Why Mr Reagan must admit error

Press, 24 December 1986, Page 16

Why Mr Reagan must admit error

From the ‘Economist,’ London

Time is not always the great healer. Mr Ronald Reagan is wounded and, unless he acts quickly, risks limping into the new year with a festering wound that increasingly saps his energy and makes full recovery ever less likely. The recent revelations in Washingon are not so scandalous as to bring forth calls for impeachment. Yet they point in one direction, and that is up.

Mr Reagan, it seems, gave his approval to an indirect arms shipment to Iran as early as August, 1985; and, whatever he maintains, the policy behind the arms sales was to secure the release of the hostages.

It is easy to be confused about dates, even important ones, but the impression nonetheless is that the President sanctioned a hypocritical policy and dissembled about it when it was uncovered. Only a speedy admission that the policy, and not just its execution, was mistaken can stop the damaging effort to prove the obvious.

Much damage has already been done. The image of Mr Reagan as a decent, honest, and above-board statesman has, in many minds, been superseded by that of a run-of-the-mill, arrogant, and evasive politician. It will be serious indeed if people cease to be shocked by evidence of lies, dishonesty, and lawbreaking in the White House, for that will mean that one of Mr Reagan’s most signal achievements, the restitution to Americans of faith in the presidency, is undone.

That need not happen, but it requires Mr Reagan to make a clean breast of things and to take full responsibility for his actions' and omissions. And if some of his subordinates have broken the law, he must find out how and when, and reassure Americans that the law-breakers will not go unpunished. p Unless this is done, every week will bring more revelations. Every congressional committee will expose more transgressions. Every little

breeze will whisper more sleaze. The Reagan White House will be increasingly weakened in its ability to use its authority to veto* protectionist legislation in Congress, and increasingly tempted to restore its popularity by agreeing to unwise arms-control agreements with the Russians. A sullen and mistrustful Congress will pass more laws to circumscribe future Presidents, laws which future Presidents may then be tempted to thumb their noses at, setting off another round of

accusation and investigation much like this one. The full extent of the lawbreaking in the current scandal is not yet known. Indeed, it is not known for sure which laws, if any, have been broken. But the siphoning of money to the Nicaraguan contras certainly looks illegal to many people, including the secretary of state, Mr George Shultz, though he now regrets having said so. To some foreigners, and perhaps to Mr Reagan, circumventing or even breaking the law may not seem so wrong. Laws may well get in the way of a cando president. Yet laws have an importance in America that they have in few other countries: a belief in law, and in the ideals that underlie it as a means of organising human society, is the cement that binds together an utterly heterogeneous nation. You have only to watch LieutColonel Oliver North and ViceAdmiral John Poindexter invoking the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution to appreciate the significance of the law to Americans. It is the basis upon which their freedom is built. Individuals, even those working for presidents, cannot pick and choose among the laws they wish to obey. President Reagan is not under pressure to admit to breaking the law, hazy as he seems to be about what it requires of him. An admission of error about his arms-for-hostages policy is the priority.

Had this come as swiftly as John Kennedy’s admission of error in 1961 about the Bay of Pigs policy, Mr Reagan might have already put the worst of this scandal behind him. As it is, the comparisons are not with Kennedy but with Nixon, and the prospect is that Honest Ron will look trickier and trickier as the weeks go by. Central to Mr Reagan’s success as a President has been his bond with the people. They have not always liked the policies, but they have generally liked the man.

Because he has been so adept

at maintaining a rapport with the voters, he has been able to brush off criticism in the press, get his way with a reluctant Congress and stand firm against adversaries, whether Libyan or Soviet. But popular support is now falling away. One in five of the fans, say the polls, has defected since the end of October. If the Reagan presidency is to be restored, the bond with the people needs to be repaired. That means admitting that mistakes were made, and reassuring them that laws are not there for Presidents or their subordinates to break.