That Time Reagan Explained Away the Murder of Americans Abroad With an Analogy About Kitchen Repairs

In September 1984, just weeks before a presidential election, 24 people were killed in a car bomb attack targeting the new U.S. Embassy in Beirut, Lebanon. It was the latest in a string of devastating security breaches: In April 1983, when the old U.S. Embassy was still located in West Beirut, a suicide truck bombing brought down the building, killing 63 people, including 17 Americans; six months later, the Marine barracks was bombed, resulting in the deaths of 241 American servicemen. Following the 1984 embassy attack, then-President Ronald Reagan was asked why the newly mandated security precautions had not been in place yet.

”Anyone that’s ever had their kitchen done over knows that it never gets done as soon as you wish it would,” the president told reporters.

A Senate Foreign Relations Committee report placed blame for the bombing on a “tragically simple mistake” — a contractor that had lagged behind installing a steel gate because he was busy with other work.

Can you imagine anyone, Republican or Democrat, giving a similar answer today as Reagan gave then to explain an attack that had targeted a U.S. diplomatic mission and resulted in the deaths of so many American lives? Can anyone imagine Congress simply laying blame on a contractor’s mistake and moving on?

Yesterday, Hillary Clinton appeared before a congressional committee to account for her actions in events surrounding another deadly attack on a U.S. diplomatic mission in the Middle East. The hearing was about the 2012 attack in Benghazi that killed four Americans, including Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens, but Clinton evoked the specter of Beirut several times. It’s worth re-examining what happened in the Lebanese capital all those years ago, as there are many similarities with the debate around Benghazi — and also key differences in the way the United States handles similar situations today.

U.S. officials repeatedly underestimated the threat faced by American soldiers and diplomats in Lebanon. In September 1983, just six months after the U.S. embassy had been attacked on Beirut’s waterfront, then-Secretary of State George Shultz reassured the American public that there was no concerted effort to attack the Marines, and if they were threatened “they will take care of themselves with vigor.” But they didn’t stand a chance when, just a few weeks later, a truck packed with the equivalent of 12,000 pounds* of explosives rammed into their compound.

In the weeks that followed, a House subcommittee charged that U.S. Marine Corps commanders in Beirut had given “erroneous, misleading and often contradictory” information about how the attack had unfolded, and presented “Congress and the American people” with an initial “false picture’’ of what had happened.

There were partisan politics in the 1980s, too, of course: Reagan’s rivals also criticized him for the attacks on U.S. interests in Lebanon that occurred on his watch. Democratic rival Walter Mondale said the president’s handling of the issue cast doubt on his judgment, while Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill said Reagan’s kitchen analogy was “lame.” There were hearings and reports and subcommittees. But 18 months later, everyone in Washington had moved on and Reagan was re-elected.

How quaint and reasonable that now sounds. In the hyper-partisan politics of Washington today, there is clearly no moving on. The new media landscape, combining endless partisan punditry on cable news with hyperactive social media, has made sure of that. Another key difference is that in the post-9/11 atmosphere in the United States, everything is seen through the prism of the fight against terror. When Republicans harp on about uncovering the truth of what happened in Benghazi, they seem to be trying to determine not only how quickly President Barack Obama and Clinton used the word “terrorism,” but what the precise motivations of the attackers were.

Clinton got much grief for her outburst during her 2013 Senate hearing testimony, when she cast doubt on the importance of Wisconsin Republican Sen. Ron Johnson’s persistent questions about whether the attack sprang out of a spontaneous demonstration or was planned in advance.

“The fact is we had four dead Americans,” Clinton said. “Was it because of a protest or was it because of guys out for a walk one night who decided that they’d they go kill some Americans? What difference at this point does it make?”

