No Right-On for Reagan

If anyone can mollify hard-line conservatives, it should be their idol, Ronald Reagan. That is what Chief of Staff Howard Baker thought when a handful of right-wingers who had been invited to the White House began leveling accusations that the Administration was selling out the contras in Nicaragua. Baker had arranged for the President to drop by and explain in person that his tentative backing for a Central American peace plan implied no lessening of U.S. support for the Nicaraguan rebels. But this time his remarks were greeted only with cold silence; visibly irritated, Reagan shrugged and walked away. Said Burton...