A tale of two presidents

First, the story of Ronald Reagan. When he got a call about trouble with Libya it was in August of 1981 and I happened to be having dinner with him and Nancy in Los Angeles.

We had just finished eating and were having coffee when Ed Meese phoned. Meese was my father’s top policy adviser, and there was a serious military crisis brewing in the Mediterranean.

At the time, the United States Navy was conducting war exercises in international waters in the Gulf of Sidra off the Libyan coast.

Since 1973, Moammar Gadhafi had claimed the gulf was part of Libya’s territorial waters and had “drawn a line” in the water that no one could cross.

The United States ignored the claim, which clearly violated international law, and during naval maneuvers in 1973 and again in the fall of 1980 our reconnaissance planes were fired on by Libyan fighter planes.

Jimmy Carter had cancelled American war games in the Gulf of Sidra because he didn’t want to upset Gadhafi. But when my father took office, he ordered them to be resumed.

Ed Meese told my father over the phone that Gadhafi was sending out fighters that were locking onto our planes with their radar.

There was worry that one of the Libyan jets would fire on one of our airplanes.

Meese asked my father what we should do if our planes were fired upon.

“Ed, fire back,” he said.

“What if they fire at our planes and run?”

“Chase them,” my father said.

“What happens if they fire on our boys and not only fire and run, they fly back into their own airspace?”

“Ed, if they fire on our boys, you chase them all the way back to their hangars if necessary, but you shoot them down.”

“Fine, Mr. President. Should I call you and wake you if necessary?”

“No,” my father said. “Only call me if our boys are shot down.”

The next morning we woke up to find two Libyan Su-22 fighter planes destroyed because a missile had been fired at one of our F-14 Tomcats. Meese never called my father to tell him because our boys were not shot down.