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The handling of Lebanon and other problems during the trip was complicated by the fact that William Clark, as National Security Adviser, seemed to be conducting a second foreign policy, using separate channels of communication. In Washington, George Bush's crisis-management group went into session over the Lebanon situation and established communications with Clark, bypassing the State Department altogether. Such a system was bound to produce confusion, and it soon did.
There were conflicts over votes in the United Nations, differences over communications to heads of state, mixed signals to the combatants in Lebanon. Some of these, in my judgment, represented a danger to the nation and put the President into the position of reversing decisions already made.
During a dinner given by the Queen in Windsor Castle on June 8, Bill Clark passed me a note informing me that a resolution had been introduced in the U.N. condemning Israel for its invasion and threatening sanctions, and suggesting that the U.S. might vote in favor of the resolution. This would have been an unprecedented step for the U.S. and also entirely out of character for the President. I asked Clark who had made the decision. "The President of the United States, Al; we've got the decision, and there is no more discussion."
I doubted that the President fully understood the implications of the vote—then only minutes away—and asked for a meeting with him. As we went into the President's rooms, Clark told me that Reagan had acted on the basis of a recommendation from Vice President Bush's group. In my conversation with the President it seemed clear that he had been under the impression that this recommendation reflected the unanimous judgment of his advisers. After telling him that his Secretary of State had not been consulted, I advised him that the U.S. must veto the resolution. Reagan, listening intently, agreed.
Yet confusion persisted. The State Department back in Washington was still getting conflicting instructions from the NSC. This required another meeting with Clark. Acquiescence if not agreement was reached after a stormy exchange of words. With only minutes to spare, I telephoned Mrs. Kirkpatrick and instructed her to veto the resolution, regardless of any other instructions she may have received.
Clark had advised me, in the course of our first confrontation that evening, that it would be "best to go to bed, and maybe it will all blow over in the morning." When I did go to bed, a long time afterward, my thoughts were deeply disturbed by the dangerous implications of a situation in which a presidential assistant, especially one of limited experience and limited understanding of the volatile nature of an international conflict, should assume the