14 

Rumble from the Right

MEETING WITH THE PRESIDENT

April 6, 1976

10:10 to 10:25 a.m.

Present: Rumsfeld alone

At the end of the previous meeting I told the President I wanted to stay and see him alone. I told him that he looked down, that I could tell he was concerned about something, and that I wanted him to know that I was available to help. . . .The President said he felt there was a fifty/fifty chance that Kissinger would quit, and he didn’t believe that he could say anything more on Kissinger’s behalf. . . . He [Kissinger] said he took very personally Ronald Reagan’s comments.¹

It was winter in New Hampshire, but the cold weather did not stop the energy from crackling among the group of journalists gathered in Manchester. The man who took the podium was dressed in a simple suit, an understated brown plaid that helped bring out his Hollywood tan and shining dark hair. Nobody knew just what he was going to say, but by then, there was a real chance he was about to change the face of the American political landscape. On February 20, 1976, four days before the New Hampshire primary, Ronald Reagan, the insurgent candidate for the Republican nomination, had called a press conference.

Since the former California Governor had formally announced his bid to challenge President Ford for the presidential nomination in November 1975, confirming the long-held fears of Ford’s advisors, the Governor had moved swiftly to draw the lines of battle between President Ford’s vision—at least as Reagan characterized it—and his own. Reagan portrayed himself as a stronger, more forceful leader out to rescue an America in decline, in terms of both conditions at home and prestige abroad. Ford, for his part, presented a more pragmatic governing approach that had served him well as a leader in the Congress and in bringing stability to the nation as President.

Reagan had been far from clear about his future for many months. Periodically before Reagan announced, a well-regarded Republican strategist named John Sears visited the White House to give the President his views on Reagan’s thinking. (Sears left the impression he might be helpful to the Ford effort but eventually he became Reagan’s campaign manager.)

MEETING WITH THE PRESIDENT

May 21, 1975

8:36 to 9:10 a.m.

I gave the President a report on what John Sears had told me and [that] I felt it probably represented Reagan’s view. . . . I get the feeling that they feel that the President is sincere and is restoring trust, but that that isn’t enough, that the country has not had a positive leader since Kennedy, and that there was a need for a man who had the presence and ability to communicate and lead and that they think Reagan’s that guy and maybe the President isn’t and that they want to be ready if he isn’t—that there seems to be not a proper use of words and ideas and concepts in leadership. . . .²

Still apparently finding it hard to believe that a loyal Republican would challenge a sitting President of his own party, Ford wanted me to make crystal clear to Reagan that the President was in the race to stay. So at the President’s request, I met with Reagan on June 17, 1975. As with my earlier meeting with Reagan that March, when I had relayed President Ford’s offer of a Cabinet post, I told the Governor that I had come at the President’s request. I acknowledged that there had been a number of rumors about Ford’s intentions as well as about the Governor’s. “The President wants no ambiguity between the two of you,” I told Reagan. “He will definitely be running and will be announcing very soon.” I also added that I was personally disappointed that Governor Reagan hadn’t decided to join the Ford administration and that I thought he would have been “a very valuable addition.”

Governor Reagan thanked me for the information. “My plans are unclear,” he said, or words to that effect. He indicated his position was unchanged—he hadn’t yet decided what he would do, but that a good many people felt he had an obligation to run.³

On the eve of Reagan’s formal entry into the race, on November 20, 1975, campaign pollsters reported that “while the President leads his potential opponent in almost every state, [Ford’s] support is soft.”⁴ So, in the run-up to the crucial first primary in New Hampshire, Ford campaign supporters went on the attack, characterizing Reagan as a spokesman of the archconservative wing of the party and not well prepared for governing at the national level. At a news conference at the White House on February 18, 1976, President Ford had discussed what he saw as the policy differences between Reagan and himself, and, considering himself a pragmatic midwesterner, declared: “I believe that anybody to the right of me, Democratic or Republican, can’t win a national election.”⁵

Discussing the press conference with him the next day, I urged the President to stop talking about Governor Reagan altogether. I suggested he consider staying above it, leaving the campaigning to his campaign team.⁶ As it turned out, Reagan was just about to strike back against that strategy.

