A Full Life: Reflections at Ninety (21 page)

One foreign leader with whom I was having a somewhat contentious relationship was Chancellor Helmut Schmidt of Germany. I had met him when I was governor in 1973 and he was finance minister. I was trying to get Volkswagen to establish a manufacturing plant in Georgia and also wanted to set up a trading office in Bonn. We had a productive meeting because he was eager to have my assessment of the ongoing Watergate hearings. More recently, he had been critical of some of my policies as president, obviously thinking that my insistence on human rights in the Soviet Union was naïve and counterproductive. I wanted him to stop providing Brazil with equipment and technology for processing plutonium, and to stimulate Germany’s economy as the other Western leaders were doing to address a worldwide economic slump. I met with his foreign minister to try to resolve these issues before the June summit meeting. We eventually succeeded, but these irritants were always replaced with others during my term in office, including the size and composition of nuclear weapons in Europe, the degree of economic stimulus in the United States, and my strong reaction when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan. In summary, I wrote in my diary in 1980, “He’s a strange man and a good leader of Germany. I’m afraid he has a problem in his attitude toward me. Privately to the news media and to others he’s constantly critical of the United States, of our resolve, our fairness, our commitment, our honesty, and so forth. He knocks me and Brzezinski and Vance and Muskie and others.”

The G7 meeting (now expanded to G20) was interesting and productive. Among many items on our agenda, the two most difficult and time-consuming were human rights and nuclear nonproliferation, where we and the Canadians were criticized as too strong. I was impressed by how eager the other leaders were to have bilateral meetings with me and
to associate their nations with ours. One very enjoyable event that caused me some pain a year or two later was a beautiful banquet with the British royal family. I sat with Queen Elizabeth, and we had a delightful chat about serious matters and also personal things. She complained about having seven different uniforms she had to wear on annual occasions and how difficult it was to fit into them when her weight tended to increase. We decided it might be good to shift to centimeters on everything except waistlines, which would continue to be measured in inches. After supper I was approached by the Queen Mother, and we discussed how our families were affected by immersion into public affairs. As we said good night, I kissed her lightly on the cheek and she thanked me for coming to visit. More than two years later, there were reports in the British papers that grossly distorted this event, stating that I had deeply embarrassed her with excessive familiarity. I was distressed by these reports, but couldn’t change what had happened—nor did I regret it.

During the 1976 campaign, both Jerry Ford and I had known that whichever of us was elected would have to decide whether to build the proposed B-1 bomber. As president, I set June 1977 as a deadline and worked on this issue for months, having numerous discussions with experts and interested parties on both sides of the question. Secretary Harold Brown, the joint chiefs, and I eventually decided that the extremely expensive new bombers would not be worth the cost and that our defense needs could be met for another fifteen or twenty years by the existing B-52s and other smaller planes, combined with the new and extremely accurate cruise missiles, which could be launched from land, submarines, surface ships, and airplanes. What we couldn’t reveal at the time was the top secret development of “stealth” technology that would make our planes invisible to radar. This would be incorporated into fighter planes and the B-2 bombers a few years later. House and Senate leaders supported my decision, but defense contractors were disappointed. When Reagan came
into office, he got approval to build one hundred unnecessary B-1s, which cost about $200 million each. Although B-1s have been used in combat on rare occasions, upgraded B-52s are now expected to continue in service until 2040 and the B-2 until 2058. Making such long-term decisions about very costly military items is always a difficult task for presidents, especially when manufacturing jobs are carefully located or promised for constituents of powerful legislators.

As governor I had seen how costly and unnecessary were some of the federal regulatory agencies, whose purpose over several decades had changed from protecting consumers to defending monopolies and restricting competition in the marketplace. At the same time, the regulated businesses were discouraged from introducing better products or services. This economic blight extended over railroads, electric power, oil and gas, bus lines, trucking firms, airlines, banks, insurance companies, and even television, telecommunications, and radio networks. For instance, each airline had its own exclusive and protected routes, and if large pay increases or other costs were implemented, the Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) would routinely pass the added costs on to passengers and prohibit competition.

I began to study these industries more closely, working with interested members of Congress, my cabinet officers, and Alfred Kahn, a remarkable economist. He came to serve on the Civil Aeronautics Board and later helped as my “inflation czar.” When we implemented his ideas about aviation, the CAB ceased to exist. In effect, we were able to deregulate all the industries I’ve named and permit competition in each commercial area, while preserving the safety of consumers and protecting them from abusive business practices, especially by the large banks.

A decision on whether to deploy the neutron bomb was one of my most difficult, and it provoked public debates and hard feelings with the Congress and also with some of our NATO allies, especially Germany. Harold Brown, Jim Schlesinger, and I were quite supportive of technological improvements in weaponry, including precision bombs, cruise missiles, nuclear ship propulsion, and stealth aircraft. Another potential advance was an atomic explosion that could minimize destruction of buildings and equipment but kill as many people as possible with high radiation of deadly neutrons. The original concept was first tested in 1963, and our military had initiated a schedule of production. When the complete concept was explained to me, I decided that the weapon should not be deployed either by our own military or by those in NATO. I consulted with European leaders, and German Chancellor Schmidt became quite angry and criticized my decision publicly. I notified him that I would reconsider if he would endorse the weapon’s deployment in Germany, but he was not willing to share the responsibility, and my decision prevailed. President Reagan resumed production of this “enhanced radiation weapon,” and a few of them were deployed among U.S. forces, but the last one was dismantled by President George W. Bush.