Most non-Americans don’t understand the difference — does it matter if the attackers are described as armed militants or terrorists? It’s an understandable nuance to clarify for an attack on the homeland but in an unstable country sliding towards civil war, full of gunmen and radical Islamist groups? And unless there is proof that there was specific, actionable intelligence that no one acted on, does it make a difference how the attack started? The lack of intelligence foreshadowing the Benghazi attack could also be seen as a CIA failure — but history shows us that acting on militant chatter is no easy matter.

In November 1983, when Marines Corps commandant Gen. Paul X. Kelley appeared in front of the House Armed Services Committee, reacted with anger when he was asked about a CIA warning about a possible attack against U.S. forces in Lebanon, three days before the Marine barracks were bombed.

”I read in the New York Times today,” Kelley told the committee, ”that some nameless, faceless intelligence official had an intelligence report that should have been sufficient that we should have recognized the threat. But I would like that nameless and faceless official to come by and tell me he recognized that it would be a five-ton truck carrying 5,000 pounds of ordnance going at 60 miles per hour. And I’ll tell you, I’ll be damn mad!”

Just as Kelley felt that CIA officials were trying to highlight their prescience in hindsight, some U.S. officials today believe that the CIA’s statements in the aftermath of the Benghazi attack were self-serving. State Department officials told me they felt that the now infamous talking points, which originated at the CIA and highlighted warnings about the security situation, were meant to protect the agency while throwing the diplomats under the bus.

There are still many unanswered questions about the CIA’s work in Benghazi and about its failures on that day. I asked several State Department officials whether the diplomatic mission in Benghazi would have remained open if there had been no need to have a cover for the CIA annex — no one could tell me for sure. Was the diplomatic compound the actual target? Or were the militants always after the CIA annex as the indictment of Ahmed Salim Faraj Abu Khatallah, the man indicted for leading the attack, seems to indicate?

It’s worth mentioning that it was also the CIA’s responsibility to recruit and vet the local militias that they counted on to guard the mission. But the February 17 Martyr’s Brigade, on which Stevens and his colleagues relied for their safety, “melted away” as the attack began.

The Benghazi committee’s chairman, Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.), has given no indication he’s planning to call next on former CIA directors David Petraeus or Leon Panetta to discuss those lapses.

After her epic 11-hour testimony, Clinton at least is done with the Benghazi committee — but her problem is still Benghazi. Or Libya, rather. On stage in Las Vegas on Oct. 13, Clinton defended the Barack Obama administration’s decision to go to war in Libya and described the coordination with European and Arab allies as American “smart power at its best.” That’s not how it looks today.

Much of the unraveling in Libya took place after Clinton left the State Department, and the Libyans have a large share of responsibility for the current state of affairs, but Clinton was there at the start — and by President Barack Obama’s own admission, not much thought had gone into how Libya would be governed the day after Muammar al-Qaddafi’s fall.

Clinton’s view was that the United States could either stand idly by as the French and British marched to war, or try to shape the course of events — she opted for the latter. This was in keeping with her core foreign policy views, as she believes the United States should never be on the sidelines.

At her testimony Thursday, she used her opening statement to lay out her vision for American foreign policy, not necessarily interventionist, but definitely assertive. “America must lead in a dangerous world,” she said, “and our diplomats must continue representing us in dangerous places.”

Today, Americans are pondering their role in the world, some lamenting what they perceive as Obama’s retreat and advocating a return to a more forceful approach to American leadership, while others applaud the president’s caution on the world stage and wish for even further retrenchment.

But Clinton has yet to convincingly lay out why her approach is the one that benefits America’s interests. Explaining what happened that night in Benghazi could turn out to be easier than explaining to voters why she believes America still needs to lead in that dangerous world, at a time when tolerance for the loss of American lives has dropped dramatically since the days when a president could explain it away with an analogy about kitchen repairs.

*Correction: This article originally stated incorrectly that the 1983 Marine barracks bombing was conducted with 12,000 tons of explosives. It has been corrected to note that it was conducted with the equivalent of 12,000 pounds of explosives.

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