The Oval Office is usually a vortex. Politicians and favor seekers troop through, demanding and wheedling. Cabinet officers squabble, the press snipes and the public watches skeptically. Yet since the gulf war began, Bush has been blessed with an unusual absence of discord and second-guessing. His 86 percent approval rating is the highest since Harry Truman’s on the eve of VJ Day in 1945, thanks in part to an adversary who accommodates Bush with fresh outrages every day. Herded along by the president’s telephone diplomacy, the allies have for the most part stayed in line. At home, Congress is quiescent, the right wing is quiet and the Democrats are in hiding. Even more remarkable for a town where infighting and leaking are SOP the president’s own aides and advisers were not trying to trump one another or their bosses through the press.
This unanimity of purpose stands in stark contrast to other war cabinets in recent history. Horrified by the toll and futility of the Vietnam War, Robert McNamara, Lyndon Johnson’s secretary of defense, resigned in tears. Jimmy Carter’s secretary of state, Cyrus Vance, was so opposed to military intervention during the Iran hostage crisis that he resigned after the failure of the Desert One rescue mission. Ronald Reagan’s secretaries of state and defense, George Shultz and Caspar Weinberger, quarreled bitterly over the decision to commit troops to Lebanon in 1983. Even John F. Kennedy’s “Excom” was racked by fights between hawks and doves on its way to resolving the Cuban missile crisis.
Bush’s war councils have not been free of debate. His advisers have sparred over questions of timing and tone. But they have been unanimous about taking a hard line with Saddam. There are no doves at the White House, Bush’s men like their boss, are all hawks. No one has counseled the president to negotiate with Saddam or delay the ground war to allow diplomacy to take its course.
The united front is no accident. Bush intentionally picked like-minded men to serve him. He wanted advisers who value collegiality and know how to keep their mouths shut. Moderation, pragmatism and a certain gray-suited reserve describe Defense Secretary Dick Cheney and national-security adviser Brent Scowcroft. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Colin Powell is cocky and breezy, but he is a political general (he served a year as Reagan’s national-security adviser) and he knows how to get along with his civilian superiors. Secretary of State James Baker is a more politically ambitious and complex figure, but he is also the president’s best friend. Pundits like to speculate that Bush and Baker harbor feelings of rivalry beneath the Texas old-boy fellowship, and reporters and junior staffers alike are constantly looking for (and trying to stir up) competition between Baker and Scowcroft. But the reality is that any disagreements between the two on the gulf crisis have occurred within a fairly narrow spectrum, with Scowcroft taking a slightly more hawkish line. Over the weekend, Bush answered the gossip that Scowcroft had replaced Baker as top foreign-policy adviser by taking Baker with him to Camp David, leaving Scowcroft to mind the White House.
There is a larger purpose to all this togetherness. If the United States is to play top cop in Bush’s “new world order,” it cannot appear weak and divided. The administration seems determined to show Third World bullies that the America they remember from Vietnam, hobbled by gradualism and dissent, has been replaced by a united front willing to use massive force. But unanimity has its risks, too. A president is not necessarily well served by appointing clones. Self-assurance can breed arrogance. So far, the administration has only needed to stay united in success. A setback in the desert could start the fingers pointing even among Bush loyalists. Public support could evaporate in an instant. In that case, the warm band-of-brothers feeling will fade, and the Oval Office will become a very lonely place.
