When I met with him in Tokyo in 1985, Prime Minister Nakasone told me a leader must have two faces—a smiling one and a threatening one. Some might say that this was yet another example of the sleazy, two-faced character of most politicians. But even his critics agree that Nakasone was one of the most courageous and principled Japanese leaders since World War II. His simple formula was no more and no less than the key to effective, pragmatic leadership.
No word in the political lexicon has two more diametrically different meanings than “pragmatism.” To the Washington establishment’s moderates, it is a good word. To self-styled “movement conservatives,” it is a dirty word. Liberals and moderates praise pragmatists and condemn ideologues. When they say that a conservative President, congressman, or Cabinet officer has “grown,” that means that he has capitulated to their agenda and abandoned what they consider to be his extreme ideas. They believe a President should ask Congress to approve only those measures that polls indicate a majority will support. They don’t ask, “Is it right?”, but, “Will it work?” In foreign policy, they generally believe that success is measured by getting any agreement, and they find it difficult to oppose even bad agreements.
The worst kind of pragmatism is that practiced by the mushy moderate, who believes in nothing but what works and inevitably becomes a captive of Washington’s permanent liberal establishment. Like the inhabitants of Plato’s Cave, they believe that what they see inside the Beltway is life, when in fact it is only a faint shadow of the real world. Their favorite code words are “accommodation,” “consensus,” and “compromise.” They tell the newly elected congressman or senator who comes to Washington full of energy and strong conservative convictions that the way to get ahead is to get along. An alarming number heed this centrist siren song. The permanent Washington establishment has an enormous impact, since even when it doesn’t dominate the political scene, it controls the social scene. Only the strongest characters can resist this heady wine. Too many become hollow vessels that drift with the fashionable tide instead of making waves. But the payoff is substantial: a favorable press, and acceptance for them and their spouses by the establishment social set.
At the other extreme are those who would rather be right than be President—the movement conservatives who have high principles and believe that any compromise is wrong. In fact, they dislike pragmatists even more than their ideological enemies on the left. They believe it is better to burn down the bakery fighting for principle than to win half a loaf through a judicious compromise. They are realistic enough to know that they are in a probably permanent minority. But they believe that if only the conservatives in the White House and Congress would fight more and compromise less, their principles would prevail and they would soon become the majority. To them, a pragmatist is worse than a liberal, because he blurs the difference between conservatism and liberalism and even makes liberalism respectable.
Extremists on the left tend to be just as critical of pragmatism as extremists on the right. While Theodore Roosevelt has the reputation for having been a strong, progressive President, he often used pragmatic means to achieve his idealistic goals. Wisconsin’s great progressive senator, Robert LaFollette, bitterly attacked him for compromising principle in order to get his program through Congress. He charged that Roosevelt acted upon the maxim that half a loaf is better than no bread. LaFollette believed half a loaf was fatal—that it “dulls the appetite and destroys the keenness of interest in attaining the full loaf.” Like the extremists on the right, LaFollette thought it was better to lose fighting for principle than to win by compromise. TR, who considered himself to be a man of principle, responded to LaFollette’s intemperate attacks in kind. He characterized LaFollette as “half zealot and half self-seeking demagogue—a vindictive and unscrupulous faker!”
Those who practice pragmatism as an end in itself and those who oppose it as an unmitigated evil are both wrong. Pragmatism can be justified, but only as a means to achieve great ideals. The common cliché is that politics is the art of the possible. But leadership is the art of making the impossible possible. If a President appoints to his Cabinet those whose only qualification is that they are pragmatists—other code words are “problem solvers” and “non-ideologues”—they will be easy pickings for the bureaucrats in the permanent establishment. Knowing how to make the system work is important. But knowing what you want it to achieve, sometimes in spite of the system, is indispensable.