Two days after Ford’s remarks, on February 20, Reagan returned to New Hampshire after spending a week back in California to prepare for his campaign tour through the “first in the nation” primary state. When Reagan came before reporters in Manchester that day, Jon Nordheimer of The New York Times noted that he “appeared well rested and tanned” from his week away from the campaign trail.⁷ The Governor’s team told reporters they had convened the press conference to address the Ford campaign’s accusations that he was too far-right to win the presidency. As he often did, Reagan had a twinkle in his eye and a trick up his sleeve.

“I am a little surprised about his statement about my so-called extremism,” Reagan said casually, referencing the President. “It does come rather strange because he tried on two different occasions to persuade me to accept any of several Cabinet positions in his administration.”

A reporter asked the obvious question: Did the Governor think the President made the offers to prevent just this sort of primary challenge? Reagan cracked a coy smile and said: “No, I just thought he recognized my administrative abilities.”⁸

His comment about the Ford administration’s overtures to Reagan, through me, were of course completely accurate but had not previously been disclosed to the press either by Reagan or by the White House, adding to the drama of Reagan’s moment.

The New York Times noted, “A conclusion that seemed inescapable was that Mr. Reagan had carefully withheld any mention of Mr. Ford’s [by then] year-old attempts to bring him into the Administration until he could drop it when it would have an optimum impact.” The Times story—front page, above the fold—was headlined “Reagan Discloses Ford Cabinet Bid: Countering Rival’s Attack on Him as Extremist, He Cites 2 Offers of Posts.”

As he intended, Reagan’s revelation severely undercut the Ford campaign’s narrative and left them flat-footed. If the President thought Reagan to be too far to the right, one would fairly ask, why then was President Ford so keen to have him serve in his Cabinet?

The news surprised the media, which increased its impact, leading to front-page headlines across the country—undoubtedly as the Reagan campaign team had intended. The White House, for its part, had to confirm the overtures, suggesting the offers had been made “to unify the Republican Party and bring to the Administration a wide range of views,” which had the benefit of being true.⁹

Reagan’s skillful move not only caught the White House by surprise, but signaled early on that he wasn’t going to play by any established rules. It was a shot across the bow from a skillful sharpshooter, delivered by one who had a well-developed flair for the dramatic. If there had been any doubt within the Ford campaign team, it had become clear: This was the beginning of a long, hard slog for the presidency.

*  *  *

On the same day The New York Times had reported Reagan’s dramatic disclosure, the paper carried another story—also front page, above the fold—with a headline the Ford campaign also would have preferred to avoid: “Nixon Trip Revives Issue Vexing to Ford in Primary.” Despite the former President’s suggestion to Ford that he planned to keep a low profile during the campaign, Nixon had chosen that moment, while his successor and the man who had pardoned him at great political cost was facing a significant political challenge in a critical primary, to make a return visit to the People’s Republic of China. This untimely reminder of what The New York Times called the “Nixon connection” proved awkward, forcing Ford to have to revisit his widely unpopular pardon of Richard Nixon as he campaigned across New Hampshire.¹⁰

Responding to questions from students at Keene High School, for example, Ford said that Nixon was among some ten thousand other Americans who went to China every year. Nixon, he said, was now a private citizen who could do what he wanted, just like anyone else. If that were true, a young man asked Ford, why wasn’t he facing “criminal charges in the same way as any other American would, instead of pardoning him?” An awkward silence followed, until Ford replied, “As far as penalty is concerned, the former President obviously resigned in disgrace. That is a pretty severe penalty. One out of thirty-seven Presidents had that happen to him.”

That wasn’t the only difficult moment Nixon caused Ford. Since Nixon’s trip involved his postpresidential dealings with the Chinese, it also played into what was emerging as a, if not the, dominant issue of the Republican primary campaign: America’s foreign policy. While Ford’s pollster, Bob Teeter, had reported in late 1975 that Ford then held a lead over Reagan in perception of handling foreign affairs, he had identified an issue that was continuing to rub not the entire country, but specifically Republican primary voters the wrong way: détente. Teeter flagged as problems both the word détente and the policy the term identified, with some conservative voters equating seeking accommodation with a Communist country with weakness. “Détente is a particularly unpopular idea with most Republican primary voters and the word is worse,” Teeter wrote in a memo. “We ought to stop using the word whenever possible.”¹¹

