257. Letter From Robert McFarlane to William Safire of the New York Times1
Dear Bill,
I would like to ask that you never draw upon this letter for any article you write or share it with third parties. If you don’t feel you can do that then please do me the favor of discarding it at this point.
On most issues I expect we agree, but that’s neither here nor there. My purpose in writing is, I suppose, only to acknowledge that I am stung by your criticism of me.2 It may be an expression of my respect for you that I care what you think. But to the point.
In your judgment, for one of my predecessors to base his world view on the inevitable decline of the west and then proceed to express that view in trying to “cut the best deal we can” with our ideological competitor (in the Paris accords, the SALT I agreement and the ABM treaty—none of which served the national interest) is “Weltanschauung.”3
For another (me) to base US strategy on the superiority of western values as well as our political and economic systems and then to apply one of the superior manifestations (e.g. high technology) of those systems to beating the Russians is somehow “Option three.”4 It wouldn’t take too much for a sensible person to ponder what the real [Page 1132] prospects were three years ago for deterring the Soviets in the late 20th century and to conclude that the program put forward by Dick Allen (a man who has never had a strategic thought in his life) would not even come close to restoring the strategic nuclear balance. Worse still, the systems relied upon to do so (e.g. MX) would not have done it even if successfully promoted in the Congress. We needed something more. In order to determine what was needed, it was sensible to consider both the technical probabilities in both the offensive and defensive domains and separately, to ponder how to stress the Soviets best in non-military ways—that is, to stress their economy, with all that implies for their being able to sustain high levels of investment in military hardware. We did so—McFarlane and Poindexter (another option 3 man)—not the Defense department that is regularly lionized by Mr. Safire; not President Reagan (who, if he had considered defensive systems certainly did not put it into any of his budgets until I came to the White House).
And on any number of other issues, such as, influencing change in developing countries, sustaining the strategic leverage of China (again through the use of our high technology leverage (and again, with your much-admired Pentagon “strategists” kicking and screaming all the way)), and little things like keeping countries afloat and turning around congressional thinking on the importance of supporting Freedom Fighters, which of my predecessors even thought in these terms, much less was able to do it from deep within a community of strong willed but rather modestly endowed people.
Thanks to President Reagan our economy has produced the resources to sustain a strategy of competing successfully with the Soviet Union. I didn’t have anything to do with the economic recovery. But I certainly had everything to do with the forging of the strategy which relied upon our technological advantage to stress the Soviet economy and in the bargain, engender a retrenchment on their expansionist policies. Let’s see now. How did your Weltanschauungers do on that score? As near as I can recall, those Spenglerian giants gave us Angola, South Yemen, Cambodia (not to mention Vietnam), Afghanistan and Nicaragua.
If that is weltanschauung, give me option 3 every time.
Lest I sound ungracious, there is much for which I do credit Henry;5 specifically, the China opening. But that’s pretty much it. And I certainly acknowledge that he served at a time of enormous political and institutional weakness. But we are talking about the ability to think conceptually and act successfully in a political community to execute a sensible strategy. Who has, and who has not thought originally? The China opening was brilliant. Just about everything else he did wasn’t.
[Page 1133]I suppose I am surprised Bill. How is it that a man of your own history (including your relationship to Henry) justify so superficial a reckoning of Henry’s account—and of mine? Is it that a public official must pander to the press to have any hope of salvation? Is it really true that doing your job in obscurity means that you are presumed unoriginal or stupid?
Best wishes for the holidays.
- Source: National Security Council, NSC Institutional Files, McFarlane Personal 1983–1986, Box SR–157, RCM Personal Chron File (1985). No classification marking. The letter is on White House letterhead.↩
- Reference is to William Safire, “Mr. Option Three,” New York Times, December 5, 1985, p. A31. In the essay, Safire referenced McFarlane’s departure and Poindexter’s appointment as President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs. The kind of advice a National Security Adviser offered a President, Safire stressed, was reflective of the type of adviser the President selected. Safire then proceeded to describe the various types of adviser in the remainder of the column.↩
- In his piece (see footnote 2, above), Safire wrote: “If you choose a national security adviser with a pronounced Weltanshauung—a Kissinger or Brzezinski—you will get the independent judgment of an opinionated authority. Such advice, by its nature, invites friction and demands decisions.”↩
- “Option Three” is a reference to the presentation by an adviser of “five options, ranging from abject surrender as Option One to nuclear war as Option Five.” In his piece (see footnote 2, above), Safire wrote, “In choosing Adm. John Poindexter to succeed Col. Robert McFarlane, President Reagan has indicated that, at this stage, he wants a man who knows how to give him Option Three. As his national security adviser, he prefers a broker to a player.” He added, “But Colonel McFarlane, the tightly contained apparatchik operating between the doves of Defense and the hawks of State, saw himself as a lubricator rather than a force. A born Number Two, he is succeeded by his own Number Two.”↩
- Henry A. Kissinger.↩