Fifty
of the nation’s most senior Republican national security officials, many of
them former top aides or cabinet members for President George W. Bush, have signed a letter declaring that Donald J. Trump
“lacks the character, values and experience” to be president and “would put at
risk our country’s national security and well-being.”
Mr.
Trump, the officials warn, “would be the most reckless president in American
history.”
The
letter says Mr. Trump would weaken the United States’ moral authority and
questions his knowledge of and belief in the Constitution. It says he has
“demonstrated repeatedly that he has little understanding” of the nation’s
“vital national interests, its complex diplomatic challenges, its indispensable
alliances and the democratic values” on which American policy should be based.
And it laments that “Mr. Trump has shown no interest in educating himself.”
“None
of us will vote for Donald Trump,” the letter states, though it notes later
that many Americans “have doubts about Hillary Clinton, as do many of us.”
Among
the most prominent signatories are Michael V. Hayden, a former director of both
the C.I.A. and the National Security Agency; John D. Negroponte, who served as
the first director of national intelligence and then deputy secretary of state;
and Robert B. Zoellick, another former deputy secretary of state, United States
trade representive and, until 2012, president of the World Bank. Two former secretaries
of homeland security, Tom Ridge and Michael Chertoff, also signed, as did Eric
S. Edelman, who served as Vice President Dick Cheney’s national security
adviser and as a top aide to Robert M. Gates when he was secretary of defense.
Robert
Blackwill and James Jeffrey, two key strategists in Mr. Bush’s National
Security Council, and William H. Taft IV, a former deputy secretary of defense
and ambassador to NATO, also signed.
The
letter underscores the continuing rupture in the Republican Party, but particularly
within its national security establishment. Many of those signing it had
declined to add their names to a similar open letter released in March. But a number said in recent
interviews that they changed their minds once they heard Mr. Trump invite
Russia to hack into Mrs. Clinton’s email server — a sarcastic remark, he said
later — and say that he would check to see how much NATO members contributed to
the alliance before sending forces to help stave off a Russian attack.
Yet
the signatories are unlikely to impress Mr. Trump or the largely lesser-known
foreign policy team he has assembled around him: He has said throughout his
campaign that he intends to upend Republican foreign policy orthodoxy on
everything from trade to Russia. And many of the aides who signed the letter
were active in developing the plan to invade Iraq or managing its aftermath,
which Mr. Trump has described as a “disaster.”
A
spokeswoman for Mr. Trump did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Missing
from the signatories are any of the living Republican former secretaries of
state: Henry Kissinger, George P. Shultz, James A. Baker III, Colin L. Powell
and Condoleezza Rice.
Mr.
Trump met with Mr. Kissinger and Mr. Baker several months ago, and “I came away
with a lot of knowledge,” he told The New York Times in a July 20 interview. But neither of the two — who represent
different foreign policy approaches within the party — has said if he will
endorse Mr. Trump.
It
is unclear whether the former secretaries plan to stay silent or will issue
their own statements. But particularly striking is how many of Ms. Rice’s
closest aides at the White House and the State Department, including Philip
Zelikow, Eliot A. Cohen, Meghan O’Sullivan, Kori Schake and Michael Green, are
all signatories.
“We
agreed to focus on Trump’s fitness to be president, not his substantive
positions,” said John B. Bellinger III, who served as Ms. Rice’s legal adviser
at the National Security Council and the State Department, and who drafted the
letter.
Mr.
Bellinger said that among the signatories, “some will vote for” Mrs. Clinton,
“and some will not vote, but all agree Trump is not qualified and would be
dangerous.”
The
Clinton campaign appeared to be aware that the letter was circulating and
encouraged it, but played no role in drafting it, several signatories said.
Yet
perhaps most striking about the letter is the degree to which it echoes Mrs.
Clinton’s main argument about her rival: that his temperament makes him
unsuitable for the job, and that he should not be entrusted with the control of nuclear weapons.
“He
is unable or unwilling to separate truth from falsehood,” the letter says. “He
does not encourage conflicting views. He lacks self-control and acts
impetuously. He cannot tolerate personal criticism. He has alarmed our closest
allies with his erratic behavior. All of these are dangerous qualities in an
individual who aspires to be president and commander in chief, with command of
the U.S. nuclear arsenal.”
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