Reagan Resorts to Soft Sell, Wins Pivotal Support

The MX missile was on everyone’s mind, but President Reagan began his remarks to Republican senators at Tuesday’s lunch in the Capitol with an anecdote about why the Japanese felt free to bomb Pearl Harbor.

At the end of World War II, Reagan said, Japanese officials told American interrogators that they concluded, after seeing woefully unprepared American troops training for war with broomsticks, that the United States could not retaliate. The moral of Reagan’s story: preparedness is critical, and in today’s nuclear environment, MX spells preparedness.

It was vintage Reagan soft sell.

In a 45-minute session with most of the 53 Republican senators, he made no threats and twisted no arms. Instead, speaking from notes, he told stories, swapped jokes and accepted a blue sweat shirt emblazoned with the budget-cutting credo that the President recently borrowed from Clint Eastwood’s “Dirty Harry” movies--”Make My Day.”

Hours later, the Senate made his day with a 55-45 vote to approve construction of 21 MX missiles.

Whether the President’s visit, the culmination of one of the most intensive White House lobbying efforts in recent years, changed any minds was unclear. “No one fell to their knees and said, ‘I’ve seen the light,’ ” said California Sen. Pete Wilson.

But it clearly didn’t hurt. The vote represented a major legislative victory on an issue that Reagan called vitally important, not only to the nation’s defense but to the outcome of arms control negotiations with the Soviet Union in Geneva.

Selling Hits New Heights

For days before the pivotal vote, the President and his aides had cajoled, warned and wooed recalcitrant lawmakers. Some were summoned to the White House in small groups for discussions, others got phone calls. Reagan took his selling effort to new heights, calling senators to pitch the MX while he was in Air Force One on Monday, flying back from a weekend summit in Canada.

But when Reagan made his rare expedition to the Capitol Tuesday along with Vice President George Bush, Chief of Staff Donald T. Regan and national security adviser Robert C. McFarlane, many lawmakers in both parties called themselves undecided and political observers on Capitol Hill considered the vote too close to call.

During the luncheon session in a second-floor conference room named for former Democratic Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield, the President stumped for votes in Congress in much the same way he did on the campaign trail last year.

He set the tone by producing a $5 bill to pay for his lunch, emphasizing that “15% (is) for the tip.” Then he gave the lawmakers a pep talk, not only on the MX but also on his proposed 1986 budget, that was long on symbolism and short on specifics.

Warns of ‘No’ Vote

“A ‘no’ vote (on the MX) will gravely weaken our national defenses, waste the billions already spent on the (MX) program, undercut our allies, . . . cripple the position of our negotiators in Geneva and show the Soviets that . . . a majority in the Congress of the United States still lacks resolve,” Reagan said.

Although the White House had incurred the wrath of several of those in the audience for warning last week that Reagan would not campaign for those who failed to support him, Tuesday’s encounter was free of rancor. No one even asked Reagan questions about the MX during a question-and-answer session after lunch.

Sen. Alan Cranston (D-Calif.) afterward characterized the President’s lobbying as “pretty intense.” But he said the factor that swung the most votes to the MX was not Reagan’s personal involvement but the decision of his strategists to schedule the vote to follow the start of the Geneva talks by just a week.

Sen. Bob Packwood (R-Ore.), in the undecided column up to the end, attributed his “agonizingly difficult” vote for the missile not to Reagan’s persuasiveness but to that of Max Kampelman, the chief U.S. arms negotiator in Geneva. “To a great degree,” he said, “today’s vote is attributable to the humanity, decency and judgment of Max Kampelman.”