Rhetoric Gives Way to Reality

By Hugh Sidey

Not Dwight Eisenhower's reputation as a soldier, nor Lyndon Johnson's legend as a negotiator, nor Jerry Ford's square jaw, nor Jimmy Carter's celestial benevolence, nor Ronald Reagan's tough-guy threats have discouraged the terrorists of this world from striking at the U.S.

The hot potato of terrorism is now in Reagan's hands, and it is smoldering. Already he has been burned a bit. At his press conference last week, he had to endure that humbling American ritual of reminder. His 1980 campaign contempt for Carter's failure to win an early release of the U.S. hostages held in Iran ("They shouldn't have been there six days, let alone six months") was thrown back at him as the world watched. He was chastened. But one of Reagan's strengths is that at such moments, he has an extraordinary control of his temper. Common sense crowds out darker impulses, and after eating crow for half an hour on prime time, the President -- and the country -- mercifully moved on. Now, like his predecessor, Reagan is learning that moving the fleet and grimacing on television have little effect on a fanatic foe.

Maybe this country will get serious about civilization's greatest immediate threat. Americans by and large have not accepted the realities of the gang warfare that keeps flaring in the world. Such horrors have seemed beyond a people still unmarked by the kind of cruelty that other societies have faced for centuries. But the TWA episode may change America profoundly.

The instant planes are hijacked, hostages seized, embassies blown up or sleeping Marines killed, that particular battle has been lost. We can only try to limit the defeat. The task that we have rarely undertaken with fervor and ingenuity is anticipating and preventing the next tragedy, to the extent that is possible. The invasion of Grenada stands as a notable and successful example.

Like other people who are humiliated and threatened, we talk now mostly about retribution. Washington echoes the brave calls of armchair generals from the provinces who would devastate the Bekaa Valley or demolish the Beirut airport or launch a search-and-destroy mission in the city. Retaliation may have its place when, in that rare instance, terrorists separate themselves from the fabric of innocent society. The better answer lies in every American's awareness and understanding that terrorism must be met on its own terms.

There are 3 million U.S. citizens at any given time dispersed around the globe. There are American businesses and institutions in almost every one of the world's 169 countries. There are roughly 570 international flights of U.S. airlines landing at more than 80 foreign airports some days. The President cannot guarantee the protection of all. Risk must be accepted by every tourist.

Our Government, however, can listen and spy and disrupt and strike before the fact. But this country has always been ill at ease with such ungentlemanly behavior. There are important people in the White House who, even in the midst of the current crisis, have begun to assemble lists of terrorist training sites, of cities and regions too distressed for safe travel, of havens for hijackers and killers, of airports too lax in safety precautions. Ronald Reagan, foremost among the White House crew, believes that a passive nation that simply waits for the next terrorist act and then blusters and postures in muscle-bound indignation will only reap more funerals and bitter regrets. But just how much the President can do will depend to a large extent on whether Americans accept the sad reality before them. The world is not the place we thought it was two weeks ago.