A kind of Brownian movement characterized U. S. foreign policy in the Reagan years. Officials acted randomly on what they believed to be the operant assumptions of "Reaganism," calculating what Reagan really intended, and cavorted from the Americas to the Mid-East without burdening the President with the liability of decision, or even knowledge. Reagan's old friend, Attorney General, Edwin Meese, rationalized it all: after all, he said "[t]he president would [have] approve[d]" his staff's activities, if [the president had been] asked." Even after the news of the National Security Council staff's peregrinations in pursuit of arms, hostages, and cash for the contras had been published, the initiative spun on. Later, the president explained, he forgot what U.S. policy had been; or, he never knew; or, he had not understood. As presidential Chief of Staff Donald T. Regan explained, the president had been told so many "cover stories," it "sort of confused the president's mind." Reagan's detachment became the stuff of legends. Once, as smoke from