the past, that the
N.S.C. staff can operate as his secret
agents in the shipment of arms, and
he can then protect them from Conr
gressional questioning by invoking
"executive privilege."
Too many things have gone wrong
in recent months, however, for this to
continue. The Democ('ats now control
the committees of both the House and
the Senate and have the power of iril.
vestigation, which they intend to use
and will probably abuse in the runup
to the 1988 Presidential elections.
There is a growing feeling here that
the President has been trying to do
too much in too big a hurry, that in the
past elections and on foreign policy
questions he has redoubled his efforts
while losing his aim, that he has sucL
ceeded by publicity and is now losing
by it, and perhaps most important, hq
is running out of time and running out
of luck. L
Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/05/03: CIA-RDP90-00965R000605450007-8