How Reagan won Senate

Press, 31 October 1981, Page 8

How Reagan won Senate

By DAVID BARBER, NZPA staff correspondent Washington A cup of coffee at the White House is, to an American politician, what afternoon tea with the Queen might be to his British counterpart. That is the way Ronald Reagan lived up to his reputation as the great persuader in pulling off one of the biggest political come-backs in recent American history by getting the Senate to approve the Awacs radar planes sale to Saudi ArabiaLet a Democratic Senator, David Pryor, tell of his feelings when he was invited to the White House the day before the vote, and ushered up to the Reagan’s family quarters and into a redcarpeted office off the President’s bedroom:

“He was very relaxed and very persuasive, and, I must say, so very sincere. I don’t think it was any harder for me to ever say no to any individual than it was a few minutes ago sitting up there in the beautiful little room.”

He did say no. But he was only one of 46 of the 100 senators given similar treat-

ment in the last month. And enough of the others changed their minds to turn a onetime certain overwhelming defeat for Mr Reagan into a glorious victory in his. first important foreign-policy test on Capitol Hill. “The appeal and pressure of Ronald Reagan was more than many senators, especially freshmen, could take," said Senator Bob Packwood, an Oregon Republican who led opposition to the sale and also held out to the bitter end.

Two weeks ago the House of Representatives voted 301111 against the SUSBSOO million sale. In early September, only 16 senators favoured it. Two weeks . ago there still appeared to be a clear majority against it. “The high-powered lobbying entailed a combination of personal cajoling, patriotic pleading, some old-fashioned horse-trading, and very tough political pressure,” the “Wall Street Journal” noted yesterday of the final 52-48 vote in favour.

There were also reports that two senators, whose last-minute declarations gave Mr Reagan the -slim

margin of victory, had received political favours from the White House. The "New York Times” said a Washington State Republican, Slade Gorton, last week won a promise from the White House to support a SUS 26 million renovation of a public health hospital in Seattle. And the “Wall Street Journal” reported that, at the request of a Montana Democrat, John Melcher, the Administration dropped plans to save JUS29 million by closing a coal-burning plant near the city of Butte, in Montana.

Analysts agreed that winning the issue was not as important for Mr Reagan as not losing. A defeat would have been a blow to his international prestige, would have weakened his hand with Congress and given the Democrats a politically crucial victory, they said.

As it is, he retained his image as a smooth-talking “superman" . with more power over Congress than any President has demonstrated in many years. The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Mr

Thomas (Tip) O’Neill, who has seen other Presidents try to persuade congressmen to change their views, conceded that the turnaround was “amazing.” He said Mr Reagan was showing “awesome power.”

The come-back was impressive as far as his own Republicans were concerned. Members of Mr Reagan’s own party voted 108-78 against the deal in the House.

He finally won 41 of the 53 Republican senators, also picking up 11 Democrats who defied their own national party committee’s stand on the issue.

Among those who turned the tide at the end was Roger Jepsen, a Republican and an outspoken opponent of the deal who was reported to be in tears at one stage after the White House had unleashed a barrage of pressure from his own political contributors in his home state of lowa.

President Reagan apparently reminded him that he had supported his underdog Senate candidacy in 1978 and said his party and country needed his support this time.