The Heat of the Kitchen

By Ed Magnuson

Mandate goes on the offensive, but trails badly in a new TIME poll Walter Mondale, with his juices flowing and sleeves rolled up, began drawing ovations with a litany of charges that an "arrogant" Ronald Reagan was "trivializing" portentous issues. Geraldine Ferraro delighted crowds with zinging one-liners and her refusal to be cowed by hecklers. These signs of new life among the Democratic contenders were heightened by some stumbling on the part of the President, who committed a series of gaffes on the U.S. embassy bombing in East Beirut.

It was much too early to tell whether the political row over Beirut would seriously affect the campaign's course, which until recently has been disastrous for the Democrats. A new poll for TIME by Yankelovich, Skelly & White placed Reagan's lead at an astronomical level: 54% to 26%. That was before Reagan took a few questions from reporters on the eve of his United Nations speech in New York. He conceded that security arrangements at the new embassy had not been finished when a terrorist zigzagged an explosives-laden truck around concrete barriers and set off a blast that killed at least 13 people, including two Americans. With a smile, the President then suggested a singularly inappropriate analogy: "Anyone that's ever had their kitchen done over knows that it never gets done as soon as you wish it would." He added that, although the suicidal driver "got close, he never did get into the compound." Actually, the truck blew up within 30 ft. of the embassy's front door, well within the guarded area.

Reagan's "kitchen" remark drew immediate political fire, but the President did not stop there. He offhandedly seemed to shift the blame to previous Administrations for the third devastation of U.S. installations in Beirut within 18 months, all of which cost a total of 260 American lives. Responding to a question about embassy security from a student in a campaign rally at Ohio's Bowling Green State University, Reagan said, "We're feeling the effects today of the near destruction of our intelligence capability in recent years, before we came here--the effort that somehow seemed to say, 'Well, spying is somehow dishonest and let's get rid of our intelligence agents.' And we did that to a large extent. We're trying to rebuild our intelligence to where you'll find out and know in advance what the target might be and be prepared for it."

That was hardly a compelling excuse for the slipshod embassy security (see box), especially since there had been public threats from a terrorist group that it would attack U.S. installations in Beirut. Moreover, the previous truck-bomb assaults (at the original West Beirut embassy on April 18, 1983, and the Marine headquarters near the airport last Oct. 23) should have been lesson enough that greater security was needed.

Democrats jumped on the Reagan remarks. Declared Mondale: "That's the problem right there. Being President and countering terrorists is a much more difficult task than fixing up the kitchen." He noted that "even though terrorists had publicly warned they were going to attack, there were still no guard gates at the embassy." Ferraro told TIME Correspondent Jack E. White that she does not blame the President for the deaths, but pointedly noted that when terrorists say, " 'We're going to do it,' how can you not do something about preventing that type of activity? As Commander in Chief of our armed forces as well as the head of state, he has an obligation to protect, or at least to take precautions." House Speaker Tip O'Neill accused Reagan of offering a "blatantly stupid alibi." Senate Minority Leader Robert Byrd charged that the President's kitchen comparison "trivializes the loss of American slives." Democrats claimed that sif Jimmy Carter had allowed "three similar explosive strikes on U.S. enclaves in Beirut, he would have been pilloried for feckless leadership.

When a Reagan aide explained that the President's casual comment on CIA cutbacks referred to the Carter Administration, Democrats were outraged. Carter termed Reagan's remarks "personally insulting," accused him of permitting "inadequate security precautions in the face of proven danger" and demanded that he "apologize to the many suffering families" of those who died in Lebanon. Mondale contended that Reagan had "encouraged terrorists and our enemies around the world to believe that we don't have an effective intelligence capacity when we do." He charged that Reagan's handling of the security problem was "inexcusable." Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, called Reagan's comment "outrageous and beneath the dignity of the office of the President; it is a slur on our intelligence officers and a slur on those who died." New York Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, vice chairman of the committee, produced a March 8 letter from CIA Director William Casey, who wrote that the CIA's budget and manpower actually began increasing in 1979, when Carter was President. Moynihan called Reagan's statements "false" and "reckless" and declared that he should be "censured" if he failed to apologize.

