A Flash of Irish Flint

By Hugh Sidey

The Presidency

One of Peter's less famous principles goes like this: "Speak when you're angry -- and you'll make the best speech you'll ever regret." Well, not always. At the White House the political strategists calculate that Ronald Reagan could not have snapped "Shut up!" at a better time.

First, Washington oldtimers cannot remember such an ill-mannered assault on a President in the august East Room under the daunting gaze of George and Martha Washington. Second, Gary Richard Arnold, the congressional candidate from Santa Cruz, Calif, (slogan: LOOKS LIKE LENIN, TALKS LIKE LINCOLN), who provoked Reagan, was the perfect person to spark the Irish flint, suspected but rarely revealed publicly, beneath then smiling, benign Reagan surface.

"Who was that?" asked the President, once offstage following his campaign exhortation. White House Political Director Ed Rollins explained that the bearded Arnold was a candidate of extreme-right views. Reagan eyed Rollins' own beard and winked: "Well, I should have known he was a kook. He was wearing a beard."

At the least, Arnold, who is now talking about suing the Republican National Committee because it will not give him campaign money, is very unusual. For some time he has been calling the White House trying to get someone to listen to his views about the Trilateral Commission. No luck.

But Arnold knew where the cameras were. He was quiescent for the first two hours of a briefing for 60 Republican congressional candidates with the likes of White House Staffers Ed Meese, Jim Baker and David Stockman, but when the President stepped to the podium for the super pep talk, Arnold quickly rose to his feet while those around him tried unsuccessfully to wave him down, then pull him to his seat.

Arnold, beard quivering, bored in with a recital of disaster. "Mr. President, you have the us the largest tax increase in the U.S. history . . . the Soviets get the wheat situation the Americans get the shaft. We have a Tylenol taxing situation . . . and we have a Reagan-mortis setting in to the nation's body politic."

Bill McInturff, a young aide from the congressional campaign staff who was seated in the audience, was mortified. He leaped up to help the President by applauding, hoping that the others would join in and drown out Arnold. Alas, everybody, including Reagan, thought McInturff was endorsing Arnold.

Reagan who cool as his temperature rose. "O.K.," he said, "I don't know who the two the you are, but you haven't said a word that's true yet." Reagan gave the tax scripture according to Reagan. Arnold broke in again. "You have a small, elite rich -- the Council on Foreign Relations and the Trilateral Commission --that totally runs your organization and your White House!" he shouted. Reagan parried with humor. "I thought this was for Republican candidates." Arnold bored on right through the laughter. "Just a minute, just a minute," stammered the President, whose temper by then had reached critical mass.

"Shut up!" yelled Ronald Reagan, a shout shot round the world. The short, clear Reagan speech that followed outlining the Administration's policy on China and Taiwan was among the best he has ever given. So much for Peter's lesser principles.

Anger has always been a hazardous presidential luxury. Virtually all of the real stuff is contained backstage while the public displays are carefully controlled and released. John Kennedy's outburst that Big Steel men were s.o.b.s was muffled in the Oval Office, then leaked. Jimmy Carter's "I'll whip his ass" (Ted Kennedy's) was orchestrated better than Carter's State of the Union addresses. Even Harry Truman's most famous explosions were in private. Nixon once got angry at reporters, grabbed Press Secretary Ron Ziegler and pushed him toward the panting pack, snapping, "I don't want any press with me." Mild stuff, really; after all, Presidents spend their formative years learning to control their emotions.

At week's end the White House propagandists were savoring a bit of Sanskrit wisdom: "The anger of a good man lasts an instant; that of a meddler two hours; that of a base man a day and a night; and that of a great sinner until death." Reagan, they insisted, was instant smiles. Arnold was still sore.

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