Power Game (40 page)

Fundamentally, the reforms underscored the dramatic change of mood on defense by the mid-1980s. The push for reform represented a setback for the Iron Triangle at the hands of the Dissident Triangle—as well as reflecting historic rhythms. Since World War II, the public has supported no more than three years in a row of increasing military appropriations. The Reagan-Weinberger team beat that record. Jimmy Carter had begun the buildup in 1980, and the Reagan-Weinberger combination carried it forward until 1985, though the backlog of billions kept actual spending on the rise.

There was a deeper lesson in the backlash against the Reagan-Weinberger political strategy. For all their alarm about the Soviet threat, Weinberger and Reagan had gone for a big, fast buildup, only to have conventional forces in Europe still in need, the Navy complaining in 1987 that it was short of seamen to man its fleet, and Air Force units so short of spare parts that flight mechanics were cannibalizing some aircraft to keep others flying. In short, the Reagan team had gone long on procurement and short on operations and maintenance. Boom was in danger of being followed by bust. What was needed was steadiness in policy to win long-term political support for defense. Reagan and Weinberger had squandered the opportunity in the early 1980s to build a durable bipartisan consensus in Congress and the country for moderate, steady, long-term growth of defense budgets to replace the roller-coaster record of feast or famine.

When I came to Washington as a reporter in the early 1960s, one of the most powerful influences on Congress was the pro-Israeli lobby. Those were years when Egypt’s Gamal Abdel Nasser kept threatening Israel, and the Arab cause was unpopular on Capitol Hill. But in the late 1970s, the political situation changed, first with the dramatic journey to Jerusalem in November 1977 of Anwar Sadat and the 1978 Camp David accords that led to a peace treaty between Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin. Second, things changed with the skyrocketing prices of oil and the Western impulse to secure a flow of oil from the Persian Gulf through better relations with Saudi Arabia and other Arab states. Third, they changed dramatically with the fall of the Shah of Iran and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in late 1979.

Sadat projected a friendly, peaceful Arab face to Americans, and his willingness to make peace with Israel gave Egypt what seemed a moral claim, almost on a par with Israel’s for huge volumes of American aid. The steady production of oil for the West by Kuwait and Saudi Arabia persuaded President Carter in 1978 to promise the Saudis F-15 jet
fighters as a sign of gratitude and friendship. That sent shivers through the pro-Israeli lobby which claimed the jets could be used against Israel. Then in 1981, the new Reagan administration decided to sell the Saudis several enormously expensive and valuable airborne radar command posts, known as AWACS for Air Warning and Control System. The pro-Israeli lobby fought that sale bitterly, and lost—a loss which suggested to many that the political balance on Arab-Israeli issues had tipped.

But that is not the end of the story; it is actually the beginning. In the next four years, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), leading edge of the pro-Israeli lobby working Congress, literally transformed itself and gained greater power than ever before. The loss on AWACS jolted AIPAC into a new political strategy, and it became a superlobby. Its budget shot up eightfold in nine years, its membership multiplied from nine thousand households in 1978 to fifty-five thousand in 1987, its staff grew from twenty-five to eighty-five. By the mid-eighties, its leadership was steering roughly $4 million in campaign contributions to friendly candidates and punishing political foes, and AIPAC’s lobbying became more bipartisan.

One policy payoff was that American aid to Israel rocketed from $93.4 million in 1962, to nearly $3.8 billion in 1986. Most importantly, AIPAC gained so much political muscle that by 1985, AIPAC and its allies could force President Reagan to renege on an arms deal he had promised King Hussein. By 1986, the pro-Israeli lobby could stop Reagan from making another jet-fighter deal with Saudi Arabia; and Secretary of State George Shultz had to sit down with AIPAC’s executive director—not congressional leaders—to find out what level of arms sales to the Saudis AIPAC would tolerate. In 1987, AIPAC’s lobbying blocked the sale of sixteen hundred Maverick missiles to Saudi Arabia.

