Word: haig
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Central America. Haig, for once, is the more hawkish: he has not ruled out the use of American troops in El Salvador, and indeed has asked the Pentagon to draw up plans for U.S. military action as a last resort. Weinberger has refused on practical rather than idealistic grounds. He contends that the American public would not stand for any commitment of troops...
...date, Haig has won most of these clashes: the Reagan Administration is pursuing arms-control talks with the Soviets, and it has not called a default on the Polish loans. But he cannot be sure that his advantage will hold. While Reagan has been listening to Haig on policy, the Secretary of State never will have the kind of intimacy with the President enjoyed by Weinberger, an amiable, laid-back Californian who has been close to Reagan since he drew up budgets for the Governor of the Golden State in the 1960s...
...particular, Haig may clash again with Weinberger on policy toward the Middle East. He argued successfully last year that the U.S. should not impose the tough sanctions against Israel that Weinberger wanted after the Israeli raid against the nuclear reactor in Iraq. Haig feared that so blunt a tone would make Begin's government less receptive to American persuasion. But Haig's own policy of promoting a "strategic consensus" among the U.S., Israel and moderate Arab states against Soviet penetration of the area has gone nowhere, and the Secretary of State no longer uses the phrase. Haig...
Bereft of any long-range political strategy, U.S. foreign policy has increasingly focused on arms sales abroad, which is one idea that Haig and Weinberger agree on-sort of. Typically, Weinberger would go further and faster than Haig; he pushed hard for the sale of AWACS to Saudi Arabia, while the Secretary of State was lukewarm. Nonetheless, both Secretaries and the White House staff agree that the U.S. must arm friendly nations, both to win their cooperation and to keep them from turning to the Soviets for weapons. Indeed, Haig in Morocco and Weinberger in Saudi Arabia and Oman were...
...help in setting a consistent foreign policy line, and that is where the leadership must come from in the end. William P. Clark, who replaced the inept Richard Allen as Reagan's National Security Adviser in January, is too new in his job to enforce coordination between Haig and Weinberger, let alone advance any strong ideas of his own. Moreover, Reagan's other top aides appear almost as uncomfortable with foreign policy issues as the President does. Too often they see these issues in domestic political terms-namely, how a decision will either enhance or detract from...