Rhetoric Gives Way to Reality

Not Dwight Eisenhower's reputation as a soldier, nor Lyndon Johnson's legend as a negotiator, nor Jerry Ford's square jaw, nor Jimmy Carter's celestial benevolence, nor Ronald Reagan's tough-guy threats have discouraged the terrorists of this world from striking at the U.S.

The hot potato of terrorism is now in Reagan's hands, and it is smoldering. Already he has been burned a bit. At his press conference last week, he had to endure that humbling American ritual of reminder. His 1980 campaign contempt for Carter's failure to win an early release of the U.S. hostages held in Iran ("They shouldn't have been...

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