Reagan of course was fully aware of détente’s unpopularity among the GOP base and made attacking the policy a key theme in his campaign. He argued that détente did not demand enough from the Soviets. “Through détente we have sought peace with our adversaries,” Reagan asserted when he announced his campaign. “We should continue to do so, but must make it plain that we expect a stronger indication that they also seek a lasting peace with us.”¹² Coming under particularly heavy fire were two of détente’s chief proponents in the administration: Secretary of State Kissinger and Vice President Rockefeller. Reagan zeroed in on Kissinger particularly, painting him as the embodiment of a worldview that was too accommodating to the Communists, disadvantaging America and making our nation appear feckless, thereby lessening our respect on the world stage.

President Ford wasn’t going to let anyone depict him as weak. He had, after all, faced the dangers of combat with courage in World War II, the war that ended with the first-ever use of nuclear weapons. As one who both understood war from firsthand experience and understood the increased capacity for destruction since the days of Hiroshima, he was not eager to see America again on belligerent footing. Further, there was no one in his administration for whom he had greater respect than Henry Kissinger, and he was determined to strongly defend both the policy of détente as well as his Secretary of State, advisor, and friend Henry Kissinger.

In August 1975, Ford attempted to distinguish the Nixon détente policy from a Ford détente policy—taking issue with the term itself—during his speech to the American Legion convention in Minneapolis. “First of all, the word itself is confusing,” Ford argued. “Its meaning is not clear to everybody.” He allowed that “French is a beautiful language, the classic language of diplomacy,” and while he wished there was “one simple English word” to use instead, “relations between the world’s two strongest nuclear powers can’t be summed up in a catchphrase.” Then he defined the word as it related to the policy of his administration: “Détente literally means ‘easing’ or ‘relaxing,’ but definitely not—and I emphasize ‘not’—the relaxing of diligence or ceasing of effort. Rather, it means movement away from the constant crisis and dangerous confrontations that have characterized relations with the Soviet Union.”¹³

Then the President became more personal, carefully describing the French word détente as he intended it. Tackling the issue directly, he said, “To me, détente means a fervent desire for peace—but not peace at any price. It means the preservation of fundamental American principles—not their sacrifice. It means maintaining the strength to command respect from our adversaries and provide leadership to our friends—not letting down our guard or dismantling our defenses or neglecting our allies. It means peaceful rivalry between political and economic systems—not the curbing of our competitive efforts.”¹⁴

He cited a number of accomplishments he felt had been brought about by the Nixon-Kissinger policy of détente, including an easing of tensions over Berlin, the ABM and SALT treaties, and troop reductions in Europe. But he went on to vow that “détente must be a two-way street, because tensions cannot be eased with safety and security by one side alone.”¹⁵

Yet President Ford’s heartfelt defense of his policy did not always translate clearly to all segments of the American public. In December 1975, The New York Times reported that “interviews with dozens of members of Congress and officials, plus the results of public opinion surveys, indicate that there is broad support for détente among the American people,” but added the significant caveat that “the support is shallow, accompanied by deep suspicion of Moscow’s motives and widespread sentiment that the Russians have had the better of the deal.”¹⁶ A Republican staffer on Capitol Hill quoted by The New York Times summed up the GOP conservative wing’s reasoning: “The conservatives never liked the way Kissinger was conducting détente, but as long as Nixon was around they figured Henry wouldn’t be able to give away the store to the Communists. But Ford—they never felt he could control Henry.”¹⁷ Even if that were not true, and from my firsthand observation it was not true, that public perception was engendering some concern among the conservative Republican base and contributing to Governor Reagan’s growing momentum.

President Ford opened 1976 with yet another defense of détente in a television interview with NBC News. When reporter Tom Brokaw asked if the President had concerns about his policy in view of the Soviets’ neglect of the Helsinki Accords on human rights, Ford responded: “I think it would be very unwise for a President—me or anyone else—to abandon détente. I think détente is in the best interest of this country. It is in the best interest of world stability, world peace.”¹⁸ Brokaw followed up by asking the President the more immediate question: “Won’t you be under a lot of domestic political pressure in this election year to change your attitude about détente?” Ford answered that “it would be just the reverse,” since détente had already led to such positive developments as SALT I and the Berlin agreement. “And if the American people take a good, calculated look at the benefits from détente, I think they will support it rather than oppose it,” Ford argued. Then he made a prediction: “Politically, I think any candidate who says ‘abandon détente’ will be the loser in the long run.”

