Richard V. Allen: Jeane Kirkpatrick and the Great Democratic Defection
[Richard V. Allen, national security adviser to President Ronald Reagan, is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford.]
IN the days since Jeane Kirkpatrick’s death, much has been written about her tenure at the United Nations, her foreign policy outlook and her indelible personality. But not a lot has been said about Jeane Kirkpatrick, ardent Democrat — and what that meant to the success of Ronald Reagan in international affairs.
Let me take you back to early 1980. Jeane Kirkpatrick and I were on our way to an appointment at the Madison Hotel in Washington. Before we entered the building, Ms. Kirkpatrick paused, grasped my arm and said, warily but sternly, “Listen, Dick, I am an A.F.L.-C.I.O. Democrat and I am quite concerned that my meeting Ronald Reagan on any basis will be misunderstood.”
Mr. Reagan, then a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, was in town, and as his chief foreign policy adviser I had been trying to get Ms. Kirkpatrick and him together.
A few months before the meeting, I had read Ms. Kirkpatrick’s article, “Dictatorships and Double Standards” in Commentary magazine, and gave a copy to Reagan for his flight from Washington to Los Angeles. Reagan called me immediately upon reaching home. “What you gave me to read was extraordinary!” he said. “Who is this guy Jeane Kirkpatrick?”
We had a laugh about “this guy,” then discussed the article. At the end of the call, I asked if he would like to meet with the “guy” on his next visit to Washington. “Yes,” he said, and instructed me to leave enough time for a private session.
It wasn’t easy. Initially, Ms. Kirkpatrick was indifferent, hesitant, dubious. As a former Democrat himself, Mr. Reagan could sympathize. The moment they met, he went to work putting her at ease. He opened that first meeting by telling Ms. Kirkpatrick that he considered it a private conversation for informational purposes, not a “political” one.
He then brought up her article, saying that it helped him see the differences among undemocratic regimes, but that he believed leftist regimes were more deeply rooted and therefore harder to topple than their rightist counterparts.
Noting that unspeakable atrocities had occurred under rightist regimes in Spain and Germany, Ms. Kirkpatrick warned him not to read too much into that belief. Still, she generally agreed that Mr. Reagan’s assessment was correct when it came to communism.
After that, the conversation flowed smoothly, and she spoke extensively about Cuba and Latin America, with Mr. Reagan asking specific questions. She visibly relaxed. Clearly, they liked each other.
A couple of months later, at their second private meeting, the two went right to work with no preliminaries, covering the Helsinki Accords, détente, human rights, NATO, the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. Mr. Reagan had been thinking about Ms. Kirkpatrick’s distinctions about dictatorships, and they discussed how different regimes should be treated. This time, Ms. Kirkpatrick seemed eager to find out more about Mr. Reagan’s thinking, though she did not hesitate to argue with him or to correct anything she thought too simply put.
A third meeting followed not long after. As I was escorting her down to the hotel lobby after an hour of discussion, she turned and said, “Dick, I am ready to endorse this man for president.” She expected nothing in return. Mr. Reagan was not asking for an endorsement, I said, and suggested that it might be best simply to wait for the results of the November election. But I did inform Mr. Reagan, who was quite pleased....
Read entire article at NYT
IN the days since Jeane Kirkpatrick’s death, much has been written about her tenure at the United Nations, her foreign policy outlook and her indelible personality. But not a lot has been said about Jeane Kirkpatrick, ardent Democrat — and what that meant to the success of Ronald Reagan in international affairs.
Let me take you back to early 1980. Jeane Kirkpatrick and I were on our way to an appointment at the Madison Hotel in Washington. Before we entered the building, Ms. Kirkpatrick paused, grasped my arm and said, warily but sternly, “Listen, Dick, I am an A.F.L.-C.I.O. Democrat and I am quite concerned that my meeting Ronald Reagan on any basis will be misunderstood.”
Mr. Reagan, then a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, was in town, and as his chief foreign policy adviser I had been trying to get Ms. Kirkpatrick and him together.
A few months before the meeting, I had read Ms. Kirkpatrick’s article, “Dictatorships and Double Standards” in Commentary magazine, and gave a copy to Reagan for his flight from Washington to Los Angeles. Reagan called me immediately upon reaching home. “What you gave me to read was extraordinary!” he said. “Who is this guy Jeane Kirkpatrick?”
We had a laugh about “this guy,” then discussed the article. At the end of the call, I asked if he would like to meet with the “guy” on his next visit to Washington. “Yes,” he said, and instructed me to leave enough time for a private session.
It wasn’t easy. Initially, Ms. Kirkpatrick was indifferent, hesitant, dubious. As a former Democrat himself, Mr. Reagan could sympathize. The moment they met, he went to work putting her at ease. He opened that first meeting by telling Ms. Kirkpatrick that he considered it a private conversation for informational purposes, not a “political” one.
He then brought up her article, saying that it helped him see the differences among undemocratic regimes, but that he believed leftist regimes were more deeply rooted and therefore harder to topple than their rightist counterparts.
Noting that unspeakable atrocities had occurred under rightist regimes in Spain and Germany, Ms. Kirkpatrick warned him not to read too much into that belief. Still, she generally agreed that Mr. Reagan’s assessment was correct when it came to communism.
After that, the conversation flowed smoothly, and she spoke extensively about Cuba and Latin America, with Mr. Reagan asking specific questions. She visibly relaxed. Clearly, they liked each other.
A couple of months later, at their second private meeting, the two went right to work with no preliminaries, covering the Helsinki Accords, détente, human rights, NATO, the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. Mr. Reagan had been thinking about Ms. Kirkpatrick’s distinctions about dictatorships, and they discussed how different regimes should be treated. This time, Ms. Kirkpatrick seemed eager to find out more about Mr. Reagan’s thinking, though she did not hesitate to argue with him or to correct anything she thought too simply put.
A third meeting followed not long after. As I was escorting her down to the hotel lobby after an hour of discussion, she turned and said, “Dick, I am ready to endorse this man for president.” She expected nothing in return. Mr. Reagan was not asking for an endorsement, I said, and suggested that it might be best simply to wait for the results of the November election. But I did inform Mr. Reagan, who was quite pleased....