Reagan as Diplomat

By Ed Magnuson

He is twice tested--by an ally's abrupt action and a vital neighbor's visit

It was 2:35 on a sunny Sunday afternoon at Camp David, fully three hours after U.S.-supplied Israeli warplanes had leveled Iraq's nuclear reactor, when the President, preparing to helicopter back to the White House after a relaxing weekend, got a telephone call. It was from Richard Allen, his National Security Adviser, giving a surprised and puzzled Reagan his first inkling of what the Israelis had done. "By golly," the President said, "what do you suppose is behind that?"

What was behind it was soon readily apparent. What lay ahead did not fit into the President's carefully crafted week's agenda at all. Reagan had been preparing for his most important foray into the diplomatic arena since taking office: a two-day meeting with Mexico's President Jose Lopez Portillo in a vital effort to improve relations between the two neighbors. Secretary of State Alexander Haig was due to depart for China on his most significant venture abroad so far. And the Middle East shuttle diplomacy of U.S.

Special Envoy Philip Habib finally seemed on the verge of achieving a deal that would defuse tensions over Syrian antiaircraft missiles in Lebanon. The surprise Israeli raid altered those priorities --and the attention the White House had hoped to focus on them--and presented the President and his chief advisers with their most delicate foreign policy test since Reagan took office.

The test took the form of simultaneously addressing and satisfying three separate audiences: the Arabs, the Israelis and the American public. To the moderate Arab states it was necessary to show concern over Israel's act and publicly to reprimand Jerusalem, lest the Soviet Union profit from Arab outrage over the bombing. To the Israelis it was necessary to administer a tap on the wrist--and that was all it was--without altering the strategic and historic special relationship with the U.S., on which Israel's survival depends. To the American public it was necessary to show the fledgling Administration to be both temperate and decisive in dealing with a major foreign policy flap, responding cohesively to fundamental American interests in the region and the world. The result was some fancy footwork by Reagan and his men that earned them, though things might still turn sour, better than a passing grade.

After he learned of the raid, Haig summoned his senior aides and Middle East specialists to the State Department's seventh-floor operations center. They were still in their Sunday sports clothes. They agreed that the U.S. should not break the news of the attack: to do so would feed the inevitable charges that America had supported the Israeli plans, or at least had known about and failed to stop them. Haig ordered cables sent to U.S. embassies around the world, alerting them that the bombing had occurred. A few leaders on Capitol Hill were also advised.

All the consulting officials agreed that Israel's attack should be sharply criticized, but they debated the timing of any such condemnation. Some contended that the U.S. should wait for Arab reaction, rather than run the unlikely risk of appearing harsher than Israel's Middle East neighbors. Others were worried lest any U.S. condemnation might coincide awkwardly with an Arab reprisal mission against Israel. On Sunday night the group drafted a mild statement to be issued as soon as the news broke. It stressed that the U.S. had no prior knowledge of the attack, which was blandly described as "a very serious development and a source of utmost concern."

The statement was released Monday morning, after Prime Minister Menachem Begin's government proudly announced the bombing as a preemptive, defensive attack on a nuclear plant that, it insisted, would have had the capacity soon to produce weapons to be used against Israel. Haig and Reagan, who had both returned to Camp David for the talks with Lopez Portillo, discussed toughening the U.S. position as Arab protests mounted. Reagan agreed that this should be done. Crafted at the State Department, a new statement was shown to the President by Haig. Reagan approved it without changing a word. Read at a press briefing by Dean Fischer, the State Department spokesman, it said that the U.S. "condemns" the air strike and that the attack "was in possible violation" of a 1952 U.S.-Israeli agreement under which American arms could be used only for defensive purposes. At the Pentagon, Assistant Secretary of Defense Henry E. Catto Jr. emphasized that "this was not an operation that involved U.S. forces. It came as a thunderous surprise to the U.S. Government."

Beyond a verbal reprimand, what should the U.S. do about Israel's unilateral action? This touchy topic was first tackled in depth late on Tuesday afternoon, after Lopez Portillo's farewell meeting with Reagan at the White House. A group of Reagan's top advisers assembled in the Oval Office for an hour and 15 minutes. Present were Haig, Allen, Vice President George Bush, Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger, CIA Director William Casey and the President's troika of Aides Edwin Meese, James Baker and Mike Deaver. They reached a consensus with little argument: Israel should be penalized, but

America's basic commitment to Israel's security must not be placed in doubt.

Haig and his advisers began considering the options, which ranged in theory to a total suspension of all U.S. military aid to Israel, an action that would produce a fire storm of criticism from Israel's backers in the U.S. Senate Majority Leader Howard Baker hurried to the White House to express the sentiment of the upper chamber. His advice, as a Baker intimate put it, was "Take some kind of action, but don't go too far. Buy time and let the heat of the moment pass." In the end, the group decided that four F-16s scheduled for delivery to Israel on Friday should be "put on hold." (Since Israel already has 22 F-16s, the withholding of the four fighters had no real military significance.)

