James Baker and the art of power
After a political career that spanned three presidents, James Baker is at ease with his place in history.
A profile of James Baker, who was then White House chief of staff, published in January 1989, described him as smooth, shrewd, tough and coolly ambitious. He had a classic American political smile that stretched from ear-to-ear with perfect white teeth. Baker’s stock-in-trade was power.
“That’s why Washington loves him,” journalist Marjorie Williams concluded.
Baker, 90, had a stellar career at the centre of power in US politics for a quarter of a century. He served as White House chief of staff for Ronald Reagan (1981-85) and George H.W. Bush (1992-93). He was undersecretary of commerce for Gerald Ford (1975-76), secretary of the treasury for Reagan (1985-88) and secretary of state for Bush (1989-92). He led five presidential campaigns: 1976 (Ford), 1980 (Bush), 1984 (Reagan), 1988 and 1992 (Bush).
In an interview with Inquirer, Baker acknowledged how fortunate he was to have played such a critical role in politics, campaigning and policy over several decades. He worked closely with three remarkable presidents. The pinnacle of his public service was being a master diplomat who, with Reagan and Bush, juggled multiple crises and helped shape the post-Cold War world.
“I enjoyed working for all of them, they were all high-quality individuals,” Baker says in his distinctive Houston drawl. “I was the luckiest guy in the world to have the opportunity to work for presidents Ford, Reagan and Bush because they were all men of the highest character and integrity. All three of them were good leaders and they believed in loyalty up and loyalty down.”
In 2000, Baker spearheaded George W. Bush’s legal fight during the Florida recount. In 2006, he was appointed co-chairman of the Iraq Study Group. He occasionally makes his views known on public policy. And he is respected across the political divide and is often sought out for advice by a new generation of politicians, advisers and diplomats.
Baker, who has written several memoirs, is now the subject of two new books: a new biography by husband-and-wife team Peter Baker (no relation) and Susan Glasser, The Man Who Ran Washington (Doubleday); and an account of his friendship with Bush 41 (41st president) by Charles Denyer, Texas Titans (Cambridge Klein Publishers).
Denyer’s book chronicles the Bush-Baker friendship that began after they met on a tennis court in Houston in 1959 and continued until Bush’s death in 2018. Together, they played key roles in navigating several seismic events such as the Tiananmen Square massacre, the fall of the Berlin Wall and the reunification of Germany, the collapse of the Soviet Union and the first Gulf War.
“He was my friend of 60 years – a really close friend,” Baker says. “He characterised the relationship as like that of big brother and little brother. I always felt good about that characterisation. I admired him tremendously. I loved him. Indeed, I gave a eulogy at his funeral. And I was with him the very minute that he passed away.”
Baker arrived at Bush’s home in Houston at 7am that fateful morning in November 2018. “Mr President, Secretary Baker is here,” one of Bush’s aides announced. The former president looked at Baker and asked: “Hey, Bake, where are we going today?” Baker replied: “We’re going to heaven.” Bush said: “Good, that’s where I want to go.”
As the family gathered or dialled in to say goodbye, Baker held Bush’s hand and rubbed his feet. Baker said Bush’s last words were to his son, George. “I love you,” he said. The son looked at his father – only the second father-son presidents – and replied: “Dad, I love you, and I will see you on the other side.” Bush died later that evening.
Baker gravitated to national politics after serving in the Marines and working as a lawyer in Houston. He is one in a line of wealthy and influential Bakers who dominated the city’s legal establishment.
Baker recalls his grandfather’s advice to “work hard, study and keep out of politics”. He assiduously followed the first two instructions but bucked the third.
Baker supported Bush’s early congressional campaigns and became active in the Republican Party, also working on Richard Nixon’s re-election campaign in 1972.
He went on to serve three presidents but is reluctant to be seen comparing and contrasting these experiences. “I tell people: I don’t do windows, I don’t do floors and I don’t compare the presidents I’ve worked for,” he explains. But, for this interview, he agrees to reflect on them individually.
Baker was tapped to serve in the Ford administration’s Department of Commerce in 1975. He admired Ford’s courage and integrity, and agreed to run his election campaign. Losing that campaign still hurts. Jimmy Carter won the presidency with 50.1 per cent of the popular vote to Ford’s 48 per cent. Carter won 297 electoral college votes to Ford’s 240.