The story of how AIPAC reversed its fortunes in the mid-1980s is not only an insight into this one lobby, but a revealing case study of how all lobbying has changed in the new Washington power game. AIPAC’s evolution is a microcosm of a larger phenomenon. Its leaders were sharp enough to respond to the dispersal of power triggered by the political earthquake of 1974, breaking up the old power structure. The new lobbying game patterned itself after the new politics of Congress and the new breed; the old inside game of lobbying was upstaged by the new outside game of lobbying. Intensive private lobbying was often less potent than extensive mass lobbying.

Shrewd lobbyists understood that they could no longer focus on a few committee barons to push their issues, but they had to chase
virtually every member of the House and Senate, certainly every member of key committees. Lobby groups could no longer bank on some pricey Washington superlawyer to make their pitch in private; they had to generate grass-roots movements to pressure scores of legislators. That meant turning increasingly to the techniques of political campaigns and campaign organizers, pollsters and direct mail specialists to tap and manipulate public opinion.

By now, it is a cliché that lobbies have more power than two decades ago, but not everyone understands why. The fragmented power game, fostered by the 1974 power earthquake, played into the hands of lobbies. It not only helped AIPAC block President Reagan on Arab arms deals, but the more open power game enabled the bank lobby to resist a tax law backed by the president and leaders of both houses of Congress, by stimulating such a popular groundswell that congressional members turned against their political leaders. Those episodes reflect the new politics and the new lobbying game.

For the fact is that lobbies have increasingly filled a vacuum left by the loose structure of political parties. The parties used to provide the most essential organization, money, and endorsement that politicians needed. Parties and their leaders weighed the competing demands of interest groups, sorted out priorities, struck compromises and then provided what politicians call “cover” for the votes of individual Congress members: taking the political heat for unpopular votes and delivering bad news to groups that were not satisfied. Oddly, national political parties now contribute larger sums of money than ever to political campaigns, but overall they have not recovered their old power.

For survival, members of Congress rely primarily on personal organizations and their ties with well-organized constituencies—which they are loath to antagonize. That means incumbents, relying heavily on special interest groups for political support and campaign funds, are dependent on these groups and more susceptible to their pressures. Clever lobby groups understand the symbiotic relationship and exploit it, careful to hedge their political bets by spreading favors and support with far more officeholders than was necessary in the old power game.

This sprawling new lobbying game has raised the price of playing. Campaigns targeted on one single legislative issue and costing in the millions are common. AIPAC’s budget, for example, shot up from $750,000 in 1978 to $6.1 million in 1987 just to cover pro-Israeli issues. Business and right-to-work groups spent $5 million in 1978 killing what organized labor called “labor law reform,” and the unions spent $2.5
million to try to win better organizing rights. The insurance industry spent $5 million in 1985 to protect billions of dollars in tax exemptions. Blue Cross-Blue Shield spent another $4 million just to protect its tax-exempt nonprofit status. The trucking industry spent $3 million in 1979 trying to stave off deregulation. Lobbying changed from an insiders’ game to an industry.

AIPAC: Before and After

The AIPAC case is a before-and-after story. The first episode begins on September 28, 1980, less than a year after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and six days after the border skirmishes between Iran and Iraq exploded into full-scale war. On that day, General David Jones, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, flew into Saudi Arabia. The outbreak of war at the head of the Persian Gulf had set off alarms in Washington and had given the royal house of Saud an extreme case of jitters.

When Jones landed, he was grabbed by Prince Fahd bin Abdullah, director of operations for the Saudi Air Force, and Prince Bandar bin Sultan, an American-trained Saudi Air Force major and son of the defense minister. “We want AWACS immediately,” they told him. “We want AWACS for twenty-four-hour surveillance of the gulf. We need it. We can’t protect the kingdom without it. Can you get it for us?”
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AWACS, an Airborne Warning and Control System, the epitome of modern weaponry, is a large Boeing 707 with a dish radar on its fuselage, chock-full of high-tech electronics to monitor an entire battle region. It is a symbol of modern air might and sophistication. The Saudi monarchy wanted temporary loan of American AWACS planes with American crews as a signal to Ayatollah Khomeini’s warlike Iran that Saudi Arabia enjoyed American protection.

