Wag the Dog (44 page)

At last. Baker won one. If there were justice in the world, that would have diminished his reputation. There isn't. It didn't. He became secretary of state, a position he held while Eastern Europe broke free of the Soviet bloc, Gorbachev rose and fell, Communist rule ended in Russia itself, there was a coup and countercoup, and even in China there was a movement toward democracy, though it was brutally crushed by the government. The United States appeared to have no particular policy toward these various events. If one believes that almost any action makes things worse and no position is the best position—a philosophy that is sometimes demonstrably correct—then Baker's gain in stature was appropriate.

⁹³
The Art of War expresses this in the inverse:
The ultimate Positioned Strategy is to be without apparent position. Without position even the deepest intelligence is unable to spy; and those who are clever are unable to plan.

⁹⁴
Would Baker think this way? Did Baker say, “Fuck the Jews. They didn't vote for us”? The
New Republic
reports that he did, although his spokeswoman, Margaret Tutwiler, denies it.

S
TORY TIME.
H
ARTMAN
turned the pitch over to Beagle, who made the story very simple, just as he would pitching across the table at Spago for some producer who was wobbling between the four corners of a producer's life: Valium, cocaine, the unremitting certainty that he was about to lose his job if he didn't make a decision soon, and that nagging sense that any decision he made would cost him his job.

The story was this:

“We start with an INVASION. Sudden. Unexpected. Unprovoked. Tanks rolling across an undefended border. It has no justification in morality or international law. The invaders are brutes. They commit ATROCITIES against women, children, and property. Their leader is another HITLER. A new Hitler.

“In recent years there've been several people labeled Hitlers. But they've only operated in their own countries. This guy is different, he's bent on CONQUEST. This invasion is only the beginning.

“Once upon a time, we would have been slow to understand that, we would have said, ‘None of our business.' We would have sat back and waited—until they bombed Pearl Harbor. But not now. Because we have a LEADER who has
learned from history.
If we'd stopped Hitler in Czechoslovakia and Japan in Manchuria, there would have been no World War II. So not this time, buddy. This time: NO APPEASEMENT.

“We round up the ALLIES. There's England and France and us and Russia—all together again. In defense of Democracy and the Rule of Law and the Integrity of National Borders. We have the Government in Exile of the invaded country. This time even the Germans and the Japanese are on our side. And all those little countries. The United Nations. It makes your heart swell to see all those different flags waving, proudly, defying the Tyrant.

“You see, the world understands that the conquered country is the Underdog. That no matter how much bigger we are than the New Hitler, there's an Underdog we are fighting for.
We're fighting for the underdog.

“The next phase is the PREGAME HYPE.

“We mass our forces. And those of the allies. Bear with me here, but it's my opinion that, given certain guidelines, there are damn few countries in the world that are going to stand up to us much longer than Panama or Grenada did. I want you to know that safety is very high on our list here. We want so few casualties that more people would have died if they'd stayed home and driven on a holiday weekend. The last thing we want—and we are not going to let it happen—is week after week of body bags on America's home screens. In spite of that, while we are massing our forces, we are doing a MEDIA BLITZ on how powerful and dangerous the other guys are. How difficult our task is. How much dedication and heroics it will take to beat this fanatic, hardened, well-armed, experienced, killer enemy.

“Our model for this war is the SUPER BOWL. The Super Bowl has a long, long period of buildup. Not counting the play-offs, the buildup is at least two weeks. That's 336 hours of buildup—for a sixty-minute game. And it works.

“Comes the Big Game. WE GO IN. We BEAT THEM. Just like a one-hour football game. We GO HOME. It's over. We have a VICTORY PARADE.”
⁹⁵

Hartman, to make the segue to the next step, asked Beagle, as if it were a real question: “Now let's step back and talk real world. Can we assemble the elements: Hitler, Poland, Allies, Certainty of Victory?”

Beagle looked the president square in the eye. He didn't rush to answer “Yes!” It was important to convey that this was no ill-considered, dimwit, gung-ho, can-do, cowboy, Ollie North vanity press version of heroics. “There are certain things that are matters of fact. The United States can go to war without negative political fallout. That's a fact. We can fight a war with virtually no American casualties. That's a fact. So really, the issue is only one of framing. We're talking about nothing new, only of framing something more effectively. Once we realize that, we understand that my role is not nearly so radical as it appears. In that light I'm willing to say the answer is yes. A definitive yes.”

The battlefield should be in the Middle East or North Africa, Beagle said, and he explained why.
⁹⁶
Given that there was a decent choice of Hitlers: Muammar al-Qaddafi, Hafez al-Assad, Saddam Hussein, Rafsanjani, or—something to be considered—a new ayatollah.

There were lots of potential Polands. Libya invades Chad again, or the Sudan, or Algeria, or even Egypt. Algeria could invade Morocco. Iraq could attack Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, or Syria. Iran could cross the Gulf and go after the United Arab Emirates, Oman, Kuwait, even Saudi Arabia. Syria invades Jordan.

“We are going to enter,” Hartman said, addressing himself to the president, “into an arena that requires a Master of Diplomacy. Someone who knows the Heads of State personally.”

“Maggie Thatcher will stand by us,” the president said, thinking out loud. “Mitterrand, I can deal with him. Gorby, tell you the truth, I think he needs us more than we need him. We have a real advantage here, in my having been with the U.N.”