“Ford came within 10,000 votes of winning that election – you turn 10,000 votes around in Ohio and Hawaii, and Ford would have been elected,” Baker says. “He would have won the electoral college even though he lost the popular vote.”
Ford accepted the close result – much closer than Donald Trump’s defeat by Joe Biden this year – and never considered challenging the result. Indeed, Baker criticised Trump for calling for votes not to be counted after election day last month. Ford respected the democratic process.
“Many of President Ford’s supporters wanted him to ask for a recount following a challenge,” Baker remembers. “He said: ‘No, I’m not going to do that because I lost the popular vote by a million votes and it would make it difficult for me to govern if I challenge’. So he rebuffed the entreaties of people who wanted him to challenge the result.”
Four years later, Baker ran Bush’s campaign for president in 1980. However, Reagan won the Republican nomination, and the presidency that year with Bush as his running mate. Two days after the election, Reagan met with Baker and invited him to serve as Chief of Staff. Baker was surprised. He said he felt like “an outsider” in Reagan’s close-knit inner circle but accepted the job offer.
“He was a man of superlative character and integrity,” Baker says of Reagan. “He was a tremendously effective communicator. He believed in hope and opportunity and optimism. He never was one to look on the dark side of things; he was always a sunny, optimistic, forward-looking person. I think all of those things contributed to his success. He was an extraordinarily successful two-term president.”
Baker is remembered as one of the most effective White House chiefs of staff. He successfully manoeuvred around competing agendas and swirling ambitions to claim the top job twice. The famous “troika” of Baker, Ed Meese (counsellor) and Michael Deaver (deputy chief of staff) were legendary White House operatives in Reagan’s first term. Baker’s rules of thumb for being an effective chief of staff, he says, are to avoid scandal, get the president re-elected and depart without getting fired. Not many achieve all three.
Reagan’s signature achievement is winning the Cold War. Baker says: “You know, he started his presidency by saying that the Soviet Union would lie and cheat and steal to do whatever they want to get what they want – they were an evil empire. Well, everybody said: ‘You can’t call them evil, that is not diplomatic.’ It turned out that he was correct and the people who were criticising (him) were wrong.”
After managing Reagan’s stunning re-election campaign – winning 58.8 per cent of the popular vote and 525 electoral college votes to defeat Walter Mondale – Baker moved to the Treasury. He spearheaded the Plaza Accord with other major economies which depreciated and stabilised the US currency, and made exports more competitive.
Baker led Bush’s successful campaign for president in 1988, crushing Michael Dukakis to claim 426 electoral college votes and 53.4 per cent of the popular vote. Baker then became secretary of state at a time of international change and upheaval. Three months before Bush’s re-election, Baker returned to the role of chief of staff and oversaw the presidential campaign. Bush lost to Bill Clinton.
“He was the most effective and successful one-term president that America has ever had,” Baker says of Bush. “If you look at the record of his four years and what he accomplished with a Democratic House and a Democratic Senate it really says a lot about the nature of the man. It’s the kind of government that I wish we had today.”
Baker voted for Donald Trump in 2016 and 2020. It was a decision he agonised over. Baker privately labelled Trump as “crazy” and was sharply critical of several policies. But, ever the loyal Republican, he felt it was his duty. Bush 41 voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016. Bush 43 did not vote for Trump in either 2016 or 2020. Trump’s style is an anathema to the Bushes, as it is to Baker. In the interview, Baker indicates it is time to move on from Trump following his clear election defeat. “I won’t leave my party,” he told his biographers. “You can say my party has left me, because the head of it (Trump) has.”
Baker insists the Republican Party can survive and thrive if it changes direction.
“I think it has got a bright future,” Baker suggests. “We are not always going to be travelling the route we are now taking. I look at the history of the party and I look at the leaders of the party in the past and I am fully confident that we are going to remain a very important and effective force in American politics.
“You know one of the real strengths of American democracy, in my view, is our two-party system. We are not fragmented into a whole bunch of small parties like you might see in Italy, or in some other countries, and the two-party system is a real strength of our democracy. I am quite confident that it will continue to be so.”