While Republican politicians generally ducked the furor, even some conservative columnists assailed Reagan. George Will wrote, "The President's laconic, complacent comparison to home improvements misses a few points: the Commander in Chief has more leverage over his forces than the rest of us have over carpenters. And if carpenters are dilatory, the kitchen is inconvenient; if the Commander in Chiefs employees are dilatory, people die." The New York Times's William Safire, a former Nixon speechwriter, called Reagan's remarks on the bombings "even more pusillanimous than Jimmy Carter's protracted hand-wringing at the seizure of hostages in Tehran." If Reagan "does not have the means or guts to defend our embassy," contended Safire, "he should have the good grace to close it down." Editorially, the Wall Street Journal warned that "unless someone is held accountable this time, no one will be accountable next time and another avoidable tragedy will doubtless follow."

More anger greeted State Department representatives when they appeared before the House Foreign Affairs Committee to support a sudden new request for security funds at U.S. embassies around the world. Democratic Congressmen accused the Administration of belatedly seeking the money as an attempt to shift blame for the lax security in Beirut to Congress. They were upset too by Under Secretary of State Ronald Spiers' contention that the $366 million sought by the department was not really needed and that $110 million was all that could be spent this year. Committee Chairman Dante Fascell, a Florida Democrat, called this reasoning "stupid," and his committee voted the full $366 million. Spiers conceded that Congress had not been denying any embassy security-fund requests and added: "The sins of omission certainly have to be placed on us and not on the committee."

As the heat over his remarks increased, Reagan and his aides tried to put them in a softer light. After complaining that his comments on intelligence deficiencies had been "distorted" by reporters, Reagan telephoned Carter with what presidential aides called "an explanation." But by complying with Carter's request that the call be made public, it amounted to a rare apology from Reagan. What Reagan had really intended, an aide said, was to refer to "a decade-long decline" in intelligence capacity. Reagan told Carter that he did not blame him for the embassy tragedy The flurry over Reagan's remark, came as Mondale and Ferraro were injecting some much needed spirit into wha has been a stumbling and limp Democratic campaign. At George Washington University, Mondale repeatedly drew cheers from some 1,500 students as he assailec the President's pre-election switch on foreign affairs. Mondale ticked off the contrasts: "The new Reagan praises international law. The old Reagan jumped bail from the World Court. The new Reagan criticizes South Africa. The old Reagan cozied up to apartheid. The new Reagan calls for peace in Central America. The old Reagan launched an illegal war in Nicaragua." All this raises a question, Mondale declared, "How can the American people tell which Reagan would be President if he's re-elected?" With fervor, Mondale added, "I won't permit this crowd to steal the future from our children without a fight. I won't let them put ice in our soul without a struggle. They have a right to ask for your vote. But I'll be damned if I'll let them take away our conscience."

Mondale was buoyed again by a rousing response from some 3,000 United Steelworkers at their annual convention in Cleveland. He accused Reagan of neglecting the steel industry's problems with a policy that amounts to "Let it rust." Added Mondale: "Four years ago, when he was running for President, Mr. Reagan went to Youngstown and said, 'I won't forget you.' Well, he didn't until just after the election. And he's forgotten you for four years. Now it's your turn to forget him on Nov. 6." At Texas Southern University in Houston, black students applauded long and loud when Mondale criticized Reagan's frequent references to revered Democrats. "But they have to be dead," Mondale noted. "It's got to be Roosevelt or Truman or Kennedy. They're even picking my old friend Humphrey; he's turning over in his grave. Why don't they leave our own heroes alone and honor their own--Hoover and Nixon and Agnew?"

Ferraro was also drawing large crowds, partly because of her celebrity novelty, and charming them with her quick wit and natural buoyancy. Despite a windy, rainy day, some 10,000 people turned up in Boston's City Hall Plaza to hear Ferraro defend a hometown hero. "I resent it when Ronald Reagan lays claim to the memory of President Kennedy and pretends that he has anything in common with that good man," said the candidate, echoing a Mondale complaint. At a women's rally in New York City, Ferraro claimed that in Reagan's view, "if you're a Pentagon supplier, $7,000 for a coffeepot is market value. But if you're one of the 50,000 people thrown off disability here in New York, this Administration tells you that you're busting the budget." When some hecklers in the crowd of some 3,000 mostly young women began chanting "Four more years," the counter-cry of "Down with Reagan" easily won the battle of noise.