The New Hampshire primary would put that sentiment, and the strength of Ford’s campaign, to the test. I spoke with the President by phone around seven-thirty on the evening of the election.¹⁹ At that point, the returns were still coming in, and as the President was finishing his dinner he was still four points behind Reagan in the returns.²⁰ If he lost in the first primary in the nation, Ford knew the race might well be over as soon as it began. Reagan not only would have gained crucial momentum, but would benefit from increased campaign donations and supporters. Fortunately, there were still ballots to count in New Hampshire’s north country and in the end President Ford pulled out a victory, albeit a slim one—49.43 percent to 47.97 percent. Still, a win was a win. Ford later joked in his memoirs that “it proved I could win an election outside the Fifth Congressional District of Michigan,” but what was also made clear was that, in Reagan, “we were up against a very tough competitor.”²¹

While the President only narrowly escaped a defeat in New Hampshire, Reagan’s momentum stalled. Ford’s victories in the next few primaries were reassuring. In the first half of March, Ford won Massachusetts, Vermont, and Illinois, all by more significant margins. Only the Florida primary, held on March 9, was close—52.8 percent to 47.2 percent—but it was still more comfortable than New Hampshire.

Though I was fully occupied with the challenges at the Department of Defense, including the ongoing Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) deliberations and was not involved in the presidential campaign, I still found myself confronted with issues that, if not handled carefully, could have made the President’s campaign more difficult. In late February, for instance, shortly after the New Hampshire primary, Deputy Secretary of Defense Bill Clements advised me that he had been informed that neither President Ford nor Secretary Kissinger had used an American interpreter during some of their meetings with Brezhnev and the Soviets. If Clements heard this, I reasoned, others were hearing it, so I raised it with the President.²² I said to President Ford that someone might ask the question, Do you think this country ought to run in such a way that when the President of the United States meets with Brezhnev in Vladivostok and Helsinki the only interpreter there is Viktor, Brezhnev’s personal interpreter? “Well,” the President countered, “Stoessel was there,” referring to U.S. Ambassador to the USSR Walter Stoessel, who was a Russian speaker.

I mentioned to the President that I had been told that “Stoessel’s competence in the Russian language [may be excellent but] when he meets with Russians, he takes an interpreter for himself. . . .”

Quite apart from that, I said, politically it can be made to sound unwise. I sensed the President would be certain to see that the State Department regularly provided interpreters in the future.²³

Another concern was a perception that the timing of the election might be having some effect on our SALT negotiations with the Soviets. As noted, there had been a few newspaper stories in which State Department officials were quoted saying that SALT depended on the outcome of the election, and also suggesting that the U.S. may have made some decisions about U.S. China policy because of the election.²⁴ Most of the professionals at the State Department and on the National Security Council staff tended to be seasoned political observers. And while their jobs were to observe the goings-on in other countries, understandably they would naturally do the same here at home. “They spend their lives looking at people around the world, countries, politics, and reporting on them,” I mentioned to the President, “and it is inevitable that they are going to watch you.” We would prefer that some junior diplomat in the State Department entourage not sense something that could give him reason to say: “Aha! The President is making a decision . . . based on a political timetable!”

Kissinger, for his part, became concerned with what the President and he both considered to be the Department of Defense’s intransigence on the arms control agreement. At one point earlier in the year, he told me he may slow down from pushing for SALT.²⁵

By mid-March 1976, the GOP primary campaign began to turn rougher. There seemed to be a shift in Reagan’s strategy shortly before the Florida primary, which he might have hoped to win by taking a tougher tone. A few days before the Florida vote, Reagan’s team previewed a speech in Orlando by promising that it “should be the strongest thing he’s ever said about the President,” using “language that the Governor has wrestled with in his own mind since the campaign started, and which he has now decided needs to be said.”²⁶ President Ford and Dick Cheney, who as White House Chief of Staff was taking on a growing role in the campaign, informed me of the planned Reagan attack that afternoon.