The President next day approved the recommendation. Beyond placing a temporary hold on the F-16s, the Administration sent a letter, signed by Haig, to Senator Charles Percy, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee. As required by the Arms Export Control Act of 1968, Haig formally advised Percy that U.S. planes had been used in the Israeli action. He also suggested that Israel might have committed "a substantial violation" of the 1952 arms sales agreement with the U.S. Haig promised to review this matter and discuss it with the Israeli government.

The Administration retained the option of ordering more severe penalties if it determines that Israel did violate the arms agreement.

In fact, there is no prospect that either the Administration or Congress, which also has the power to cut off weapons deliveries, would go that far. Indeed, many members of Congress expressed envy and admiration for Israel's military boldness and execution. "We could have used them at Desert One," said a Republican Senator in an unkind reference to the abortive attempt to rescue the American hostages from Tehran. Quipped another Senator: "At least we know our planes work." Maryland Senator Charles Mathias may have expressed a dominant congressional view when he said, "I have no illusions that the Saudis or Sadat or anyone else is weeping crocodile tears over Iraq, but the implications are serious."

To emphasize his personal concern about stability in the Middle East, Reagan invited to the White House the ambassadors from five moderate Arab states: Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Sudan and Jordan. Sudanese Ambassador Omer Salih Eissa told the President that there was a widespread perception in the Arab world that the U.S. was associated with the raid; Arabs were looking to him to put a checkrein on Israel, primarily by limiting arms sales. Reagan responded by saying that "no one was more surprised than I" by the air strike. "This tragedy," as he called it, had resulted from the ongoing hostilities within the Middle East. Reagan reiterated his hope that the Israeli-Syrian confrontation in Lebanon could be resolved and would lead to a broader settlement.

The President met separately with Israeli Ambassador Ephraim Evron, who delivered a "strong appeal" from Begin to rescind the order holding up delivery of the F-16s. Reagan answered that the Israelis should have considered a diplomatic route for resolving their worries about the Iraqi reactor; but, as one aide reported, "the President reaffirmed our strong and deeply rooted relationship with Israel," and obliquely assured Evron that the

U.S. arms flow to Israel will continue.

Overshadowed by events in the Middle East, the Washington visit by President Lopez Portillo showed Reagan at his charming and diplomatic best. From a formal welcome at the White House through long working sessions at Camp David--with time out for horseback riding and a candlelit poolside barbecue --Reagan played a Yankee host who neither patronized nor belittled the proud President of a smaller country. "Mi casa es su casa," said Reagan, as he greeted his guest. At times Reagan was eloquent, declaring, "In a world filled with neighbors who resort to violence, neighbors who've lost sight of shared values and mutual interests, the good will between Mexico and the United States is a blossom whose beauty we meet here to cherish and protect." For his part, Lopez Portillo confessed that "I am moved" by the warmth that developed between the two leaders. In three previous visits to Washington, he said, "I have always measured the weight of each one of my words because the relationship, for some reason or another, had always been a tense one. But for the first time now I feel totally relaxed."

After watching the two Presidents ride side by side down the trails of Camp David, one of Reagan's aides mused: "In personal relations these two have become like brothers. But when you get to the substantive problems between the two countries--well, they remain." Lopez Portillo remained opposed to U.S. military involvement in El Salvador. He objected to any new attempt by Washington to use economic aid to the Caribbean area as a way of building a militant pact against leftist movements. Mexico's trade deficit with the U.S. is on the rise, and Lopez Portillo sought concessions that would make it easier for his country to sell its major exports, such as textiles, shoes, fruits and petrochemicals, north of the border. He offered little that would help the U.S. ease its problem in dealing with illegal Mexican workers, since Mexico generally prefers the current hazy border policies. Still, both Presidents aired their opposing views with a frictionless candor, as Reagan followed State Department advice to "speak as clearly as possible but don't waver."

The agreements that were reached mainly bought time to study further and to "manage" policy differences before they develop into sharp political clashes. Lopez Portillo conditionally accepted Reagan's vague proposal to create a Caribbean-basin development program under which the U.S. and Mexico would apparently pay most of the bills. The Mexican President insisted that no nation be barred from the group on ideological grounds, and that, as an aide explained, "it should not be construed as a plan to fight Communism." The two agreed that committees composed of Cabinet-level officials from both nations would be created to study specific policy problems, including trade.

Reagan said he would attend a North-South conference on mutual problems to be held in Mexico in October--but only after being assured that Cuba's Fidel Castro would not be invited.

Returning to Mexico City, Lopez Portillo said that he was "deeply satisfied" by the outcome of his U.S. visit. "The important thing," he said, "is the attitude we encountered, which was highly positive, friendly and considerate, and well established to better solve the problems."

Nonetheless, U.S. relations with Mexico--as with Israel --remain a delicate and difficult partnership that will require continuing attention. The Reagan Administration was fast awakening last week to the uncomfortable fact that the rest of the world cannot sit still while the U.S. puts its economic house in order. --By Ed Magnuson. Reported by Laurence I. Barrett and Roberto Suro/Washington

With reporting by Laurence I. Barrett, Roberto Suro

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