The Man with the Golden Arm

By WALTER ISAACSON

How the President kept the title of Great Persuader

Senator Edward Zorinsky rode the private elevator up to the living quarters on the second floor of the Executive Mansion. He had refused to accept even a phone call from the President last month before his vote against the AWACS sale at a meeting of the Foreign Relations Committee. "I didn't want to get caught with the Gipper in the locker room at half time," he explained. But now the Nebraska Democrat was prepared to discuss the issue. He settled into one of the comfortable armchairs in the seductive red-carpeted study overlooking the South Lawn of the White House.

And then Ronald Reagan went to work at what he does best. In a voice still raspy from a sinus inflammation he developed on his trip to the North-South summit at Cancun, the President told Zorinsky that Jordan's King Hussein was coming to Washington in a few days. Asked Reagan: ; "How can I convince foreign leaders that I'm in command when I can't sell five airplanes?" The Senator, who is Jewish and deeply committed to the security of Israel, said he had never been subjected to a "full-court press like this before." The conversation, scheduled for 15 minutes, stretched on for 45. It ended with Zorinsky saying: "I'm going back to my office to be by myself and do some soul searching." When reminded by a reporter on the way out that he had once said that Reagan could sell ice to Eskimos, he joked: "I'm thinking about putting a heavier coat on." As Zorinsky sat in his office, he received a phone call from a rabbi in his home state. Outside a sound truck was blaring: "Vote American. Vote for AWACS." In the end, he went with the President.

The wooing of Zorinsky came at the end of a month-long campaign by Reagan that once again showed why he is known as the Great Persuader. In late September, with 61 Senators listed as opposing the sale, White House Chief of Staff James Baker and his Legislative Strategy Group took control of the lobbying effort from National Security Adviser Richard Allen. They decided that the issue did not lend itself to the type of televised presidential appeal that worked so well on the economic package. Instead, the Administration opted for one-on-one personal appeals to wavering Senators. The assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in early October helped unsettle many of the sale opponents, and prompted immediate support from Republicans Orrin Hatch of Utah and Alan Simpson of Wyoming.

The key to success, White House planners agreed, would be Reagan's personal touch. Beginning in September, he held private chats on the AWACS sale with 22 Republican Senators, 14 of whom voted his way. There were 22 Democrats who also got the private treatment, and ten of them were convinced. In addition, last week alone Reagan placed 26 telephone calls in which AWACS was a subject of conversation.

Reagan was most effective in swaying freshmen Republicans to whom he stressed support for the presidency and the need for a strong hand in conducting foreign policy. He also reminded many of them of the help he had given them in their elections. With the Democrats, Reagan tended to emphasize the need for bipartisanship in foreign policy. Despite Democratic Leader Robert Byrd's strong speech against the sale a week before the vote, the Administration's vote counters felt that the tide had turned in their favor, though most polls showed opponents ahead.

Even those who ended up opposing him said that Reagan relied on an earnest appeal, without threatening or cajoling, wheeling or dealing. He told Minnesota Republican David Durenberger, a Roman Catholic, that the Pope would have voted for AWACS. Said Durenberger: "Lyndon Johnson would have talked to me about an airbase in Duluth." Reagan was "soft but firm," said Democrat Wendell Ford of Kentucky, and exuded such sincerity that "I'd hate to play poker against him." Washington Republican Slade Gorton recalled that when Reagan called to offer condolences on the death of his mother, "I kept expecting the other shoe to drop, and the conversation to turn to AWACS. But it never did. The President spent the whole 20 minutes talking about mothers."

Opponents of the sale suggested that some deals were indeed made by the President's staff. Some charged that Montana Democrat John Melcher, for example, won funding for a coal-conversion facility near Butte. Melcher said that the funding was approved long before the AWACS vote. When Majority Leader Howard Baker went to talk to the final uncommitted Senator, he told a colleague: "I've got to go talk to Sugar--I mean Senator Long." The reference was to Democrat Russell ("Sugar Ray") Long of Louisiana, who is fighting for sugar price supports in the pending farm bill and is notorious among his colleagues for trying to get the most mileage for his votes. Republican Charles Grassley of Iowa said that he hung up on White House Lobbyist Powell Moore when Moore linked the AWACS vote to the nomination of Grassley's candidate for U.S. Attorney in Iowa. All three Senators ended up with the President, but the White House insists that it was not because any side deals were made.

The White House had some aces in the hole that helped it to pull off what seemed to outsiders an astonishing turnaround. Unbeknownst to leaders of the opposition group, the Administration had the private sup port of some Senators who were not ready to commit themselves publicly for the sale. One was New Hampshire Republican Warren Rudman; nominally uncommitted, he was actually lobbying on its behalf before formally announcing his support. Another was Democrat David Boren of Oklahoma, who said he was leaning against the sale after visiting Saudi Arabia last April, but then began arguing in its favor with Democratic conservatives. Louisiana's Long had already promised the President his support if the vote were close. So had Republicans John Heinz of Pennsylvania and Robert Kasten of Wisconsin.

The breakthrough occurred at the beginning of the week with the defection of one of the sale's most vocal opponents, Republican Roger Jepsen of Iowa, a New Right conservative who had cited biblical arguments on Israel's behalf. "This sale must be stopped," he told a cheering audience of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee in May. The White House knew that he was weakening, and turned up the heat. Reagan reminded Jepsen that he had personally helped him win his seat in 1978. But the President also sent him to the funeral of Israel's Moshe Dayan, at which Prime Minister Menachem Begin applied some effective counterpressure. The strain showed on Jepsen. At a meeting of Republican Senators a week before the vote, he broke into tears when discussing the conflicting pressures on him.