The President was disturbed that the race had already begun to degenerate into more personal attacks. “That certainly settles one thing that won’t happen,” he grumbled. He didn’t elaborate, but I suspected he meant that Reagan’s attack might preclude him from being considered for the vice presidency on a Ford ticket if and when the President secured the nomination.²⁷

Meanwhile, a key issue in the primary campaign surfaced again on March 5, when the President spoke at a forum in Peoria, Illinois. Someone from the audience pointed out the criticism leveled at détente by Governor Reagan, Governor Carter, and others, and Ford’s response was characterized as Ford shifting his stance.

“Well, let me say very specifically that we are going to forget the use of the word détente,” he said, adding that “the word is inconsequential.” He emphasized that the United States had been and would continue to be tough negotiators with the Soviets—“good Yankee traders,” in his phrase—but he made clear the French word was now being phased out.²⁸ It was a clear concession to the fire the Reagan campaign had lit underneath that word and the policy it represented.

After losses in places like Florida and Illinois, the Reagan campaign began to view the upcoming March 23 North Carolina primary as possibly his last stand. If they were going to go down, they were going to go down fighting. One of the supporters of that strategy was North Carolina Republican Senator Jesse Helms, a dedicated conservative and an early and important Reagan backer. He believed he could help deliver his home state for Ford’s more conservative challenger, and he intended to do so.

A wily campaigner who knew his North Carolina voter base well, Helms huddled with his political operatives and decided they would blanket the state’s airwaves with a blistering thirty-minute speech by Reagan. The program was aired on all but two North Carolina television stations.²⁹

Reagan’s speech was a barn burner, strongly articulating his differences with President Ford, and most notably Kissinger. Quoting Winston Spencer Churchill—a grandson of the famous former U.K. wartime Prime Minister—Reagan described America’s foreign policy as “wandering without aim.” Ford’s shift on the use of the word détente also had not escaped Reagan’s notice: “Mr. Ford”—not President Ford—“who a few weeks ago said no one can forsake détente and get elected, now tells us he will abandon the word but retain the policy.” Reagan asserted that “it’s the policy that made the word unpopular,” adding that “no words from Washington can hide the fact that we no longer deal from strength.”

Reagan said it was “difficult” for him to trust America’s Secretary of State. “Henry Kissinger’s recent stewardship of U.S. foreign policy,” he argued, “has coincided precisely with a loss of U.S. military supremacy.” He went on to say that while President Ford displayed “evident decency, honor and patriotism, he has shown neither the vision nor the leadership necessary to halt and reverse the diplomatic and military decline of the United States.”

As Secretary of Defense, my annual testimony to Congress on the Defense Department budget also received Reagan’s notice. “The new Secretary of Defense,” he noted, “former Congressman Donald Rumsfeld, tells us our strength is, quote, ‘roughly equivalent,’ unquote, to that of the Soviet Union.” That much was accurate. But when Reagan went on to say, “It is suitable if you mean to say we’re second, period”—that was certainly not accurate. The U.S. was certainly not second to the Soviets.

But the heart of Reagan’s campaign speech focused on an obscure issue that was seemingly tailor-made to win the Republican base: namely, control of the Panama Canal. Several preceding presidential administrations had been working to find a way to move the Canal, construction of which had been famously begun during the administration of Teddy Roosevelt, from U.S. to Panamanian control. Kissinger had advised President Ford back in 1975 that returning a piece of Panamanian territory to the Panamanians was important to our international standing and regional stability, arguing, “If these negotiations fail, we will be beaten to death in every international forum and there will be riots all over Latin America.”³⁰ Ford accepted his Secretary of State’s arguments and held to the previously established U.S. position, even as he received a number of warnings from conservatives in the Congress, such as Senator Strom Thurmond, who suggested that it was just the sort of nationalist issue to rile up his opponents.³¹ Thurmond warned that Ford was “going to catch unmitigated hell” from conservatives.³² Still, Ford believed it was the right policy.

Reagan referred to the U.S. talks with Panama—which was then under the control of General Omar Torrijos, who had seized power in a 1968 coup—as “quiet, almost secret negotiations” that made the talks sound like a sinister plot. “Everyone seems to know the negotiations are going on,” he said, “except the rightful owners of the Canal Zone, the American people.”