For years, the U.S. Air Force had been encouraging the Saudis to buy AWACS, partly to provide rationale for American-built air bases in Saudi Arabia that American planes could use in a Middle East crisis. Jones, an AWACS zealot, sensed an opening; he immediately messaged Washington and pushed the Pentagon and Carter White House to send AWACS planes. Carter’s advisers, near the climax of the 1980 campaign, feared voter backlash. They balked, but Jones nursed Carter into agreement. Within two days, four American AWACS landed in Saudi Arabia on a “temporary training mission” that would operate around the clock 365 days a year. (They were still there seven years later
when an Iraqi warplane hit the American frigate
Stark
in the Persian Gulf in May 1987.) In gratitude, the Saudi monarchy told Jones it was stepping up Saudi oil production.

Very soon, the Saudi government asked the explosive question: Would the Carter administration conclude a whopping $8.4 billion arms sale—five AWACS planes plus seven huge KC-135 tankers, some F-15 jet fighters, and other equipment? That request was political dynamite: Israel feared a modern Saudi Air Force, and Congress had been promised in 1978 that the Saudis would not be allowed to buy AWACS. Even so, Defense Secretary Harold Brown informed the Saudis that Carter was “favorably disposed” to sell AWACS. After Reagan won the 1980 election, Carter urged him to carry out the deal, and Reagan entered the White House “believing we should do it,” according to Jim Baker, his Chief of Staff.
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Saudi expectations had been raised and the Air Force wanted to sell the AWACS planes, as General Jones told me, “to keep the production line open”—meaning that Boeing, AWACS’s maker, needed a big customer. The Saudis would share the plane’s heavy development costs.

When formal announcement of the deal came on April 21, 1981, the Israelis and their allies in Congress erupted, bent on persuading Congress to prevent the AWACS sale. It became a pitched battle of powerful lobbies, a test of Israeli and Arab influence. Prime Minister Menachem Begin, who had previously written Reagan privately condemning the deal, now openly denounced it, in apocalyptic terms, as a threat to Israel.

In Congress, the opposition got an early jump. By late June, Senator Bob Packwood, the Oregon Republican, had teamed up with Tom Dine, AIPAC’s Executive Director, to line up fifty-four senators and 224 House members to write President Reagan opposing the arms sale. In July, AIPAC declared its goal “to keep the package from ever being submitted” to Congress for a required vote of approval (majorities in both houses could block the deal). Indeed, fearing a political disaster that would derail the Reagan economic program, Senate Majority Leader Howard Baker got the White House to put off the AWACS vote from April to October. And when President Reagan sent formal notice to Congress on October 1, Baker warned the president that the outlook was bad. “We’ve got twelve votes, and that’s counting me,” Baker told Reagan, “and I don’t want to vote for it.”
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But Reagan, riding the crest of his budget and tax victories, pressed ahead. In the House, the AWACS sale was voted down 301–11. Administration
efforts focussed on the Senate. It was a classic inside-the-beltway battle.

First, the old Iron Triangle went to work. Powerful corporations, some with links to the Air Force and to Saudi arms sales, got behind the deal. The American Businessmen’s Group of Riyadh, including some top Fortune 500 companies such as Citibank, American Express, A&P, Merrill Lynch International, Mobil, Northrop, and Boeing, called on its members (heavy campaign contributors in 1980) to tell Congress “how important your business in Saudi Arabia is to your company.” The oil industry, huge grain companies and rice millers, and construction firms such as the Bechtel Corporation went after western and southwestern senators and congressmen. Omaha Banks and the Union Pacific Railroad put pressure on Democratic senators James Exon and Edward Zorinsky of Nebraska.

The Israeli government hurt its own cause. While the Saudi leadership promulgated a Middle East peace plan and provided more oil, Prime Minister Begin clashed with the Reagan administration, first over Israel’s air raid against an Iraqi nuclear reactor and then over bombing missions that caused heavy civilian casualties around Beirut. In September, Begin infuriated the White House by lobbying personally on Capitol Hill against the AWACS deal, challenging the president on his home court. Fred Dutton, a former Kennedy White House official and a Saudi lobbyist, cleverly framed the choice: “Reagan or Begin.”