The determining factor in his decision, Jepsen said, was the type of presidential persuasion that is the hardest to counter: in a private meeting with Reagan he had been given some "highly classified" information that lessened his fears about the sale's danger to Israel's security. After spending "all weekend" talking with his strongly pro-Israeli wife, Jepsen went to the Senate and stunned opponents with his defection. Said he: "A vote for the sale is a vote for my President and his successful conduct of foreign policy." Along with Jepsen came his conservative Iowa colleague Grassley, who met with the President on Monday. Said he: "I saw the prospect of what a defeat for Reagan would do for peace in the Middle East."

The White House wanted an open commitment from Republican William Cohen of Maine, another co-sponsor of the resolution to reject the sale. Cohen is a friend of Presidential Adviser Michael Deaver, and they discussed the issue at length. He also met twice with the President. In their second session, he said that he was afraid Israel would become a scapegoat if the sale were rejected, and that the embers of anti-Semitism would be fanned. But Cohen also told Reagan he feared "another holocaust" if Israel's hostile neighbors were further armed. On the latter point, Reagan was reassuring. He leaned toward the freshman Republican and vowed: "I can pledge to you as I did to Begin that I will guarantee that Israel's quantitative and qualitative military edge will be maintained." Most reluctantly, Cohen narrowly came over to Reagan's side. Announcing his decision, he complained that the Administration had "first mishandled and then manhandled" the sale, which he described as the lesser of two evils. When Cohen later told colleagues in the Senate dining room that he was only trying to help Israel, everyone laughed. Said one Senator: "Come on, Bill. Just say you sold out. But don't give me that stuff about saving Israel."

Reagan also milked, until the final hours, a letter setting out his assurances to Senators on conditions of the AWACS sale. The letter mainly implied what had already been stated publicly: that the deal would not proceed if the Saudis did not support the Middle East peace process and that Americans would have a role in operating the planes "well into the 1990s." The document originated at a meeting in early October at Virginia Republican John Warner's house, attended by Georgia Democrat Sam Nunn and top White House aides. Wavering Senators were allowed to amend the letter to make sure that their particular concerns were addressed. "The object is to let a lot of Senators get their fingerprints on it," said a top White House official. Said Oregon Republican Robert Packwood, a leader of the opposition: "It allowed the vote changers a graceful way out." By the time it was delivered to Majority Leader Baker on the morning of the vote, the letter had helped many Senators, including Gorton, Democrat James Exon of Nevada and Republican Frank Murkowski of Alaska, find a convenient means of justifying their decision to support the sale.

Montana's Melcher was won over partly because of another letter, from Ambassador to Japan Mike Mansfield, an old mentor who had preceded Melcher in his Senate seat. The day before the vote, Administration lobbyists called Melcher off the Senate floor to read him Mansfield's statement. Melcher cited it when he announced his decision that evening.

Not all of the lobbying was successful. A prime target for both sides was uncommitted Liberal Democrat Patrick Leahy of Vermont. He sought refuge from the pressure in the Senate gym one day, only to receive a call in the steam room from a colleague supporting the sale. Escaping to the swimming pool, he found another Senator, who splashed alongside urging him to vote against it. Said Leahy: "He was keeping up with me and giving me a running commentary." At the White House, Reagan plied Leahy with 45 minutes' worth of jelly beans and talk about his hobby, photography. The Senator told Reagan that he would go home to Ver mont and consider his vote. "When you're walking those fields and looking over those beautiful mountains, think of my face up there in the sky looking down on you," the President said. Replied Leahy: "I'll have to go to the Capitol physician first to get my arm put back in the socket." Vermont offered little escape. At Sunday Mass, an usher passing the collection bas ket leaned over and whispered, "Vote against AWACS." Leahy finally did.

Another opponent of the sale who held firm despite White House pressure was Alabama Democrat Howell Heflin. He said that he found the White House lobbying gentle by comparison with that of interested corporations. A delegation of 26 businessmen with contracts in Saudi Arabia flew up from Alabama to tell him that a whole lot of jobs, including maybe his own, might depend on how he voted. Democrat David Pry or of Arkansas got a pro-AWACS call from Mobil Oil President William Tavoulareas. Seattle-based Boeing, which builds the AWACS, put pressure on Washington's Gorton. A week before the vote, Republican Senators opposed to the sale got a tongue-lashing from a group of the G.O.P.'s heavy corporate campaign contributors known as the Inner Circle. Said AWACS Opponent Durenberger of the atmosphere at the meeting: "It's not Reagan vs. Begin, it's oil vs. the Jews."

Much credit for salvaging the sale goes to the two Bakers, who coordinated the lobbying strategy: Howard, the majority leader, and James, the presidential adviser. They decided on the tactics and talking points that would be most effective with each Senator. "The person who got this passed was Howard Baker," insisted Sen ator Boren. But according to a top White House official, "Until Jim Baker and his Legislative Strategy Group took the thing over, we didn't have a very good idea of whether or how we could win."

In the end, the victory truly belonged to Ronald Reagan, the Great Persuader, who awaited each Senator at the end of the soli tary ride in the White House family eleva tor. Said Grassley, one of the converts: "My gosh. Reagan was so folksy and down home and relaxed in the armchair in his private study. He was willing to answer all my questions. A defeat would have been a blow to his leadership. "

With reporting by Johanna McGeary, Evan Thomas

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