Commenting on an NBC Nightly News report that much of the heckling this year had been coordinated by Reagan campaign aides, Ferraro tossed out a challenge: "If that's true, why don't they come out and fight like men?" Reagan seemed more sheltered from hecklers. Some anti-Reagan protesters charged that they had been barred from a rally for the President, even though they held tickets. The Reagan staff heatedly denied that it was coordinating hecklers at Democratic rallies or screening crowds at their own.

While Ferraro was consistently outdrawing either Mondale or her rival, George Bush, the Vice President barely avoided a mini-Ferraro kind of financial fuss. Asked repeatedly by reporters why he did not produce his income tax returns while in office, Bush insisted that his assets had been placed in a blind trust that forbids such release. Reporters noted that Reagan has a similar trust but has provided his returns. Growing testy at times, Bush finally announced that he would provide "the essential information" from his 1981,1982 and 1983 returns this week. On the stump, Bush showed flashes of humor. In Indianapolis, he departed from his text to quip, "Last week I said it was nice to be in Vermont when the sap is running, and one of the protesters told me to stop talking about Mondale like that."

But if the week looked like a much needed upbeat one for the Democrats, opinion polls showed that Mondale and Ferraro will need a near miraculous string of successes to make any difference. Beyond its incredible 28-point margin for Reagan, the Yankelovich poll, taken Sept. 18 to Sept. 20, showed him ahead in all sections of the country, and among all age levels and income groups.* Astonishingly, despite Mondale's efforts to portray Reagan as overgenerous to the rich, even 40% of voters with incomes of less than $10,000 favor Reagan; only 33% of them expect to vote for the former Vice President. Similarly, Mondale has made little progress among blue-collar workers, presumably a natural constituency; they favor Reagan, 49% to 24%. Even 30% of Democratic voters say they intend to vote for Reagan, while Mondale can count on only 49%. People who call themselves liberals back Mondale, 64% to 16%, but they constitute a mere 13% of the electorate.

Reagan has been gaining among both men and women, although men still support the President by 13 percentage points more than do women. Among blacks, Mondale's lead over Reagan is 53% to 17%, with 28% undecided. The poll showed a relatively high degree of firmness in the support for each side and reveals Reagan's strength in voter perceptions of the personal attributes of the two presidential contenders (see chart).

Apart from sharing a ticket that was trailing so badly, Ferraro took a more personal beating in the Yankelovich poll. It showed that her own support was slipping. Yankelovich had found six weeks ago that nearly two out of three voters considered her a good or excellent choice as Mondale's running mate; now fewer than half do. Her decline was mostly among Republicans, a result of greater partisanship as the election approaches. More than 60% of voters say that Ferraro's candidacy will not affect their choice of a presidential candidate in November, while those who said it would make a difference were almost evenly split on which way it would influence them. Sampling sentiment on the controversy over the role of religion in politics, Yankelovich found that 73% of Americans favor "strict separation between church and state," 77% feel that it is "all right" for religious leaders to speak out on social issues, but 72% feel that religious groups should not try to "impose their moral teachings on Bothers through the political :process." Among voters I who consider themselves to be "born again" (36% responded yes to the question: Would you say that you have been born again, or have had a born-again experience that has been a turning point in your life?), there is less opposition to religious leaders speaking out on social issues or endorsing candidates. Only 22% of all voters consider religion and politics a "very important" issue in the campaign.

Presidential races almost always get closer once the World Series ends; the air gets chillier and people focus more on the election. But with five weeks left before the voting, and separated from their opponents by a gap larger than any that modern contenders have overcome in such a period, Mondale and Ferraro must fan the recent sparks into a far hotter flame. Mondale's last opportunity to turn the race around may come in Louisville next Sunday during the first presidential debate. Reagan's statements of last week will no doubt provide his challenger with some useful ammunition. But Mondale's long-shot hopes may hinge on the chance that he can force Reagan into an even greater set of verbal bumbles. --By Ed Magnuson.

Reported by Sam Allis with Mondale and Barrett Seaman/Washington

* The telephone poll of 1,000 registered voters has a potential sampling error of plus or minus 3%. When these results are compared with previous polls, the potential sampling error is plus or minus 4.5%.

With reporting by Sam Allis, Mondale, Barrett Seaman