As Mr. Reagan meets Mr. Begin, warm words—mostly
Under a sparkling sky in Washington, trumpets blared, drummers in red tunics beat a tattoo, and honor guards from the U.S. armed forces paraded smartly in salute to yet another visiting head of government. Amid the now familiar splendor of pageantry on the White House South Lawn, both the guest and his host, President Ronald Reagan, rose to the spirit of the emotion-tugging scene.
"No people have fought longer, struggled harder, or sacrificed more than yours in order to survive, to grow, and to live in freedom," said Reagan, turning to Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin. "Let us remember that whether we be Christian or Jew or Muslim, we are all children of Abraham, all children of the same God." But now, Reagan warned, "forces of aggression, lawlessness and tyranny . . . seek to undo the work of generations of our people, to put out a light that we've been tending for the past 6,000 years." More personally, the President said to a visibly moved Begin, "From your earliest days, you were acquainted with hunger and sorrow, but as you've written, you rarely wept. On one occasion, you did—the night when your beloved country, the state of Israel, was proclaimed. You cried that night, you said, because, 'truly there are tears of salvation as well as tears of grief.' " In response, Begin thanked Reagan for his "heartwarming remarks" and "the touching words."
Traditional diplomatic effusiveness? Not entirely. During two days of candid private talks the two leaders, who were meeting for the first time, seemingly developed an easy friendship, which Reagan's advisers regarded as one of the prime goals of the visit. Begin told his aides that he found Reagan "a warm person, very kind, quite open" and "not a highbrow." Said one Israeli aide: "The Prime Minister really likes him." Reagan called the talks "very warm and productive." The relaxed mood was indicated by Reagan, when he said of Begin at a kosher state dinner: "I have a funny feeling that he may have dined here more often than I have." That was hyperbole, of course, although it was Begin's twelfth meeting with a U.S. President since 1977.
Still, as one White House adviser emphasized, "This was more than just a getting-to-know-you state visit." U.S. officials, notably Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger, had criticized Begin's decisions to destroy Iraq's nuclear reactor and to bomb strongholds of the Palestine Liberation Organization in civilian sections of Beirut. Begin in turn had sharply rejected the criticism as unwarranted and unfair. But last week, as Reagan escorted Begin toward his seat for the first White House meeting, Begin dramatically broke away. "Mr. Prime Minister," Reagan called out, "your seat is over here." Begin strode up to a startled Weinberger, thrust out his hand and shook Weinberger's warmly in an implicit apology. Throughout the talks, the Israeli air strikes were never mentioned. Explained Secretary of State Alexander Haig: "We viewed these as circumstances that are behind us."