What TASS failed to mention was the Hitler-Stalin Pact that agreed to the September 1939 dual Nazi- Soviet invasion and division of Poland, and which launched World War II in the first place. TASS also conveniently overlooked the subsequent Katyn Woods massacre by the Soviet Army. These omissions were typical of the Soviet press, which not surprisingly turned a blind eye to those moments in history that did not prove its points. Picking up on these oversights, Reagan would frequently present accurate accounts of the Soviets’ horrific treatment of the Polish people, ensuring that his audiences learned the unfiltered version of Poland’s relationship to the USSR.
One unfiltered version of this treatment was witnessed by Solidarity member Wladyslaw Kaludzinski, who in 1983 was held in prison, where he and his buddies were unabashed supporters of the American president. One day, one of the more vicious guards, drawn from the secret police, kicked Kaludzinski’s friend in the stomach so hard that he vomited, prompting the guard to taunt him: “What? Reagan’s sausage was not fresh?”108
As Reagan displayed his moral support for the Poles through actions and rhetoric, they in turn bolstered Reagan’s conviction that he was doing the right thing for them. This cross-national support was evident when, in 1983, the organization Paris Match conducted a poll of 600 Poles traveling to the West. Upon being asked who was the “last hope” for Poland, these Poles placed Reagan third, behind only the pope and Virgin Mary, and ahead of Walesa.109
KAL 007 AND A “DEMOCRATIC” POLAND
As the summer came to a close, Reagan received a string of reports that General Secretary Andropov, the aged
Reagan was at his ranch in the hills north of Santa Barbara when he received a call from Bill Clark informing him of the tragedy, including the immediate suspicions—initially unconfirmed—that the Soviets had blasted it, contrary to official denials from the Kremlin. Reagan was horrified by the implications, and responded to his closest advisor: “Bill, let’s pray it’s not true.”110 Unfortunately, it did not take long for the truth to come to light, and upon confirmation of the deed, Reagan was furious. John Barletta, his riding companion at the ranch, overheard him: “Those were innocent people, those damned Russians! They knew that was a civilian aircraft.”111
Though Reagan was steamed and blasted the Soviets in a statement, he reacted quite cautiously, and much more carefully than his critics would have imagined, belying his reputation as a stomping Cold Warrior.112 He told Clark: “[L]et’s be careful not to overreact to this. We have too much going on with the Soviets in arms control. We must not derail our progress.” “Bill,” he said, “we’ve got to protect against overreaction.”113
Reagan did not want to start a war over this. Besides, he was already pounding the Soviets with the economic sledgehammer. Instead, he continued to deploy the verbal cruise missile, his nonlethal but brutally effective linguistical weapon. For the remainder of September 1983, he bashed the Soviets in harsh terms for KAL 007, simultaneously continuing his rhetorical and moral support for Poland. On September 25, for instance, Reagan spoke in New York City at the annual Pulaski Day Banquet. There, he linked the KAL 007 “crime” to the same Soviet totalitarian evil responsible for the World War II butchery in Poland’s Katyn forest. “You know that downing a passenger airliner is totally consistent with a government that murdered 15,000 Polish officers in the Katyn forest,” he averred. “We cannot let the world forget that crime, and we will not.”114
Reagan maintained that while Poland had suffered so much, it had always given the world much more. He thanked “God for Pope John Paul II and all that he is doing.” He asked the audience to pray that the pope’s life be protected. America, he told his audience, remained a “mighty force for good” in the world. “Tonight, in your presence, I would like to reaffirm my commitment to a free and democratic Poland.”115 Those were key words. Until then, publicly at least, Reagan had used vague words like desiring a “reconciliation” and “renewal” for Poland—language he had used with Brezhnev in that December 1981 letter. Now, he openly spoke of desiring a free and democratic Poland.
This shift in his public rhetoric reflected the overall transformation that the administration had undergone over the course of that summer and early fall. As the pipeline deal had come to a close, Poland had moved to the front and center of the administration’s agenda, a move that was palpable in Reagan’s language and demeanor.
Emboldened by the success of the pipeline, the U.S. economy, and the economic war against Russia, Reagan was ready to tell the world that the return to greatness that his presidency had initiated was now, in his estimation, nearly complete. Morale in America was in fact higher than it had been in a decade, a trend that would only continue as Reagan and his administration turned their collective eye to the months ahead.
13. Grenada and Winning: October to December 1983
ON OCTOBER 13, 1983, WASHINGTON WAS SHOCKED BY AN announcement that left true believers at the NSC reeling: Bill Clark was stepping down, leaving the NSC and Ronald Reagan’s side. While the rationale for Clark’s decision was complex, his choice was met by a mixture of disappointment from the anti-Communist stalwarts who were committed to undermining and triumph from White House moderates like Jim Baker, Richard Darman, David Gergen, Mike Deaver, and even Nancy Reagan, all of whom were accommodationists that did not like Clark’s hard-line anti-Communism and wanted him out.
It was not the first time that Clark had tried to resign. As recently as December 1982, he handed Reagan a letter of resignation, which Reagan had refused. But this time, the president knew there was no dissuading his old friend, as Clark had given the decision careful consideration for some time. Reagan knew that Clark had never wanted to leave his California ranch for Washington in the first place, and despite the impassioned pleas of his loyal cadre inside the NSC—evident in the form of long, touching letters from the likes of Roger Robinson, John Lenczowski, Ken de Graffenreid, and Sven Kraemer1—Bill Clark would no longer be managing Ronald Reagan’s national security.
During his tenure, Clark had overseen nearly a hundred of the most important NSDDs to be issued by any president. He had been a vital liaison to the Vatican. He stood aside Reagan when the president called the USSR an Evil Empire, when he pursued SDI, and for every fiery salvo directed at Moscow. NSC member Norm Bailey spoke for the stalwarts when he said that in Clark’s two years as national security adviser, he “did more than any other individual to help the president change the course of history and put an end to an empire that was, indeed, the embodiment of ‘evil.’” Bailey maintained that the nation owed a “very great debt” to the laconic rancher who embodied the image of the stoic, silent cowboy.2
A year that had been the NSC’s loud call to arms suddenly seemed to be finishing with a whimper, or, perhaps in Bill Clark’s case, with a characteristic whisper. But the letdown from Clark’s departure was short-lived. There was no time for the hard-liners to mourn, as a storm was stirring in the Caribbean, and one of the Cold War’s hottest years was about to get even hotter.
GRENADA
Since Ronald Reagan became president, there had been a lot of nasty words exchanged back and forth