“The Panama Canal Zone is sovereign United States territory,” Reagan thundered to North Carolinians, “just as much as Alaska is, as well as the states carved from the Louisiana Purchase.” Then he delivered his powerful and memorable closing thrust reference to the canal: “We bought it, we paid for it, and General Torrijos should be told we’re going to keep it.”

The tone and the nationalist assertions were a dramatic departure for Reagan. Where President Ford had sought to engage with allies and enemies alike and to respect our international commitments—including those that had been made to the Panamanians for years by successive U.S. Presidents—Reagan promised a new order. He offered in effect an “America First” vision.

North Carolina’s Republican voters, at least, signed on to the Reagan approach. On March 23, they delivered Ronald Reagan his first presidential primary victory. He defeated Ford by more than six percentage points. This was the win the Reagan campaign desperately needed to roar back to life. As the Governor’s son, Michael Reagan, remembered: “Had Dad not won North Carolina, he would have had to have dropped out of the race. It would have been over.”³³

President Ford took the defeat hard. The tough business of governing continued, but in a National Security Council meeting on the SALT negotiations the day after the North Carolina vote, I could see how the loss had affected him. My friend was as tired and as down as I’d ever seen him.

The next morning, I said to the President that I had recently heard him make a remark that included the phrase “regardless of who is President next year.” That kind of thinking and statement from the top wasn’t good for any organization. “You’ve been a good President,” I assured him. “You shouldn’t get down after a primary, and you ought not to refer to the possibility that you won’t be President. You ought to just carry right on.” There was no doubt that much of the credit for Reagan’s primary victory in North Carolina was due to his half-hour broadside attacking Henry Kissinger as well as Ford, which understandably ticked off both men something fierce.

A few days later, a spirited discussion took place in the Oval Office. President Ford, Kissinger, and Scowcroft were discussing an upcoming presidential speech. Kissinger was determined that the President remove text in the draft referring to how well the Soviets were doing in their military buildup. “The impression that we are slipping is creating a bad impression around the world,” Henry argued. He was not incorrect, and not only did it look bad, it was giving Reagan fodder for his campaign. The problem was that as Secretary of Defense, I knew that what the President’s draft speech said about the Soviet buildup was accurate.

Kissinger responded: “Then we have to define our goals. It is inevitable that our margin since ’60 has slipped. Are we trying to maintain the same margin as we had in 1960 or to maintain adequate forces?”

To me, the answer was clear. We had to take the steps and make the investments to assure that the Soviets did not overtake the U.S. “We have been slipping since the sixties from superiority to equivalence,” I argued, “and if we don’t stop, we’ll be behind.”

At this point, President Ford stepped in. “I don’t think the President should say we are slipping,” he said. “I can say we need to redouble our efforts. I don’t want to say we are getting behind, I’ll say we have a challenge, we have rough equivalence and we’ve got to keep up.”³⁴ He had listened to both of our views, saw that the difference of emphasis each of us had argued were accurate, and prudently chose a middle course.

Kissinger then addressed the elephant in the room—the increasingly ugly GOP primary battle and how the administration should respond. “I think the posture to take,” he observed, “is that Reagan doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”

I could well understand Henry wanting to dismiss Reagan’s arguments. Perhaps anticipating the blistering attacks that were coming and likely not wanting to cause a problem for the President, Kissinger had offered to resign as Secretary of State the previous December, only to be talked into staying by the President.³⁵ While I didn’t think Reagan had represented the reality of “rough equivalence” accurately, Reagan and I certainly agreed completely that if the U.S. was not to slip below “rough equivalence” to an imbalance of force tilted in the Soviets’ favor, then we needed to significantly increase U.S. defense investment. I also knew that both the President and Kissinger agreed with that position and each had been strong supporters of the needed increase in defense investment.

It was a reality that if the USSR was steadily increasing its capabilities and the U.S. was lagging in our defense investment, we would, over time, fall behind. That was why I was determined to make sure the President was accurate about what the Soviets were up to. Henry Kissinger had a valid point given his role—but the President was right to say that we needed to increase our efforts in the face of a challenge.

These important issues weren’t going away anytime soon. On March 31, they were flashed across television screens when Governor Reagan broadcast another half-hour address, similar to the speech he’d used to such positive effect in North Carolina. This time, he was taking his persuasive message coast to coast.

