Dear All,
Robert “Bobby” Charles
[former Assistant Secretary of State to General Colin Powell] remembers well
how the projection of strength and power effected the very minds of the leaders
of the Soviet Union (Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev, and others).
In this case, “Bobby” shows us that Reagan
didn’t have to threaten the Soviet Union to pique their concern but instead,
they could see that Reagan always dealt from a position of overwhelming
strength when it even came to issues regarding “domestic” policies.
The Soviets recognized that if Reagan was
willing to shutdown aviation in America to enforce the law, then what else was
he willing to do?
Signals of strength and
the willingness to use it always triumph over weakness, whether real or
perceived.
Such is the nature of a true leader in a dangerous world.
Thanks again to Mr.
Robert “Bobby” Charles for his generosity of sharing his close personal experience
in the President Reagan Administration and especially his wisdom!
Ronald L. Kirkish
Walker is Right: Trafficker Firings Affected Soviets
By Robert Charles | Mar 05, 2015
• Robert
B. Charles is a former assistant secretary of state [for former Secretary
of State General Colin Powell in the Bush 41 administration] and also served as
the former staff director and counsel to U.S. House Speaker Dennis
Hastert.
Make no mistake, Scott Walker is right about Ronald
Reagan’s firing of the air traffic controllers, and the sobering impact this
one decision – a domestic policy decision – had on the thinking of Soviet
leaders.
In short, Reagan’s decisive domestic leadership sacred
the Soviet Union, which was not accustomed to an American President doing
exactly as he said he would do.
This decision by Reagan, made against the counsel of
some of his senior advisors, had enormous implications for the Soviet Union –
and theirs leaders knew it.
While Walker’s media critics disparage the comment and
Reagan’s onetime Soviet Ambassador blithely dismisses the assessment, Walker is
exactly right.
Here is the evidence.
For clarity, in 1981, nearly 13,000 air traffic
controllers went on strike.
They walked off the job for more pay and a shorter
workweek.
Despite the fact that the union had endorsed Reagan,
this was patently against the law.
It violated provisions of Title 5 U.S.C. and their
contract, which expressly prohibited a strike by government unions.
As the Nation worried about air travel – which the
strikers knew they would – Reagan took to the air himself, and gave an Oval
Office address.
He said: If the air traffic controllers “do not report
to work within 48 hours, they have forfeited their jobs and will be
terminated.”
As a young man, I worked in that White House and
recall that speech vividly.
Roughly 1300 controllers returned to their jobs, while
11,345 ignored the president’s demand.
Against the strikers’ expectations, and most public
expectations, Reagan summarily fired the strikers who defied the law.
Most never worked in the field again.
This was the death knell for the union.
It was decertified in 1981.
To assure safety in the skies, Reagan deployed the
National Guard controllers, swiftly training and hiring fresh talent.
The world went on.
But not without notice. Even then, global reaction was a matter of record.
There was no question that the Soviets noticed, and
within a year were sitting up straight themselves.
That was August 1981, and by June 1982, the Soviets
were on notice that – against the backdrop of the air traffic controllers’
decision – they were next in line.
Reagan gave another speech, in this one declaring
before the British Parliament, with Margaret Thatcher looking on, “the forward
march of freedom and democracy will leave Marxism-Leninism on the ash heap of
history.”
The Soviet leaders were on notice.
Nine months later, Reagan said “Communism is another
sad, bizarre chapter in human history whose last pages even now are being
written.”
These were profound words.
They sent a chilling message to the Soviets.
Why?
Because this president was different.
He did not waste words, did not say anything he did
not believe, and had proven true to his word.
He could turn into the wind of contrary expectations,
and make real exactly what he believed.
They were more than aware of what had happened with
the air traffic controllers.
Now move the clock ahead.
In 1989, just as Reagan had predicted, the Soviet
Union fell.
Communism’s stranglehold on a beleaguered people – and
suppression of their God-given freedom – was over.
In 1992, Ed Meese, Reagan’s thoughtful and articulate
former Attorney General wrote of the air traffic controllers’ firing: “The
message to the nation was clear and the public response was highly favorable.
We are informed, moreover, that this action had a
sobering effect on the Soviet leaders, who also had become accustomed to seeing
American presidents back down before a serious challenge.
The PATCO [union firing] action convinced them that
Reagan was someone who had to be taken seriously.”
Meese was hardly alone in his reading of the facts.
Meese quoted Harvard Professor Richard Pipes, an
expert in Soviet affairs, saying “The way the PATCO strike was handled
impressed the Russians … and gave them respect for Reagan.
It showed them a man who, when aroused, will go to the
limit to back up his principles.”
But the coup de grace is this.
At a conference in the early 1990s, held at Hofstra University
and celebrating the life of Theodore Roosevelt, Edmund Morris was a speaker.
He was already working on the Reagan biography.
The topic of Reagan’s firing of the air traffic
controllers – and the effect of this decision on the Soviet leaders – emerged.
Without presuming to quote Morris or other attendees
this many years later, the consensus based on actual conversations with some of
those leaders, was that the firing had shaken these leaders.
And for exactly the reasons that Governor Walker has recently cited.
In short, here was a president who knew what he believed, could communicate well what he believed, was unafraid to communicate well what he believed, and could bring the world around to his beliefs – in necessary, through decisive, unapologetic action.
He had contravened all public expectations by firing
the illegally striking air traffic controllers, and he had condemned the Soviet
leaders to the ash heap of history.
The connection, depth of conviction and potential
implications were too close for comfort.
At least some of the Soviet leaders saw the writing on
the wall.
And it remains on the wall today. Only the Soviet Union – and the physical and spiritual walls, including the Berlin Wall, which held it up – are gone.
Thank you Scott Walker, for reminding us – principles count, along with principled actions and long memories.
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