From Colony to Superpower: U.S. Foreign Relations Since 1776 (140 page)

No single event did more to highlight the nation's sense of impotence and destroy the Carter presidency than the botched attempt in April 1980 to rescue the hostages. Carter approved the plan out of desperation. It was the longest of long shots and risked the hostages being killed in retaliation or even escalation into a bloody war. In what was dubbed Operation Eagle Claw, eight helicopters from the aircraft carrier
Nimitz
in the Gulf of Oman were to rendezvous with C-130 transports at Desert One in the Iranian desert. A newly formed Delta Force rescue team would proceed to Tehran by helicopter and truck, seize the hostages,
and return to an airfield for evacuation. In execution, a plan with virtually no margin for error turned out to be Murphy's Law in operation, self-destructing almost from the start. In a bizarre and totally unexpected development, the would-be rescuers, landing at midnight, stumbled upon some Iranians crossing the desert in a ramshackle bus, blowing their cover. A blinding dust storm—the Iranians called it a
haboob,
and Khomeini hailed it as an act of Allah—hampered the desert landing and along with mechanical problems crippled all but four of the helicopters, forcing the mission to be aborted. To add to the embarrassment and tragedy, a helicopter crashed into a C-130 during evacuation, killing eight Americans, all of whom had to be left behind.
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The desert debacle had a huge impact for the unfortunate Carter. In terms of the immediate problem with Iran, it completely backfired, confirming America's hostile intentions, strengthening the position of Khomeini and the extremists, and providing a huge boost to Iranian nationalism.
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At home, the nation once again initially backed the president, but as time went on and the details became known, frustrated Americans increasingly turned their anger against him. The Congress and allies complained about not being consulted. Vacationing in Florida, Vance had been deliberately and entirely left out of the loop because of his known opposition to any military action. He quickly resigned, the first secretary of state since William Jennings Bryan in 1915 to leave office on a matter of principle and only the third in U.S. history. Carter's approval rating plunged to 40 percent. "As things now stand,"
Newsweek
opined, "the President's uncertain diplomatic strategy has left allies perplexed, enemies unimpressed and the nation as vulnerable as ever in an increasingly dangerous world."
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The nation's lack of confidence in Carter's ability to lead cost him reelection. Given all the misfortunes that beset him, he hung remarkably close to Republican challenger Reagan up to Election Day. Had he been able to secure release of the hostages early in the campaign, he might still have snatched victory from the jaws of defeat. He seemed to achieve a breakthrough in negotiations that promised to gain freedom for the hostages several days before the election, but it did not produce immediate results and was of dubious value anyway since Republicans had warned of an eleventh-hour trick to sway the election. Reagan proved a more adept campaigner than Carter. He and his simple and
sunny conservative message, delivered with charm, wit, and at times eloquence, contrasted sharply with a sitting president who seemed unable to present a vision of any sort. Economic issues continued to loom largest with the voters. In this area also, Carter failed the test. The result was a Republican victory that in its magnitude shocked the experts. The actor-turned-politician won 51 percent of the popular vote, 489 electoral votes to a mere 49 for Carter. Republicans gained control of the Senate for the first time since the early 1950s and made big gains in the House.
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C
ARTER HAS BEEN MUCH MALIGNED
over the years for his handling of U.S. foreign policy. Conservative publicists have made him, along with 1972 presidential candidate George McGovern, into living symbols of the Democratic Party's alleged weakness on national security issues, an image that has dogged the party at election time for more than thirty years. Like other such political myths, this one distorts the record. Carter had the misfortune to serve in a complex and confusing time of transitions—in foreign affairs, from Cold War to detente and back again, at home from the liberal consensus to a more conservative outlook. Upon taking office, he hoped to shift the focus of U.S. foreign policy from the Cold War to North-South problems and human rights and to restore the United States to what he considered its rightful position of moral leadership in the world, a not unreasonable agenda in post-Vietnam, post-Watergate America. He sought also to further detente. His administration from the start was hampered by his own inexperience and sometimes naïveté. His goals were sometimes contradictory, and the Vance-Brzezinski feud gave a certain schizophrenic quality to some of his initiatives. Unschooled in the complexities of international relations, he initially underestimated the difficulties of dealing with the Soviet Union. His clumsy efforts to resolve differences with Moscow were also repeatedly undercut by conservatives in Congress. In part responding to their pressures, he overreacted to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, reescalating Cold War tensions. It was he, in fact, who initiated the military buildup, confrontational approach, and covert action in Afghanistan that the Republicans took credit for and claimed to be decisive in America's Cold War victory. Carter was thus also unlucky. He did not even get the satisfaction of having the embassy hostages released on his watch. Not until shortly after Ronald Reagan took office on January 20, 1980, would they be set free.

