When Things Went Right: The Dawn of the Reagan-Bush Administration

Chapter 14 A Czar Is Born

Chapter 14 A Czar Is Born Wednesday, 25 November 1981 On this Thanksgiving Eve, Pete Teeley and I made a field trip to the Pentagon . That enormous office building for the Department of Defense is someplace we both need to know, and today we saw its guts: the National Military Command Center (NMCC). We were met at the River Entrance by an Army lieutenant colonel and taken to NMCC. A soldier in full dress uniform stood at ease outside the entrance but came to heel-clicking attention as we approached. We entered a large conference room that resembled a theater, with many big screens and rows of chairs. There is an alternate NMCC (aka Fort Ritchie) inside a mountain near Camp David. Even more survivable in a nuclear attack is NEACP (“Kneecap”), the National Emergency Airborne Command Post, the specially configured Boeing  we always see parked at one end of the runway at Andrews. Eventually we entered the small space containing the WashingtonMoscow Direct Communications Link, known to the military as Molink and to the public as the Hotline. It is for direct and immediate contact between only two people: the president of the United States and his opposite number in the Kremlin. The public perceives Molink as two red phones, but it really is a battery of instantaneous teletype machines. An on-duty “presidential translator” said that once an hour each side transmits a test message in its own language. These are nonpolitical and nonoffensive, though each side tries to throw obscure or slang expressions at the other. Ready to roll during our stop was a text on the handling of gerbils, and the translator said the Soviets send such things as treatises on mushrooms. Back in the White House, Barbara Hayward related the good news that Laura Bush gave birth to twin girls today. They were delivered by Caesarean section due to continued concern over Laura’s own health, and both babies (weighing about  pounds each) are fine. They were named for their grandmothers : Barbara Pierce and Jenna Welch. The Western White House called 124 chapter 14 for details so Nancy Reagan could call Laura. NBC News tonight showed GB, emerging from his Senate office shortly before leaving for Maine, announcing the arrivals and calling them a Thanksgiving blessing “that makes all else, continuing resolutions or whatever, irrelevant.” It was a wonderful scene that probably won a nationwide coo. Monday, 30 November 1981 Lane Kirkland, head of the AFL-CIO, visited GB in the West Wing office this afternoon, and this evening the Bushes had a collection of labor leaders to the Residence, an effort to show there is literally an open door to the unions. I think this is wasted effort, but GB believes it won’t hurt. Tuesday, 1 December 1981 In the senior VP staff meeting, Thadd reported that the President would announce that GB would be labor’s high-level contact in the Administration. The VP said this would not be on “an hour-by-hour, bitch-by-bitch basis”; that is what the secretary of labor is for. While the VP clearly welcomes this new role, he doesn’t want to earn Sec. Ray Donovan’s enmity. (Donovan, who’s from New Jersey, may feel surrounded by Bush. The new governor of the Garden State, Tom Kean, is a staunch Bush ally who is using Bush’s close friend Nick Brady as his personnel chief during the transition.) Thadd said that Donovan is indeed miffed over the President’s action. Wednesday, 2 December 1981 The day closed with a surprise birthday party for Ed Meese in the Roosevelt Room, attended by the Reagans. Nancy monopolized GB’s time, expressing her anguish over all the catty publicity she receives about her clothes and interest in redecorating the White House. GB vowed to help with Newsweek, but the problem is within Mrs. Reagan. Her shyness makes her unusually sensitive to criticism, and to compensate for her shyness she wears expensive clothes and does flamboyant things with the White House. Monday, 7 December 1981 At noon I welcomed my predecessor, Jim Johnson, for a thank-you lunch on the anniversary of his helping me learn the ropes. Because we are both clever, a czar is born 125 charming chaps, we enjoyed a full hour together filled with spirited conversation without once mentioning policies of either the...