Most politicians, even the movement conservatives and their opposite numbers on the left, are pragmatists at heart. In public life, as in private life, all people have principles and all people have interests. To be effective, a leader must recognize that the two are often inextricably bound together. This takes great finesse. A congressman will probably resent a lobbyist who makes an appeal for his vote based entirely on political grounds, because he will think the lobbyist considers him unprincipled. The same congressman will ridicule a President who asks for his vote purely on the basis of principle, because he will consider the President stupid for assuming he would be willing to vote against his interests just because the President asked him to.
Politicians are by nature proud people. You must never question their larger motives or their political instincts. But you must also assume that they are constantly balancing principle against interest and that your best hope for bringing them along is persuading them that supporting your position will enable them to serve both simultaneously.
In short, to achieve great goals a leader must find ways to persuade others to reinterpret, and even sometimes to go against, their interests and principles. But at times he must go against his own interests and principles to achieve those same goals.
This is especially true in foreign policy. When Hitler attacked Russia, Winston Churchill had to eat years of words attacking the evils of godless Bolshevism. In urging an alliance against the Nazis, even one with Stalin, he said, “If Hitler invaded Hell, I think I would find a kind word to say about the Devil in the House of Commons.”
Even my detractors would agree that the most dramatic event of my Presidency was my visit to China in 1972. That exciting first glimpse into the heart of a sprawling, colorful, mysterious land was fascinating to millions of Americans. And yet my visit was an act of cold, dispassionate pragmatism. When I announced it in 1971, I was praised by the left and attacked by the right, both for the wrong reasons. The left praised me for backing off my hard-line anti-Communist principles; the right attacked me for doing so. Both were wrong. The China initiative had nothing to do with my attitude toward communism. My decision was based on my belief that the security of the United States would be served by developing better relations with one Communist power that was not on good terms with the other, the Soviet Union—a much more formidable adversary.
In both these cases, pragmatism was a necessary means to achieve a greater goal. Churchill recognized the West could not preserve its freedom without an alliance with a Communist regime whose every guiding tenet was antithetical to Western principles. I recognized that building a new relationship with one such regime could help the United States preserve the peace that was threatened by the expansionism and hostility of the other.
Success in politics at home also can require pragmatic choices about which battles should be fought to win victory. Fighting on all fronts may lead to defeat. We don’t have to like communism to recognize that Lenin’s doctrine of two steps forward and one step backward, though in his case used to achieve bad ends, is perfectly acceptable if used to achieve good ends.
Over the past forty years, I have campaigned in every state for both liberal and conservative Republican nominees for Congress. Shocked fellow conservatives frequently asked me why I campaigned for liberals. The answer is simple: I would rather have Republicans as majority leaders in the House and Senate than Democrats.
In 1980, the Republican nominee for Senate in Colorado, Mary Estill Buchanan, lost in a very close election. I was surprised when a Republican friend told me that he had not voted for her. I asked why. He replied, “She was wrong on abortion.” As a result, we got six more years of Gary Hart, who was wrong on everything. I can understand people feeling strongly about special issues such as abortion, gun control, and ERA. But they should always step back and consider the alternative. Sometimes it is necessary to make a painful decision to support a candidate who may be wrong on your pet issue but right on most others. I have always believed that sticking to principles is not only the best statesmanship but also the best politics. However, this is a far cry from the approach of some politicians who are unable to see the difference between principle and prejudice.
One of the toughest decisions for a President is when a senator or congressman asks for a project in his district or a job for a
I followed the same practice. I never prepared for an important speech or press conference or made a major decision in the Oval Office. Instead, I used a quieter room—my EOB office, the Lincoln Sitting Room, or the studies at Camp David, Key Biscayne, or San Clemente. Good ideas seldom popped into my head in the commotion of a meeting. I realize this may not be true of others. But for those who have not tried a little silence, I would recommend it. When a competent staff member draws up a daily schedule for a busy public official, he carefully provides time for meals, appointments, meetings, even recreation. He should add time for silence to that list. The time reserved for quiet thinking and meditation is probably the most important of the day.