A Rallying Round for Reagan

His handling of Lebanon and Grenada boosts his standing

During the singing of The Battle Hymn of the Republic, the voice of a small boy I could be heard among the I rows of mourners. "Where's my daddy?" he asked. His mother hugged him and cried. President Ronald Reagan, who later told aides "this is not the happiest of my days as President, but it's one of my proudest," had come to Camp Lejeune, N.C., home base of the 24th Marine Amphibious Unit, for a memorial service honoring the 230 U.S. servicemen killed in Beirut and the 18 killed in Grenada. There he was given a poem by Scott Scialabba, whose 14th birthday is this Thursday, about the father he lost in Beirut: "My life is full of sadness upon this gloomy day,/ My father is in heaven and all the birds have flown away." Afterward, standing in the chilly rain at a nearby airbase, Reagan tried to explain the sacrifice. "We commit our resources and risk the lives of those in our armed forces to rescue others from bloodshed and turmoil and to prevent humankind from drowning in a sea of tyranny," he said. "The world looks to America for leadership, and America looks to the men in its armed forces."

The confused public mixture of exhilaration and anxiety brought on by the rapid-fire events in Lebanon and Grenada presented Reagan with one of the most critical challenges of his presidency. The Beirut tragedy had brutally underscored the risks of his ill-defined purposes in Lebanon. The armed assault in Grenada threatened to reify his image as a gunslinger. Yet—at least for the moment—he has been able to channel and perhaps even capitalize on the complex emotions aroused by both events. Despite the Administration's continued worry about the situation in Lebanon, it has been able to win surprising acceptance for the projection of American power abroad. Indeed, as Democratic Pollster Peter Hart noted, "Reagan has ended the week stronger than he began it."

Perhaps the most important factor was the instinctive tendency of Americans to rally behind the presidency in times of international turmoil. In addition, Reagan was aided by the successful outcome of the Grenadian operation. The U.S. medical students who were evacuated from the island loudly expressed their gratitude, and the White House plans to hold a ceremony with a number of them this week to hammer home the point. The evidence Reagan was able to reveal about a planned Cuban-Soviet buildup on that minuscule island provided, albeit after the fact, additional justification for the American action. Although the hazardous situation of U.S. forces in Lebanon caused widespread dismay, the anger and frustration over the Beirut bombing seemed to be counterbalanced by the relatively clean strike in the Caribbean. New Hampshire Democrat Robert Stephen, a state senator whose son took part in the Grenada invasion, describes the impression he got from talking to his constituents and customers at his Manchester restaurant: "The President might have been hurt by what happened in Beirut, but he made that up in Grenada."