The President didn’t watch the Reagan TV speech, but I did, and I discussed it with him in the Oval Office the next morning. The first half of his speech was slow, I felt, and I wouldn’t have been surprised if some of his viewers had switched off their sets or changed their channels. But those who stayed for the second half of his remarks were in for a superb speech. Reagan started flying, ripping both the President and Kissinger on everything from Vietnam to the Panama Canal. He attacked one thing after another, and I sensed that listeners might conclude there was so much smoke that there must be some fire. As a piece of political theater, it was impressive.³⁶

Of course, some of the smoke was of dubious origin. That very day, the State Department took exception to a quotation Reagan had attributed to Secretary of State Kissinger: “My job as Secretary of State is to negotiate the most acceptable second-best position available” for the United States. Lawrence Eagleburger, a skilled State Department official and one of Kissinger’s closest associates, told the press that his boss “did not say that,” and added: “It is pure invention and totally irresponsible.”³⁷ It certainly didn’t sound to me like anything Henry would think or say, unless it was a joke.

Still, as with the North Carolina speech, Governor Reagan’s television broadcast was something to be reckoned with. President Ford had read about it in the morning newspapers and was particularly bothered by what Governor Reagan had said about the economy. “It’s just factually untrue,” Ford said, “and damn harmful to the economy to go around undermining confidence, which in fact can itself harm the economy.” I said I agreed that leaders can damage confidence in the economy, but I felt that it would only further hurt if President Ford responded or highlighted what Reagan had said. I argued that he ought to not attribute to Reagan the power to affect the economy.³⁸

Reagan’s political attacks clearly were of concern to him. After a meeting in the Oval Office with Cheney and Scowcroft, I stayed behind to speak with the President alone. “You look down,” I told him. “I can tell you’re concerned about something.”³⁹ Yes, this was the President of the United States, and the boss, but at bottom he was a friend. And I could see he was hurting.

He said he was going to win the nomination, but if Reagan happened to win it, Reagan would need to apologize before Ford would support him. “I personally believe what Reagan is doing and saying is terribly damaging to the country,” he said.

I told the President I understood how he felt—it’s never pleasant to be attacked, especially when you think it’s done unfairly—but that he simply couldn’t spend so much time focusing on Reagan.

“You have a hell of a responsibility,” I said, “to win that nomination and win the election and govern this country. You have to accept your personal feelings and set them aside.” Reagan, I suggested, should be approached not as a personal matter but as a problem to be managed. Focusing on personal feelings, I reminded the President, was about the worst thing he could do.⁴⁰

“I agree,” President Ford finally said, “and I’ll certainly try and do that.”

I happened to have a meeting with him on the day of the Wisconsin primary, the first primary since Ford’s loss in North Carolina, which may have attributed to his gloomy mood. Cheney told me that the internal polling had been all over the place. In one week, the polls had apparently jumped from Ford winning 60–30 to a 49–40 race. Dick thought the President might lose in Wisconsin, and even if he won, it could be close enough to keep Reagan in play. As it happened, the President won Wisconsin with 55 percent of the vote. Three weeks later, Ford defeated Reagan in Pennsylvania with 93 percent of the delegates (due to the state’s unusual voting system). Then in May the trouble started. Between May 1 and 11, Reagan ran the table, winning the Republican presidential primaries in Texas, Georgia, Indiana, and Nebraska. His campaign roared to life once again. Next on the horizon was the May 18 primary in the President’s home state of Michigan. Losing Michigan, which Dick and others thought could be a possibility, would be a serious blow to Ford, politically and especially personally.

Fortunately, Michiganders came out to support their favorite son. The President won by a comfortable margin, and again slowed Reagan’s momentum. But the heated primary duel between President Ford and Governor Reagan continued like a seesaw, as they alternated winning primary victories through the spring and summer. As the contests went on, the count of Republican delegates pledged to each of the candidates increasingly became the focus of both campaigns. Since it was becoming clear there was not going to be a runaway victory for either candidate, it became a possibility that a few dozen of the party faithful might be able to determine the winner of the Republican nomination for President.

That meant the real showdown—where a sitting President would have to face off against a challenger from his own party—would be on the floor at the Republican National Convention, scheduled to open on August 16, 1976, in Kansas City, Missouri.