The Cold War was raging, and the Soviet Union and the United States were engaged everywhere in intense competition. There was not a country, no matter how small or remote, where we each didn’t strive to obtain more influence than the other. This was often beneficial to the local people as we offered them better trade relations, some forms of foreign aid, or improved military capabilities. My goal was to demonstrate the advantages of freedom and a commitment to human rights in contrast to the Soviet system of Communism and oppression. There were vivid examples of these unpleasant and dangerous policies in Poland, East
Germany, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Hungary, Yugoslavia, and Albania—and in Afghanistan when the Soviets invaded, in December 1979. The most obvious example was the domination of people who lived within the Soviet Union.

Perhaps the turning point in my presidential campaign had been when President Ford denied in a debate that the Soviets were dominating any countries in Eastern Europe. To demonstrate my concern about their plight, my first overseas visit, after the London Economic Summit, was to Poland. I began calling for the release of the imprisoned human rights activist Natan Sharansky, and I had highly publicized personal correspondence with Andrei Sakharov and his wife, Yelena Bonner. I presented persistent demands through Soviet Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin to his superiors to permit oppressed Jews to emigrate to Europe and America. Later, when I met directly with President Brezhnev, he knew that human rights would be on my agenda and would have a written response ready that he simply passed to the interpreter to read. Although Soviet leaders never acknowledged that they denied any rights or that this was a legitimate subject of discussion with me, our policy had some tangible effects. The number of Soviet Jews permitted to leave the country almost quadrupled to 51,320 in 1979, and there is no doubt that Soviet citizens were strengthened in their demand for additional freedoms.

I went to Vienna in June 1979 to meet with President Brezhnev and his team to negotiate a reduction and future limits on nuclear arsenals. Protocol called for the Soviets to come to the United States for this session, but Brezhnev was ill and could not fly at high altitudes. He was accompanied by Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko; Konstantin Chernenko, second in command and future Soviet leader; and Defense Minister Dmitry Ustinov. We concluded the SALT II agreement, with a projected life of five years, when a more drastic reduction in nuclear armaments was contemplated. Although not ratified by the U.S. Senate, SALT II remained in effect beyond its expected time. The most interesting event was when Brezhnev said, at the beginning, “If we do not succeed, God will not forgive us!” As leader of an atheistic regime, he was embarrassed by the resulting silence,
and Gromyko finally said, with an attempt at humor, “Yes, God above is looking down at us all.”

I was delighted to see the Cold War end when Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev introduced reforms known as
perestroika
and
glasnost
(reorganization and openness) and withdrew Soviet troops from Afghanistan in the 1980s. The Berlin Wall was torn down, the Communist Party lost control, and the USSR was dissolved in 1991. This left Russia as a major regional player, but the United States remained as the world’s only superpower.

In July 1977, Mayor Abraham Beame came to see me about the financial plight of New York City. I had met Abe during my campaign and had reaped rich dividends when the New York
Daily News
published a glaring headline:
FORD TO CITY: DROP DEAD
! after a previous plea for assistance had been denied. Abe had worked heroically to reduce projected budget deficits of $1.5 billion, and he wanted me to consider declaring the city a disaster area, realizing that a more long-term solution was needed. I brought in Treasury Secretary Michael Blumenthal, and we finally planned a federal loan to the city. Beame was one of the most dedicated public servants I ever knew, working in a completely modest way for the well-being of the people he represented. A power blackout later that month probably cost him reelection, but we went ahead with plans to help the city. Senator William Proxmire, chairman of the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, was adamantly opposed to the “bailout,” but we finally got it approved with adequate financial guarantees for the U.S. Treasury.

The only other issue like this that I had to face was the prospective insolvency of Chrysler Corporation, a major defense contractor and the employer of more than 165,000 workers. Chrysler was in desperate financial condition when Lee Iacocca became CEO, and I eventually agreed to grant a guaranteed loan of $1.5 billion to prevent its bankruptcy, an
immense increase in unemployment and other costs, and Chrysler’s possible takeover by one of the aggressive Japanese automobile manufacturers. I required, however, strict business practices and labor union concessions to be supervised by the treasury secretary, plus full repayment of the loan at the going interest rate. When Chrysler later recovered, the federal government reaped substantial dividends.

During my 1976 campaign many Americans asked questions about the Middle East, but most were merely seeking assurance of my good intentions toward Israel. I became increasingly interested in bringing permanent peace to Israel and its neighbors, and soon after being elected I discussed this privately with Zbigniew Brzezinski, whom I had chosen as national security adviser. There was little information available about how Syria, Jordan, Egypt, or even Israel would react to such a proposal, so I decided to meet with all their leaders as early as possible.

Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin came first, on March 7, and was surprisingly negative about initiating peace talks. I learned after his visit that he and his wife were being accused of having an illegal bank account in America, and he was also facing strong opposition for reelection from Menachem Begin.

Anwar Sadat came from Egypt on April 4, and I found him to be receptive. He didn’t believe he could ever recognize Israel as legitimate or permit Israeli ships to use the Suez Canal, but he promised at least to listen to my future proposals and try to be flexible.

King Hussein of Jordan was at the White House on April 25, and he was reluctant to aggravate other Arab leaders by engaging with Israel but willing for others to explore possibilities.

Syria’s President Hafez al-Assad declined my invitation to visit the United States, but I arranged to meet with him in Geneva, Switzerland, in June. He was supportive of my ideas but insisted that a broad spectrum of Arab leaders should participate and that the Soviet Union should cohost any peace talks.

Peace Treaty, Sadat, Begin, Carter
, painted October 2003.