On November 11, 1983, millions of Americans gathered around their television sets to watch
The Day After,
a chilling account of the impact on ordinary people of a nuclear attack on the middle-American town of Lawrence, Kansas. Unbeknownst to these viewers, several days earlier, in response to NATO's annual Able Archer military exercises, a nervous Soviet government, convinced that a nuclear attack was imminent, went on full alert and put its nuclear-capable aircraft on standby. The world had come "frighteningly" close to the nuclear abyss, a Soviet defector later recalled.
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Incredibly, less than five years after this second most dangerous Cold War flash point, hard-core anti-Communist U.S. president Ronald Reagan and Soviet general secretary Mikhail Gorbachev strolled leisurely through Moscow's Red Square and declared themselves "old friends." When queried regarding his earlier, belligerent statements about the Soviet Union, Reagan dismissed them as from "another time, another place." Within three more years, the Communist governments in Eastern Europe had fallen, the Berlin Wall had been torn down, the Cold War declared ended, and the Soviet Union had collapsed. This swift and stunning transformation of the international system without war or violent revolution was without precedent. Reagan's successor, George H. W. Bush, aptly called it "a unique and extraordinary moment."
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Many Americans have been quick to claim credit for these breathtaking changes. It was the power of their ideals, they insist, that toppled the Iron
Curtain; the skill and strength of their policies, particularly under Reagan, that won the day. In this tale of virtue and heroism, Reagan's principled and outspoken stand against Communism and his massive defense buildup forced Soviet capitulation and won the Cold War.
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There is, of course, some truth in such arguments. America's ideals—and even more, its popular culture—did influence people around the world. Reagan played an important role. But his policies were never as clear-cut as his proponents claim. They were often sloppily implemented. In the early years, they dangerously exacerbated Cold War tensions. It was only when he shifted toward conciliation that they began to produce results. His successor, George Bush, had the good sense to let history take its course. It is essential to look beyond the United States to comprehend the stunning transformation of 1981–91. More than anything else, it was the basic weakness of the Soviet system and the dramatic steps taken by the remarkable Gorbachev that produced these striking changes.

Ronald Wilson Reagan looms over the last quarter of the American Century as Woodrow Wilson the first and Franklin Roosevelt the second. Unlike Wilson, the former movie actor contributed nothing to the intellectual content of U.S. foreign policy. But like FDR, the hero of his youth, he touched the American psyche as few other politicians have. He restored the American spirit, scarred by Vietnam and Watergate and afflicted by a loss of confidence and self-esteem. He revived and gave eloquent expression to a messianic vision that resonated with Wilsonianism. Whether by luck or skill or some elusive combination of both, he presided over a rebirth at home and transformation abroad that set the stage for the end of the Cold War and America's emergence as a global power with a position of primacy unmatched since the days of Victorian England.

