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More than personal pride was involved. If I permitted myself to be hammered down, the cost would be severe. If I crawfished before my own countrymen, what could I be expected to do when dealing with America's adversaries? I had a chilling vision of the videotapes of such a performance being played in the Kremlin. The price was unpayable.
Naturally, I would have preferred that the hearing be held under quieter circumstances. I don't mind being questioned, hectored even, but it is discomfiting to have to answer sharply in full view of the world. It is easier to administer humiliation in public than to accept it. Besides, a circus atmosphere elicits the clown in all of us. It is difficult, when on camera, not to play to the gallery. This cheapens the process, distorts the results, and causes otherwise thoughtful persons to make damn fools of themselves.
To a significant degree, the television camera has driven the natural, the heartfelt, out of our national life. The rule used to be "What am I saying?" Now it is "How do I appear?"
In the end, the Foreign Relations Committee voted 15 to 2 for confirmation, with Sarbanes and Paul Tsongas of Massachusetts casting negative votes. The hearings had lasted 32 hours over five days with one evening session. Among my recent predecessors, beginning with John Foster Dulles, only one, Henry Kissinger, had been subjected to more than a day of hearings. On Jan. 21, the day after the Inauguration of Ronald Reagan, the Senate voted, 93 to 6, to confirm my nomination as the 59th Secretary of State.
In facing the ordeal, I had been left entirely to my own devices. No advice, no offer of help, no word of encouragement came to me from Reagan or his staff. When the hearings were over and it seemed that I had come through them all right, the President-elect did not congratulate me, nor did any of his people phone or write. Because Reagan is so instinctively kind and courteous, this surprised me. But each President has his own style, and in fairness there is no reason why I should have been praised for getting myself confirmed. That was the least I owed to my chief, who had risked much in nominating me.
An Administration Of Chums
On Jan. 6, two weeks before the Inauguration, I called on Reagan at Blair House to discuss the current play of events in the world and the structure of his foreign policy. In dealing with a President, one must tell the absolute truth, no matter how unpleasant, and conserve the President's time. Later, I was told that Reagan had found me brusque. Perhaps, in my ignorance about his way of doing things, I came a little too quickly to the point; maybe my speech was unadorned. This is a habit instilled in West Point cadets and nothing in a life spent in the service of busy and impatient men had cured me of it.
I told Reagan, "You must have a single manager who can integrate the views of all your Cabinet officers and prepare for you a range of policy choices." He nodded.
If Reagan was uncomfortable, he gave no sign of it. The very first order of business was the structure of the foreign policy establishment. The President had to decide, and put in writing, who was going to do what. Without such a charter, the foreign policy machinery cannot function in an orderly way. The alternative is dispute over territory, rivalry