How the President kept the title of Great Persuader
Senator Edward Zorinsky rode the private elevator up to the living quarters on the second floor of the Executive Mansion. He had refused to accept even a phone call from the President last month before his vote against the AWACS sale at a meeting of the Foreign Relations Committee. "I didn't want to get caught with the Gipper in the locker room at half time," he explained. But now the Nebraska Democrat was prepared to discuss the issue. He settled into one of the comfortable armchairs in the seductive red-carpeted study overlooking the South Lawn of the White House.
And then Ronald Reagan went to work at what he does best. In a voice still raspy from a sinus inflammation he developed on his trip to the North-South summit at Cancun, the President told Zorinsky that Jordan's King Hussein was coming to Washington in a few days. Asked Reagan: ; "How can I convince foreign leaders that I'm in command when I can't sell five airplanes?" The Senator, who is Jewish and deeply committed to the security of Israel, said he had never been subjected to a "full-court press like this before." The conversation, scheduled for 15 minutes, stretched on for 45. It ended with Zorinsky saying: "I'm going back to my office to be by myself and do some soul searching." When reminded by a reporter on the way out that he had once said that Reagan could sell ice to Eskimos, he joked: "I'm thinking about putting a heavier coat on." As Zorinsky sat in his office, he received a phone call from a rabbi in his home state. Outside a sound truck was blaring: "Vote American. Vote for AWACS." In the end, he went with the President.
The wooing of Zorinsky came at the end of a month-long campaign by Reagan that once again showed why he is known as the Great Persuader. In late September, with 61 Senators listed as opposing the sale, White House Chief of Staff James Baker and his Legislative Strategy Group took control of the lobbying effort from National Security Adviser Richard Allen. They decided that the issue did not lend itself to the type of televised presidential appeal that worked so well on the economic package. Instead, the Administration opted for one-on-one personal appeals to wavering Senators. The assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in early October helped unsettle many of the sale opponents, and prompted immediate support from Republicans Orrin Hatch of Utah and Alan Simpson of Wyoming.
The key to success, White House planners agreed, would be Reagan's personal touch. Beginning in September, he held private chats on the AWACS sale with 22 Republican Senators, 14 of whom voted his way. There were 22 Democrats who also got the private treatment, and ten of them were convinced. In addition, last week alone Reagan placed 26 telephone calls in which AWACS was a subject of conversation.