‘Meet the Press’ transcript for May 20, 2007

Mr. DEAVER: Yeah, he’d come in every morning.

MR. BRINKLEY: And there’s some, some reporters that he likes that he gives a kind of call-out in the diaries. Oh, Frank Reynolds of ABC and Walter Cronkite, who he, he admired a great deal. And there are about probably 10. Bill Plante of CBS, and he’d give them—he’d toss them a bone in history by saying that they were honest or did a better job.

MR. RUSSERT: In fact, after the second debate he listened to the commentary about how he’d won. And he said, “Even the TV bone-pickers think I did all right.”

MR. MEESE: And, you know, I think he got a kick out of jousting with Sam Donaldson and those trips...

MR. RUSSERT: Oh, yes.

MR. MEESE: ...from the White House to the helicopter when he’d, you know, act like he didn’t hear.

MR. RUSSERT: Right. Deaver turned the helicopter on.

Mr. DEAVER: Do you remember that wonderful line Sam shouted at him one morning coming over to work about 9:00. “Don’t you fell badly about working fewer hours than your predecessors?” And he said, “Well, Sam, you know, I hear hard work never killed anybody, but why give it a chance?”

MR. RUSSERT: Let me turn to Iran Contra, because there’s a lot in the book about it, and everybody here has, I think, a pretty good understanding. Here’s February—January 17, 1986: “Only thing waiting was” the National Security Council “wanting decisions on our effort to get our five hostages out of Lebanon. Involves selling TOW anti-tank missiles to Iran. I gave a go ahead.”

Then later that year, November, “This whole irresponsible press bilge about hostages” and “Iran has gotten totally out of hand. The media looks like it’s trying to create another Watergate. I laid down the law in the morning meetings—I want to go public personally” and “tell the people the truth.”

Then the next day: First “order of business—I will go on TV at 8 PM” tonight, “reply to the ridiculous falsehoods the media has been spawning for the last 10 days.”

The president went on TV and said this:

(Videotape, November 13, 1986)

PRES. REAGAN: We did not, repeat, did not trade weapons or anything else for hostages. Nor will we.

(End videotape)

MR. RUSSERT: Eleven days later, here’s his entry:

“Ed” Meese and “Don” Regan, who was then chief of staff, “told me of a smoking gun. On one of the arms shipments, the Iranians paid Israel a higher purchase price than we were getting. The Israelis put the difference in a secret bank account. Then our” Colonel Oliver “North” of the National Security Council “gave the money to the ‘Contras.’ This was a violation of the law against giving the Contras money without” “authorization by Congress. North didn’t tell me about this. Worst of all, John Poindexter,” who headed the National Security Council, “found out about it” and “didn’t tell me. This may call for resignations.”

December 17^th entry: “Late afternoon, Stu Spencer,” a longtime political consultant from California, “dropped by with Mike Deaver. They are good friends” and “honestly want to help me, but I can’t agree with their recommendation—that the answer to my Iran problem is to fire my people—top staff” and “even Cabinet.”

Tough time.

MR. MEESE: It was a tough time, and Ronald Reagan—what had happened, really, was you had the two controversial issues, the relationships with Iran and the seeking of a communications with them and their help in getting the hostages back, and then you had the freedom fighters in Nicaragua. Both very contentious issues, and when the funds for one were taken without authorization by Ollie North and transferred to the other, it was like putting the two things together, making one major issue out of it. Probably the worst time in the administration in terms of relationships with Congress. And the thing that bothered the president most was he had the feeling, as portrayed in the press, that the people didn’t believe him in what he was saying about it. That bothered him more than anything else. Because his integrity was absolutely the most important thing, and for the people not to believe—and he was absolutely right, having looked into that myself. He had—he knew nothing about this whatsoever. He was absolutely shocked when I brought him the news that we had discovered just the day before.

MR. RUSSERT: Mike Deaver, there’s an entry, January 22, 1987.

“Upstairs for lunch.” “Got out my diary” of ‘85 “to check on chronological layout of the Iran situation prepared by NSC. It sure is helping my memory.”

MR. RUSSERT: Was there any indication at the time the president was beginning to develop symptoms of Alzheimer’s or anything like that?

MR. DEAVER: No, not, not to me. I never saw that. The only way that he changed as a result of the shooting was that he got more stubborn. When he says in the entry there, you know, “The rest of my life belongs to God,” that means, “It doesn’t belong to Ed Meese and Mike Deaver and the rest of the staffers that’re always telling me stuff, I’m going to make up my own mind.” So that’s the only thing I ever saw.

MR. BRINKLEY: But, remember, he also had to deal with colon cancer, which he had dealt with.

MR. DEAVER: Right.

MR. BRINKLEY: And then he had always a lot of little medical problems. He was always taking what he called sneeze shots. I see them as being—the last two years in the diaries are as vigorous as ever in the writing, but he does get forgetful. He’ll sometimes say, “I’m flying in a helicopter. What’s the name of that canyon? Oh, it’s Topanga Canyon. Why aren’t I remembering it?” There are a couple of things. But I don’t think it’s Alzheimer’s. It’s just some memory due to maybe age, some of you might want to call it.

MR. MEESE: And the tremendous amount of information he was getting every day. You know, I used to say to businessmen, for example, “How many tough decisions do you make in a month?” And they would say, “Well, maybe five.” I said, “The president makes that many every day.”

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