Presidential crises: Who's in control?
Bob Williams
May 11, 2007
We like to think that the man at the top knows what he is doing and is in control. It’s dismaying to find that this is not always true. We have two cases, and perhaps a third case developing, where the American President became ineffectual with dangerous consequences.
In his recent book, Nixon and Kissinger, the noted presidential historian Robert Dallek gives us surprising details of the latter days of the Nixon administration from documents made available only recently. In 1973 Nixon was sinking in the mire of the Watergate scandal. Henry Kissinger and Alexander Haig felt his decisions were becoming erratic; he was often drunk or on sedatives. Nixon fired the Special Prosecutor, and then had to instate another. Public opinion turned strongly against Nixon. In October Congress passed the War Powers Act and overrode Nixon’s veto.
Earlier that month Egypt and Syria had launched a war with Israel. Just four days later, in Washington, Vice President Spiro Agnew resigned and left office in disgrace. The White House was in more turmoil than we knew, Nixon less in control than we knew. Nixon wished to favor neither side in the Arab-Israeli war, but Kissinger was making the decisions and we became the patron of Israel while the Soviets became the patron of Egypt as Israeli forces surrounded the Egyptian army in the Sinai desert. The Soviet leadership at first negotiated with Kissinger and Haig then unilaterally announced that they would send paratroopers and supplies to the beleaguered Egyptian army.
Kissinger and Haig met with White House security officials and announced they would raise the military level of alertness to the DEFCON 2 level. This level of alert had occurred only once before, during the Cuban missile crisis. We edged toward war through decisions made by men not authorized to make such decisions but allowed to do so by a President who was preoccupied with a looming impeachment threat. We, the American people, did not know of this until recent weeks. The Soviets backed off and negotiated; a potential disaster avoided.
The second presidential crisis involves Bill Clinton. The Republican congress had been searching for impeachable offenses since taking power in January 1995. Alleged misdeeds, all with names patterned after Watergate, were pursued by Independent Prosecutor Kenneth Starr, but no evidence of misdeeds was found. Then Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky was brought to light in early1998. Under oath he denied having an affair with Lewinsky. This occupied television and the American people throughout the year.
So, what else entertaining was going on during that time? Quite importantly the terrorist threat to the U.S. was growing, but this was not entertainment and it was not much noticed. Clinton had appointed Richard Clarke as his counterterrorism director in 1995 and they established a bin Laden tracking unit within the Counterterrorist Center of the CIA. But bin Laden remained elusive. In August of 1998 suicide truck bombers attacked the American embassies in Kenya and in Tanzania. One week later the CIA determined that this was the work of bin Laden’s people.
Three days later Clinton was testifying under cross-examination and in front of television cameras about his affair with Monica Lewinsky. That same day George Tenet briefed the White House on possible cruise missile targets to hit back at what came to be known as Al Qaeda. Clinton ordered the attacks and went on the air to announce that “bin Laden had launched a terrorist war” against the United States.
The missile attacks produced little results and Republicans in Congress, transfixed by a semen-stained blue dress, accused Clinton of trying to divert attention from his confession about Lewinsky. Media pundits took up this line with glee since a recently released movie, Wag the Dog, spoofed a president who faked a war to divert attention from his sexual affair. In this climate Clinton had little chance to mount further actions against bin Laden. With the election of November 2000 the urgency to find bin Laden passed. In this case disaster was not avoided.
This brings us to our third embattled President, George W. Bush. His policies have not paid off; his standing with the public is low; his Secretary of Defense had to resign. The missing email of Karl Rove looks a bit like the missing section of Watergate tape, and U. S. Attorneys may have been used in political vendettas
All this will leave Bush largely ineffective, except as commander-in-Chief of the Army, through the remainder of his term. But, it seems unlikely that this situation will create a greater crisis than we now see, but the stage is set for almost any turn and, again, we will be the last to know.
In his recent book, Nixon and Kissinger, the noted presidential historian Robert Dallek gives us surprising details of the latter days of the Nixon administration from documents made available only recently. In 1973 Nixon was sinking in the mire of the Watergate scandal. Henry Kissinger and Alexander Haig felt his decisions were becoming erratic; he was often drunk or on sedatives. Nixon fired the Special Prosecutor, and then had to instate another. Public opinion turned strongly against Nixon. In October Congress passed the War Powers Act and overrode Nixon’s veto.
Earlier that month Egypt and Syria had launched a war with Israel. Just four days later, in Washington, Vice President Spiro Agnew resigned and left office in disgrace. The White House was in more turmoil than we knew, Nixon less in control than we knew. Nixon wished to favor neither side in the Arab-Israeli war, but Kissinger was making the decisions and we became the patron of Israel while the Soviets became the patron of Egypt as Israeli forces surrounded the Egyptian army in the Sinai desert. The Soviet leadership at first negotiated with Kissinger and Haig then unilaterally announced that they would send paratroopers and supplies to the beleaguered Egyptian army.
Kissinger and Haig met with White House security officials and announced they would raise the military level of alertness to the DEFCON 2 level. This level of alert had occurred only once before, during the Cuban missile crisis. We edged toward war through decisions made by men not authorized to make such decisions but allowed to do so by a President who was preoccupied with a looming impeachment threat. We, the American people, did not know of this until recent weeks. The Soviets backed off and negotiated; a potential disaster avoided.
The second presidential crisis involves Bill Clinton. The Republican congress had been searching for impeachable offenses since taking power in January 1995. Alleged misdeeds, all with names patterned after Watergate, were pursued by Independent Prosecutor Kenneth Starr, but no evidence of misdeeds was found. Then Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky was brought to light in early1998. Under oath he denied having an affair with Lewinsky. This occupied television and the American people throughout the year.
So, what else entertaining was going on during that time? Quite importantly the terrorist threat to the U.S. was growing, but this was not entertainment and it was not much noticed. Clinton had appointed Richard Clarke as his counterterrorism director in 1995 and they established a bin Laden tracking unit within the Counterterrorist Center of the CIA. But bin Laden remained elusive. In August of 1998 suicide truck bombers attacked the American embassies in Kenya and in Tanzania. One week later the CIA determined that this was the work of bin Laden’s people.
Three days later Clinton was testifying under cross-examination and in front of television cameras about his affair with Monica Lewinsky. That same day George Tenet briefed the White House on possible cruise missile targets to hit back at what came to be known as Al Qaeda. Clinton ordered the attacks and went on the air to announce that “bin Laden had launched a terrorist war” against the United States.
The missile attacks produced little results and Republicans in Congress, transfixed by a semen-stained blue dress, accused Clinton of trying to divert attention from his confession about Lewinsky. Media pundits took up this line with glee since a recently released movie, Wag the Dog, spoofed a president who faked a war to divert attention from his sexual affair. In this climate Clinton had little chance to mount further actions against bin Laden. With the election of November 2000 the urgency to find bin Laden passed. In this case disaster was not avoided.
This brings us to our third embattled President, George W. Bush. His policies have not paid off; his standing with the public is low; his Secretary of Defense had to resign. The missing email of Karl Rove looks a bit like the missing section of Watergate tape, and U. S. Attorneys may have been used in political vendettas
All this will leave Bush largely ineffective, except as commander-in-Chief of the Army, through the remainder of his term. But, it seems unlikely that this situation will create a greater crisis than we now see, but the stage is set for almost any turn and, again, we will be the last to know.
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