Heirs Apparent

September 1, 1991 Topics: Security Regions: Americas Tags: Soft Power

Heirs Apparent

Mini Teaser: Bob Woodward, The Commanders (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1991).

by Author(s): Robert D. Novak

Still, without himself analyzing it or even pointing it out, Woodward and his flashlight have illuminated hard feelings between civilians and military at the Pentagon.  Today's highly professional generals and admirals may accept civilian control, but they surely don't like it.  They deeply resented Cheney's demonstration of authority in his first days on the job in 1989 when he publicly reprimanded General Larry Welch, Air Force chief-of-staff, for marketing his own ICBM proposal on Capitol Hill.

Woodward notes that Welch, a veteran of 137 Vietnam combat operations, told a subordinate Air Force general: "I've been shot at by professionals and I'm still here.  So being shot at by an amateur is not likely to cause any pain."  The "amateur" reference would seem to bracket Cheney's inexperience at his new job with his deferment from the draft during Vietnam.  Admiral Crowe is described as unhappy about Cheney's abrupt dismissal of General Frederick Woerner from the Panama command in order to bring in a more hawkish replacement: "Most chilling to Crowe was the indifference that the Secretary of Defense seemed to have about the career of a four-star officer."  The book itself has exacerbated troubles between the military and civilians.  With good reason, the civilians feel they came out second best in the account and particularly feel short-changed in Woodward's description of the Panamanian intervention.

But additional scar tissue for old wounds is hardly the most controversial byproduct of The Commanders.  Not the least of Bob Woodward's repertorial skills is his ability to get the most recalcitrant of people to talk to him--at length, candidly and often not prudently.  The substantial time Cheney and Powell (neither of whom is known for loquacity in dealing with the news media) obviously spent with Woodward and their apparent extraordinary candor has astonished Washington's political and military circles.

Cheney is perhaps the only major figure in The Commanders who has publicly admitted the obvious: he talked to Woodward and talked to him for hours.  He is also one of the book's few protagonists to deny publicly something written about him: sentiments attributed to Cheney that President Bush is "vindictive" (though that description was no revelation for the political community).

Unlike Cheney, Powell has never admitted saying a word to Woodward.  When after a speech given to a post-Gulf War reunion of Ford administration officials Powell was asked about his cooperation for the book, the general declined to answer.  But everybody knows he found lots of time for Woodward during the crisis, and his brothers in the military profession--serving and retired officers alike--are shocked and angered.  They are stunned by the fact that he fully laid out to Bob Woodward the case for not going to war in the Gulf as he never did to George Bush.  When the nation's top general is quoted as believing that "a prolonged war on television could become impossible, unsupportable at home," Democratic critics of Bush's war policy are legitimized.  Such is Powell's prestige that it is no exaggeration to say that his views as reported in The Commanders have seriously undercut Republican plans to target Democratic members of Congress who voted against the war resolution.  Now they can cite Colin Powell for support.

That is not the only service to Democrats performed by the general.  He is seen expressing concern about the Bush presidential campaign's Willie Horton "racist" commercials.  Three references in the book to Oliver North all mention Powell's distaste for the Reagan aide who became a hero for the Republican Right and a bogeyman for the Democratic Left.  The first such reference also points up the political gap between him and the secretary of defense: "Cheney's uncritical support for Lt. Col.  Oliver North had bothered Powell."

One quote attributed to the chairman could have been constructed at the Democratic National Committee.  After Bush had asked Mikhail Gorbachev in their brief post-election meeting in 1988 at Governor's Island, N.Y., what assurance about the future he could give American businessman wanting to invest in the Soviet Union, Woodward writes, "Powell [present as President Reagan's national security adviser] thought Bush's question was curious, and in a way naive.  It was as if Bush was asking Gorbachev's assurance that the Soviet Union was safe for American capitalism, or the businesses of large Republican campaign contributors."

A Bush Cabinet member told me he would not dare talk to Woodward because he is so dependent on the president's good favor and fears losing it.  Cheney and Powell, he said, are playing on a different, higher level.  They are major figures in their own right, not dependent on presidential patronage and, in fact, harboring presidential ambitions of their own.  Since The Commanders projects only a blurred picture of how the United States decided on war in the Gulf and only the vaguest picture of how the Pentagon functions, its lasting value may be what it does to the image and political futures of Cheney and Powell.

Some of his closest former Republican colleagues in the House have privately expressed surprise and dismay about Cheney's collaboration with the despised Woodward.  The secretary's associates in the Pentagon explain that he was merely defending himself against what they knew to be Powell's extensive collaboration with Woodward.  The defense may have been less than effective, for Cheney comes across as a less sympathetic figure--less open, more conniving--than Powell.  But for Republican palates, his qualities as portrayed by Woodward are pleasing: tough, self-possessed, disciplined, taciturn, decisive, not a man to cross.

Powell poses a more complicated proposition.  Republican politicians have been saying that his comments as recorded by Woodward are so unacceptable that he has ruled himself out for any kind of future in the party (though obviously not for the second term as JCS chairman that Bush gave him after the war and after the book was published).  But burning Republican bridges could not be accidental and must be presumed to be what Powell had in mind in the first place.  Having spent most of his military career not in barracks but in the halls of Washington, he knows the meaning and impact of words.

Consequently, there is strong opinion at the Pentagon that what Powell told Woodward was his long-range declaration of intent for a political career in the Democratic Party, and could have no other possible meaning.  Powell is reported sensing "a kinship" with General Dwight D. Eisenhower for having "pursued a policy of containment instead of war.  So, Powell "aspired to be like him."

Eisenhower served two Democratic presidents, was the choice of the party's left-wing to supplant Harry Truman in 1948, and then unveiled himself as a Republican candidate in 1952.  Powell has served two Republican presidents, was eagerly sought (before this book) by the party's political leaders as a candidate of the future, and now is dreamed about by Democrats as the first black president: a war-winning general who loves peace and sounds like a liberal.  What he said to Woodward can be taken as the embryo for his political credo.

Robert D. Novak is a syndicated columnist, a television commentator, and publisher of the Evans and Novak Political Report.

Essay Types: Book Review