Presidents at War , livre ebook

Table of Contents
 
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Foreword
Acknowledgements
Introduction
 
Chapter 1 - THE EVOLUTION OF WAR POWERS AND PRECEDENTS
Chapter 2 - WORLD WAR I, WORLD WAR II
Chapter 3 - THE TRUMAN YEARS
Chapter 4 - THE REIGN OF IKE
Chapter 5 - CAMELOT’S COMMANDER IN CHIEF
Chapter 6 - THE MISSILE CRISIS
Chapter 7 - RESOLUTION AND REVERBERATIONS
Chapter 8 - LBJ, PART OF THE WAY
Chapter 9 - DOWN THE SLOPE
Chapter 10 - TOWARD PEACE WITH HONOR
Chapter 11 - PIECES OF PEACE
Chapter 12 - THE BITTER END
Chapter 13 - IRAN, AFGHANISTAN, AND LEBANON
Chapter 14 - BEIRUT, CENTRAL AMERICA, AND IRAN
Chapter 15 - IRAN-CONTRA
Chapter 16 - BUSH ONE
Chapter 17 - NATION-BUILDING AND GENOCIDE
Chapter 18 - PREVENTION AND RETALIATION
Chapter 19 - BETWEEN IRAQ AND HARD PLACES
Chapter 20 - WINNING THE WAR, FIGHTING ON
Chapter 21 - POWER AND ABDICATION
 
NOTES
BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX

Copyright © 2006 by Gerald Astor. All rights reserved
 
Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey Published simultaneously in Canada
 
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:
 
Astor, Gerald, date.
Presidents at war : from Truman to Bush, the gathering of military power to our Commanders in Chief / Gerald Astor.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
eISBN : 978-0-470-73059-1

1. Presidents—United States—History—20th century. 2. Presidents—United States—History—21st century. 3. United States—Foreign relations—20th century. 4. United States—Foreign relations—2001- 5. United States—Military policy. 6. United States—History, Military. I. Title.
E176.1.A825 2006
355’.03357309045—dc22
2005030780
 
To my indomitable wife, Sonia; our sons, Ted and Larry; Ted’s wife, Karen, and their daughter, Lindsay; and our daughter-in-law Stacy, who gave our beloved Andy so much pleasure and support the last ten years of his life
FOREWORD
by Congressman John P. Murtha
 
 
 
I’ve served seven presidents and in my experience, a president’s strength lies not in his simply being commander in chief, but in his public support and the perception of his power. President Richard Nixon, for instance, was reelected in 1972 in a 520-to-17 electoral vote landslide. By 1974, though, when I was first elected to the House, he was powerless. As Watergate unfolded that year, Nixon was virtually confined to the White House. Even as the North Vietnamese were violating the Paris Peace Accords that Nixon had himself secretly authorized and supervised, he could not react because he had lost the support of the public. His approval rating in February was 27 percent. The weaker he became, the more the North Vietnamese ignored the peace agreement. The House Judiciary Committee voted to impeach President Nixon at the end of July 1974. He resigned on August 9, 1974. Eight months later Saigon fell to the North Vietnamese.
Democratic and Republican members of Congress all thought highly of Nixon’s successor, Gerald Ford. He was knowledgeable in domestic and foreign policy issues and was as well prepared as a president could be. And despite being unelected to both the vice presidency and the presidency, his approval rating was 75 percent. After he pardoned Nixon a month later, though, this rating dropped precipitously to 54 percent. Their party, undermined by Ford’s and Nixon’s unpopularity, would suffer a worse fate. In the congressional elections that November, forty incumbents, thirty-six of them Republican, were defeated. In addition, thirteen retiring Republicans were replaced by Democrats. The House Democratic majority thus expanded from 56 percent to 67 percent. Of thirty-four Senate seats up for grabs that year, the Democrats netted four additional seats and lost no incumbents.
In 1976 the country was looking for competent leadership and, after Watergate and the Vietnam War, someone to tackle two major emerging issues: inflation and energy problems. Jimmy Carter, a Naval Academy graduate, nuclear submarine expert, former Georgia state senator and governor, was elected president. Former Speaker Thomas “Tip” O’Neill said Carter was the smartest president he’d served with and certainly the hardest working. Jimmy Carter was a master of detail. He could stand before fifty members of Congress and answer in-depth questions with ease, without ever turning to his staff for help.
A meeting at the White House in 1977 illustrates the importance of public support. The Democratic leadership was invited to discuss the president’s proposal to raise the gasoline tax ten cents in reaction to the oil embargo. The goal of the tax was to curtail demand. The president believed consumers would get the money back in the form of lower payroll taxes. The leadership pledged to support the president on the tax but I knew the public would not buy it. I spoke up, and, as a junior member, all eyes were on me. I said, “Mr. President, you won’t get fifty votes.” By the time the vote got to the floor, the gas tax proposal had gone from the original ten cents down to four cents. Nevertheless, the vote failed miserably. The president received only fifty-two votes.
The Iran hostage crisis, which began in November 1979, a year before the next election, further eroded the public’s confidence in President Carter. Fifty-two U.S. diplomats were held hostage for 444 days. The president ordered a rescue attempt, but it failed because he overestimated the capability of our military. General Peter J. Schoomaker, the current army chief of staff, participated in that raid as a young soldier. He reflected on that time in history during a recent hearing of the House Appropriations Subcommittee and said he learned a valuable lesson from the failed attempt: “We should never confuse enthusiasm for capability.”
Six months after the 1980 election I asked President Carter why he had lost to Ronald Reagan. He said he had paid too much attention to detail. After all, he was an engineer. In my view, however, it was because he was unable to recover from the Iran hostage fiasco. The public perceived him as weak and incapable of dealing with our enemies. Thus this highly intelligent president would be remembered primarily as a peanut farmer who was in over his head.
Ronald Reagan was an affable, charismatic actor and governor of California who exuded paternalistic patriotism. As soon as he took office, he began a crusade to upgrade the military, which had been suffering from low morale, low pay, and outdated equipment. The defense budget increased 43 percent during Reagan’s presidency. He raised military entrance standards and discharged thousands of unqualified service members. As a result, the American public enthusiastically supported Reagan, whom they viewed as strong and decisive.
In 1982 President Reagan sent sixteen hundred marines into Beirut to help restore order. But that was not nearly enough, particularly when compared to the Lebanon crisis of 1958, when President Eisenhower sent fourteen thousand soldiers and marines into Beirut. I was sent to Lebanon to assess the situation and I recommended that we get out. The rules of engagement were unclear and there were not enough troops to patrol the high ground. On October 23, 1983, we lost 241 marines in Beirut. The public was outraged. They asked, “Why should our young men be dying in Lebanon?” President Reagan argued that peace in the Middle East was of vital concern to the security of our nation and that the terrorists were trying to weaken American will and force the withdrawal of U.S. troops. But in the end, President Reagan was forced to withdraw. The American public had spoken.
I admire President Reagan’s willingness to compromise at the right time and his ability to read the public’s mood. I supported him through his Central American forays—El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Panama, though a majority of Democrats were against his policies. I chaired election oversig