In My Time - Dick Cheney [47]
The bumbler image had become one of those stock jokes that was too good to let go of. Before long, it became a mainstay of the weekly comedy show Saturday Night Live. The president took it all good-naturedly and even played along with the jokes on occasion, but I could never say the same about my own attitude. I thought it was deeply unfair, and it still bothers me when I think about it. The image of President Ford as some sort of dimwitted stumbler hurt badly in the general election, and the press was not above keeping the gag going just for that reason.
Of course, it didn’t help that our rival for the Republican nomination looked so surefooted and was always camera-ready. I had my first glimpse of Ronald Reagan in October 1974 when both he and Ford were attending a black-tie dinner at the Century Plaza Hotel in Los Angeles. I was in the room when the president received him beforehand. The two of them settled into deep armchairs in front of the window of the presidential suite with a nighttime backdrop of high palms and the lights of the Hollywood Hills.
I remember thinking that the former movie star cut a very impressive figure. Tanned and tailored in a way I’d never seen matched in Washington, this was a guy who knew how to carry himself. People as far back as the 1950s had sized up Ronald Reagan as presidential material and now for the first time, I could see why. On that evening in 1974, neither man knew for sure what 1976 would bring for them and their presidential ambitions, and they cordially chatted about everything except the possibility that they would soon be rivals.
Our initial strategy in the White House was to try to put pressure on Reagan not to challenge the president in the first place. It seemed worth attempting because even well into 1975 no one knew for sure whether Reagan would get into the race. We kept in touch with him through intermediaries, chiefly Tom Reed, who had been California’s Republican national committeeman and would become air force secretary. Tom was a Ford man but he knew Reagan well, and the Reagan people listened to him. The same was also true of Stu Spencer, a campaign strategist who had helped Reagan win the governorship and was now signed up with Ford.
AS THE 1976 ELECTION played an increasingly important part in our day-to-day lives, Rumsfeld assigned me responsibility for campaign-related activities.
In Aspen Lodge, the president’s cabin at Camp David, with President Ford (Official White House Photo/David Kennerly)
As I looked at the task ahead, I became convinced there was no way Ford could win election without first making some fairly dramatic changes in his administration. Part of the problem, as I saw it, was that in the national security area we were still operating with the same structure and personnel we had inherited from the Nixon administration.
In the Cabinet Room of the White House with President Ford and his National Security Council, including Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, CIA Director George H.W. Bush, National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs David Jones. We were dealing with the crisis in Lebanon in the summer of 1976. (Official White House Photo/David Kennerly)
The president had never clearly established the perception that he was in charge of national security policy. Henry Kissinger’s continued position as both secretary of state and national security