All the Presidents' Words Hushed
By ROBERT DALLEK,
Los Angeles Times
BOSTON -- Ever since the presidency became the
focus of U.S. political life during Theodore
Roosevelt's years in the White House, journalists and
historians have discussed the importance of
presidential decision-making. Why do presidents give
priority to one domestic issue over another? Why
and how do they decide between war and peace?
Journalists initially answer these questions with the
limited knowledge available to them, always mindful
that "White House sources" provide them with the
information that will advance a president's agenda
and serve his political standing. Historians with the
luxury of hindsight and, more important, access to a
much fuller record usually give us a better
understanding of presidential reasoning. Their studies
are not simply exercises in academic analysis. They
often educate presidents, who are always eager to learn what accounts for past
White House successes and failures.
President Bush, however, has severely crippled our ability to study the inner
workings of a presidency. On Nov. 1, he issued an executive order that all but
blocks access to the Reagan White House and potentially that of all other recent
presidents. Practically speaking, Bush's order hinders the opening of 68,000
pages of confidential Reagan communications with his advisors. Under the 1978
Presidential Records Act, a systematic release of presidential papers in response
to Freedom of Information requests can only occur 12 years after a president
leaves office. The law's intent was to assure the timely release of presidential
materials that would serve the government's and the public's understanding of the
country's history, especially decision-making in the White House. The Bush
administration, including a statement by the president himself, contends that the
executive order is needed to guard against revelations destructive to national
security. But this assertion will persuade no one who has even the slightest
knowledge of presidential papers. Just a few days in the Kennedy or Johnson
libraries would be enough to convince anyone that ample safeguards against
breeches of national security and violations of personal privacy already exist, and
these are for papers dating from the 1960s, not the 1980s. Moreover, access to
previously closed documents make clear that presidents and government
agencies always err on the side of excessive caution.
If national security is not the motivating force behind Bush's executive order,
what is? We can only speculate that he is trying to protect members of his
administration, who also served under Ronald Reagan, from embarrassing
revelations. It is also possible that he is endeavoring to hide his father's role in the
Iran-Contra scandal. And it is imaginable that he is already thinking about
shielding the inner workings of his own administration, or his excessive
dependence on senior advisors in deciding both domestic and national-security
issues about which many outsiders believe he has been poorly informed.
Researchers trying to reconstruct the country's past are not the only losers when
access to historical records is reduced. Current policymakers dependent on
useful analogies in deciding what best serves the national interest are also
harmed. The more presidents have known about past White House performance,
the better they have been at making wise policy judgments. President Franklin D.
Roosevelt's intimate knowledge of President Woodrow Wilson's missteps at the
end of World War I were of considerable help to him in leading the country into
and through World War II. Lyndon B. Johnson's effectiveness in passing so
much Great Society legislation in 1965 and 1966 partly rested on direct
observation of how Roosevelt had managed relations with the Congress.
President Harry S. Truman's error in crossing into North Korea was one element
in persuading George Bush not to invade Iraq.
The recent release of additional Johnson tapes underscores how much historical
understanding can influence presidential decision-making. Tapes of LBJ talking
about Operation Rolling Thunder, the systematic bombing of North Vietnam
begun in February 1965, reveal a president with substantial doubts about the
wisdom of the air campaign. "Now we're off to bombing these people," Johnson
said to Defense Secretary Robert S. McNamara. "We're over that hurdle. I don't
think anything is going to be as bad as losing, and I don't see any way of
winning."
"Bomb, bomb, bomb. That's all you know," Johnson said to Army Chief of Staff
Harold K. Johnson. " ... I don't need 10 generals to come in here 10 times and
tell me to bomb. I want some solutions. I want some answers," the president
declared. "Airplanes ain't worth a damn, Dick ... " he complained to Senate
Armed Services Chairman Richard Russell. "I guess they can do it in an
industrial city. I guess they can do it in New York. ... But that's the damnedest
thing I ever saw. The biggest fraud. Don't you get your hopes up that the Air
Force is going to" win this war. "Light at the end of the tunnel," LBJ told Bill
Moyers about the bombing. "Hell, we don't even have a tunnel; we don't even
know where the tunnel is."
Johnson knew about post-World War II surveys of wartime bombing
effectiveness. They demonstrated that the aerial campaigns against Britain and
Germany not only didn't defeat them, they, in fact, stiffened resistance and
encouraged greater civilian war efforts. Johnson's well-justified doubts about
bombing made him all the more receptive to sending in ground forces.
It's too bad that he didn't have access to a memo President John F. Kennedy had
sent to McNamara in November 1962, a week after the Cuban Missile crisis
ended. An invasion plan for Cuba, which might still be needed if the Soviets did
not follow through on a promise to withdraw "offensive" weapons from the
island, impressed Kennedy as "thin." He worried that "we could end up bogged
down. I think we should keep constantly in mind the British in the Boer War, the
Russians in the last war with the Finnish, and our own experience with the North
Koreans." If historical experience dictated against an invasion of Cuba, how
would he have felt about sending hundreds of thousands of troops into the jungles
of Vietnam?
Every president uses history in deciding current actions. President Bush is no
different. Memories of his father's defeat over a failure to keep his promise
about no new taxes and a seeming indifference to the plight of the unemployed
have partly shaped his behavior as president. Bush might profit from a history of
Reagan's dealings with former Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev by an
independent scholar, which his Nov. 1 executive order forecloses for the time
being.
Indeed, the principal victim of Bush's directive will be himself and the country.
The order will inhibit independent study of the Reagan and first Bush
presidencies and will impoverish the White House's ability to make difficult
decisions in both domestic and foreign affairs during the next three years. The
more the country knows about presidential decision-making, the better it can
decide who to send to the White House. The study and publication of our
presidential history is no luxury or form of public entertainment. It is a vital
element in assuring the best governance of our democracy. Congress should
reverse Bush's order as a destructive act that return us to an imperial presidency
and robs us of our history.
(Robert Dallek is the author of a two-volume life of Lyndon B. Johnson. He is completing a biography of John F. Kennedy)
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