Reagan's life embodied the American dream, and therefore, perhaps naturally, he became one of its foremost exponents. A product of smalltown midwestern America, often viewed as the quintessence of the nation, the young man known as "Dutch" first achieved notice in the 1930s by broadcasting over radio to regional households baseball games whose details he acquired by teletype. Sometimes, when the machine broke
down, he made up the play-by-play as he went along. He moved easily from one form of media to another, starring in a series of B movies during the war years and after. A New Dealer, he anticipated the national shift to the right by adopting a fiercely anti-Communist position during 1950s investigations of leftist activities in Hollywood. He gained national prominence, wealth, and important political contacts as host for a popular television program and spokesperson for General Electric. He stirred the passions of conservatives in 1964 with a powerful speech supporting Goldwater for president. Undaunted by the Arizonan's disastrous defeat, in 1966 he unseated Edmund "Pat" Brown, the popular Democratic governor of California, launching a political career that after several setbacks led to the White House. By the time he went to Sacramento, he had put on full display the qualities that would make him an icon: rugged good looks; a genial and amiable disposition; and a mellifluous, soothing voice that earned the trust of his listeners. He had an instinctive feel for the mood of the American people. His sunny optimism was perfectly calculated to heal a wounded nation. Better than anyone else since John Kennedy, he articulated the nation's ideals and hallowed myths.
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"Reagan's rhetoric wove a seamless tapestry of 'morality, heritage, boldness, heroism, and fairness' that offered a compelling, if rather fanciful, vision of a genuine national community," Richard Melason has written.
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Reagan brought to the presidency no foreign policy experience but deeply felt views. He had preached throughout his political career unrelenting opposition to Communist tyranny. He deplored the so-called Vietnam Syndrome that had allegedly sapped the United States of its sense of purpose and the defeatism and malaise that stamped the Carter years. Looking nostalgically to the days when the United States had been number one in the world, he sought to restore a position he thought had been squandered by lack of courage and will. He promised to rebuild the nation's faltering economy and its military arsenal to confront Communist adversaries and especially the USSR from a position of strength. Like the Committee on the Present Danger, he vowed to go beyond mere containment by exposing the evils of Communism, exploiting the Soviet Union's internal weaknesses, and backing insurgencies that aimed to overthrow leftist governments, thereby altering the status quo in America's favor.

The Reagan foreign policy was more complex than might appear on the surface, however. The president preferred people of action to intellectuals. But his idealism and instinctive unilateralism were tempered by a touch of pragmatism, the mainstream Republican internationalism espoused by secretaries of state Alexander M. Haig Jr. and George Shultz, and the hard-nosed Machiavellianism of CIA director William Casey. Reagan and the Californians who comprised his White House staff were in the most basic sense unilateralists. They knew little about the rest of the world. They had no faith in the United Nations and other international institutions. In his view of America, the president himself was a veritable Woodrow Wilson in greasepaint. He accepted as an article of faith the myth of American exceptionalism and repeatedly evoked John Winthrop's imagery of a "city on a hill," which he usually embellished by adding the adjective "shining." He had no doubt of the superiority of American ideals and institutions and was certain the rest of the world awaited them. He was also a throwback to Teddy Roosevelt. His code name Rawhide symbolized the western hero that he played in movies and that to him epitomized the nation. He believed the United States must have the courage of its convictions and be willing to fight for its ideals. But he was also a pragmatist.
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As much as he deplored the Vietnam Syndrome, he recognized the deep-seated popular fears of military intervention abroad. His often bellicose rhetoric was moderated by caution in the use of power.

Reagan's unilateralist and messianic tendencies were also balanced by Haig and Shultz. The secretaries of state shared his anti-Communism and belief in a strong defense, but they were also committed to close cooperation with America's European allies and were more willing to negotiate with the Soviet Union and China. Casey on the other hand, shared the president's anti-communism and his penchant for action. Apparently with Reagan's blessing and sometimes without the knowledge of Shultz, he developed a worldwide program of covert operations to undermine Communist governments.
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Confusion of concept was joined by chaos in implementation. Reagan was grandly indifferent to detail. He often displayed a careless disregard for unpleasant facts and sometimes appeared to live in a Hollywood-like fantasy world. He was the sloppiest administrator since Franklin Roosevelt. His White House staff was totally inexperienced in foreign policy, and amateur night was a regular occurrence. Theoretically the orchestrator of
foreign policy, the National Security Council—by design—was plagued by weakness and chronic instability. Reacting against the dominant role played by Kissinger and Brzezinski, the president's team deliberately downgraded the NSC and appointed lesser lights to head it. Reagan had six different national security advisers in eight years.
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