Young Critic in Residence

The young aide to the President does not hesitate to quarrel with the Chief Executive when their views on the environment clash. "He's on pretty thin ice sometimes," says Jack Ford, 23, the ardent skier and mountain cumber. "But I guess I'm too critical."

The President's robustly handsome second eldest son is undergoing an introductory crash course in policymaking at the White House, where he took up residence in the family quarters last month. Beginning this week with a trip to California, Jack will start to work on the hustings as a full-time campaign aide. Among other duties, Jack will help line up delegates pledged to his father, probably concentrating on young newcomers to convention politics. The question of a salary is still a minor economic issue in the simon-pure campaign that Ford is determined to run. "I'll work from now until the election--if I last," he told TIME Correspondent Bonnie Angelo. But he concedes that the more he sees of politics the less he wants to get into it as a full-time career, though he calls himself "by far the most politicized" of the four Ford children.

Jack sits in on meetings of the White House senior staff, attends conferences with congressional groups, and joins smaller sessions with his father and one or two key advisers. He listens intently, sometimes takes notes, but never speaks out. Of the White House staff, he says: "I know who the charmers are--and the hard-asses too." Chief of Staff Donald Rumsfeld has instructed Jack about the many steps that go into White House decision making. Alan Greenspan, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, has given him brisk tutorials on the state of the economy, talks that Jack has particularly relished.

The issue that most excites him is the environment. With a B.S. in forestry from Utah State and a three-month stint behind him as a ranger in Yellowstone National Park, Jack speaks forcefully and knowledgeably on environmental issues. But he does so mostly in private with the President. Of Dad's veto of the strip-mining bill that would have placed tough restrictions on mining companies, Jack says only: "He took a little different approach to it than I did."

At day's end father and son often settle down in the private study off the Oval Office and discuss everything from matters of state to whether or not to breed the family's female golden retriever, Liberty. (The decision: the dog has been flown to Oregon to be bred with a record-holding stud.) Properly minimizing his influence, Jack sums up his role with typical Ford realism and restraint: "All I can do is open up ideas to him, and maybe have an effect that way."

Jack is in a better position to do just that in part because he is the only one of the children living with the President just now. Brother Michael, 25, who is working toward his doctorate in theology, lives with his wife Gayle in Essex, Mass.; Brother Steve, 19, is studying grizzly bears in the West before entering Utah State this fall.

Living at the White House has its advantages. For instance, Bianca Jagger dropped by recently for a casual visit with Jack and to have a look at the place. But Jack would like to find an apartment of his own in Washington because "I just do not like living in the White House. You're almost not allowed to hurt yourself, to make mistakes." But he hesitates to move out because Sister Susan, 18, is away for several weeks, interning as a staff photographer on the Topeka State Journal and Daily Capital. Says Jack of his parents: "I had never realized until they called me [at school] one Saturday night recently. I could tell that the loneliness of this house overwhelmed them. They needed somebody to talk to."

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