Where Were They Then?
Some months after 52 American diplomats and citizens were taken hostage in Iran on November 4, 1979, President Carter’s National Security Council encouraged him to take a dangerous military action to gain their release. Carter’s Secretary of State, Cyrus Vance, a Brahmin of America’s diplomatic and legal establishment, adamantly opposed it to the president. The action was nonetheless authorized — apparently, behind Vance’s back.
Vance could have quietly swallowed what happened and waited — maybe, to write a tell-all book about the decision and it’s disastrous aftermath in April 1980, when an American helicopter crashed into a transport plane accidentally killing eight American servicemen and an Iranian civilian. Indeed, the failure likely helped defeat Carter at the polls in November, 1980.
Instead, a few days before the attack, Vance privately wrote a brief “resignation of conscience” letter to the president. Vance saw his obligation as to the nation first, and to the president second. The public deserved to know his view, which he couldn’t articulate while still in the president’s cabinet. No authoring a book, though; no talk show appearances to brag that “I’m right, they were wrong.” So, Vance, politely and diplomatically told the president in his resignation letter released by the White House a few days after the failed attack: “I know how deeply you have pondered your decision on Iran. I wish I could support you in it. But for the reasons we have discussed, I cannot.” Carter, understanding Vance ‘s sincere inability to support the action, politely responded that “you have [under the circumstances] made the correct decision to resign.”
Everyone listening knew that the righteous disagreement was policy-based, but harsh words weren’t publicly exchanged. And so, the public learned it without venomous attack, self-applause or recrimination. And, principally here, without the goal of a seven-figure payday. Public service for Vance was public service, not a hook for personal benefit or self-aggrandizement.
This story’s relevance? Simply, we live in different times with vastly different mores about public service. Three members of President Trump’s cabinet, the former Attorney General (Barr), the former Secretary of Defense (Esper) and the former Director of the National Security Council (Bolton) wrote tell-alls after leaving the administration. Bolton actually published his while Trump was still in office.
So precious was maximizing book sales to Bolton that he refused to testify before the second Trump impeachment proceeding without a court fight. Most important, despite his strongly negative beliefs regarding Trump’s Ukraine effort to bolster his reelection, Bolton obviously never privately told Trump: “Do that and I will have to resign.” Likewise, when Trump was falsely declaring a stolen election, Barr obviously never told him: “If you persist, I’m out.” Esper? Same deal on other issues. Esper obviously didn’t quit when Trump told him he wanted to use the military to subdue rioters in Portland, Oregon because he was running for reelection, or to help purge insufficiently loyal Pentagon officials.
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Each will have earned big bucks selling their books, telling readers how fervently they disagreed with the president, maybe having told him so. Still, they didn’t resign telling the public at a time when it could have helped influence the public to realize, in real time, that they believed that the president threatened American democracy. Remember, Bolton and Esper were fired, and Barr likely just beat Trump to the punch by resigning just before the finish line.
The oddest, most self-serving thing in all this was Bolton’s Wall Street Journal review on May 11 of Secretary Esper’s new book about Trump. He applauds Esper for publicly telling his story. What a surprise. For Bolton, Esper was “dutybound” to come forward — in a book, no less — which Bolton describes as “a history.” Bolton’s argument?: Esper’s a true patriot, just like me! Of course, Bolton ignores the well-accepted principle that history is to be written by objective observers, as contrasted with subjective memoirs. There must be a bunch of copies of Bolton’s books in his attic that he still wants to sell.
Now, it’s true, there’s often value in members of a former president’s cabinet, at some point, addressing policy differences they had with a president. Santayana famously remarked that “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” We do, indeed, need to know why Reagan, Clinton, Bush, Obama or Trump, may have been wrong in major, or even minor, policy decisions. I have no gripe with members of their former inner circles authoring books to describe why they disagreed with their own president’s policy, to possibly help avoid a repetition of similar policy errors by the next president or administration.
That, though, is not what these books are about. They are largely about these men trying to preserve their reputations or settle scores with Trump, because their association with him makes them look bad. Yes, there is great merit in “staying on” when you think the president absolutely needs to hear your voice, lest there be no other voice telling him what he needs to hear. Trump’s Secretary of Defense James Mattis and Chief of Staff John Kelly seem to have done just that, to their credit.
But do we really need William Barr telling us now that Trump was “off the rails”? Or Esper telling us now that Trump wanted to have the Army shoot at George Floyd protesters, although he talked Trump out of it? Or Bolton telling us now that Rudy Giuliani was a “hand grenade” whom Trump was employing in Ukraine to help Trump’s reelection, true as that might have been? If they wanted to say these things publicly — and, maybe they should have — they should have done so, even if they had to resign in order to.
There are other anti-Trump books by insiders of sorts — Omarosa Manigault, Michael Cohen, Stephanie Grisham. I’m no Trump fan, but leave that personal venting under wraps, and to them! That is, unless you’re willing to put your money where your mouth is by resigning and promptly telling America what it needs to know in real time to help stop monstrous acts, if that’s how you perceive those presidential acts.
Secretary Vance didn’t see President Carter as a monster. He simply saw the administration’s planned rescue mission in Iran as potentially disastrous. He told the president so before the mission and privately submitted his brief resignation letter. Lest it undercut the mission, only after the failed mission was the letter released publicly. Coming from whom it came, America’s citizenry got Vance’s unmistakable message clearly, and immediately!
Maybe they should read Vance’s book for the infighting inside the Carter administration seeking to establish that he was the singularly heroic public servant during the Teheran hostage crisis. Oh yes, he didn’t write one.
There’s a final question that must be asked. Were things different with Vance because he was basically a different type of individual and public servant than Bolton, et al.? Is it because times are simply different now in terms of respect for one’s president and, equally so, the “office” of the president — that it was unthinkable in Vance’s day to use information learned in the White House for personal gain? Or is it about current reactions to a particular president? It’s undoubtedly a combination, and certainly a set of circumstances extremely worthy of consideration.