“I'm about to ask you,” Baker said, “how you expect to convince one of these heads of state to play Hitler for your movie. What if they remember that Germany lost and Hitler died in a bunker. It sounds to me like you're offering them a no-win situation and they are, by God, going to know it.”

“We see Hitler as a villain,” Beagle said. “In the Middle East, a lot of people see him as a hero. They admire strength. They believe in martyrs. And there's the Jewish thing. Second: It's a chance at the big time, to play a major role on the world stage. Third: Taking on the United States, even taking on the U.S. and losing, makes someone a hero in the Arab world. So, although it looks like a no-winner from here, from over there it looks like a no-lose proposition. Or it certainly can be made to look that way.”

“Here's where you're lucky to have me as your president,” the president said. “I kid you not—how many presidents would have the experience and contacts and judgment to run with this thing? This is a complicated thing you have planned here. I guess a war always is. But this one includes allies and an enemy and you probably have to get the CIA in there somewhere and even the U.N. There's not another president in America, not one, who could say they've been in the U.N., that they know the U.N. Or China for that matter. You see what I mean.” The more he heard, the more Bush liked what these Hollywood fellas had come up with. It gave him something to do. And George was a doer. He liked doing. It was strange that as president, although he did an incredible amount of running around, he didn't do so much doing. It was in part because he was committed, sort of, politically, to not doing very much. Actually to carrying out the
Reagan mandate, which was undoing. But it just wasn't the same for him as for his predecessor, for several reasons: the undoing had been done, in many cases, overdone, and the consequences were coming due, demonstrating that they probably shouldn't be any more undone—in fact, probably should be redone, but he couldn't do that; he didn't actually believe in undoing; and finally, he didn't nap nearly as much as Reagan had, so that the absence of constructive, or even destructive, activity weighed pretty heavily on his hands.

“I always make friends. I have good friends everywhere, because people are just people, even foreigners. I truly like people. I want you to know something because people don't understand this about me—I like Ron. He's a great guy. And you never met a better storyteller in your life. A lot of people thought he was hard to relate to, but he wasn't, you just had to tell him jokes. He likes jokes. And Barb likes Nancy. Truly likes her. Still does. We'd have them over for dinner if we had a chance and I'm sure we will. But the point was—friends. We're talking about a war in the Middle East and I have friends there, and that will make it easier to get them cooperated. I could get on the phone right now and Hosni Mubarak—he's having some tough times over there, over in Egypt—he would answer even though it's God knows what time it is in Cairo right now. Does anyone have on one of those watches that tells time in six different zones? What I'm saying, David, is it's not because I'm president of the United States, but because he knows that George Bush is his friend. Barb has him on our Christmas card list. I know he's not a Christian, but that's not what Christmas is about Christmas is something to consider—it would be a good idea if we could do the war over Christmas. There are always a million good stories around the holidays. Servicemen—and women, let's not forget our women in the service, they do a fine job—far away from home, getting letters. Kids sitting around the table, an empty chair where Dad—or Mom, for that matter—normally sits. Somebody explains why Dad has to do what Dad has to do, so the world can be safe, so our children won't have to go.”

“There's something glorious could happen here,” Hartman said. “You're going to put your mark on a point in
history. Jesus, they're all out there saying the American Century is over. I think we just might be putting the naysayers, the whole world, on notice that the American Century has a long, long way to run. By God, I feel like we've just begun.”

James Baker watched George Bush deciding to make video war. If the president went with it, his secretary of state would need to make a decision, whether to be found out front on the war to come, or to be far, far away, in which case his number-one priority would be to make sure that the world knew he had as little to do with it as with the selection of Dan Quayle. “What if the media does to us what they did in Vietnam?” he asked.

“The key is a short war,” Hartman said. “I have several theories about the power of the press and handling the press, but the bottom line is that all the press writes is what they're told, so if the bulk of what they're told is what you want them to hear, then that's what they'll report. This is not a question of censoring them or keeping them from sources. If you move reasonably quickly, you are the only source.

“The painful truth,” Hartman went on, “is that if the war in Vietnam had lasted a month, the administration would have had total media support.

“I don't want to be absurd about it, but visualize the Super Bowl. Now imagine that there's no fourth quarter. In fact, no particular end. Nobody knows when, or if, the game is going to end. They play all day. Then through the night. The next day, next night, all week. More and more players, on both sides, are injured. One side gets ahead. Then the other. There's no time limit. No maximum score. They just keep slogging through the mud. All of the original guys are out, crippled. Now the substitutes are being crippled. Their substitutes are being crippled. The coaches are grabbing guys off the street, guys who don't want to play, and forcing them out there. And they're getting crippled. There's a lot of mud. Pretty soon America is going to get tired of the Super Bowl.

“Even sports reporters, who are paid cheerleaders, watching that long, are going to get bored, and out of boredom they'll make up questions: Should so many people get hurt? Should the game be ended? Why are we playing? Maybe the
game should be banned? They don't mean anything malicious by it. They just have nothing else to do with their time.

“The critics didn't kill Vietnam. It was a lousy movie. It went on too long. People walked out. World War II was a great movie, a perfect story, well played, well paced, and everyone wanted to stay right to the end.”