Why Georgetown Has the Jitters

At grocery stores in posh Washington neighborhoods, grits are suddenly selling briskly. The city's ritziest catering firm is planning to offer two varieties of peanut canapes to its high-toned clientele. Real estate agents are swarming over every outlander rumored to be in line for a Government post and trying to explain that in exclusive Georgetown, $40,000 might buy a garage but certainly not a house. Copying machines are busily grinding out resumes for 2,200 or so soon-to-be-jobless Republican appointees. And the city's social climbers are agonizing over the possibility that they may lose out in the coming scramble for status. In myriad ways, the Carters of Plains, Ga., have the capital in a tizzy.

In most respects, the transition of Government in the U.S. is an enviably smooth process. But although there are no tanks and armies on the scene, the capital city nonetheless always undergoes convulsions. These are particularly acute at present because Jimmy Carter is an "outsider" who has never lived in Washington and, worse, made a point of campaigning against it.

Expecting the Worst. To some Washingtonians, Carter's Southern ways seem reason enough to expect the worst. Huffs Page Lee Hufty, a decorative blonde partygiver and -goer: "Bluegrass music in the White House is one thing. But stock-car racing? I'm not so sure about that." Rosalynn Carter's declaration that there will be square dancing at some White House parties has done little to assuage the pervasive jitters. Those who are concerned may have forgotten that the late Marjorie Merriweather Post, long the reigning queen of Washington society, regularly held square dances in her museum-mansion.

Among some, however, there is considerable optimism about the Carter era. Notes Paul Delisle, maitre d' of what he hopes will continue to be Washington's most "in" restaurant, the Sans Souci: "Once we had the Texan. He learned to eat fine French food. The Georgian--he can learn too." In his thick French accent, Delisle jokingly offers an outrageously far-out claim to kinship with the President-elect: "I am from Marseille, so Mr. Carter and I are both Southerners."

In the inevitable social shuffle that accompanies every change of Administration, some current ins will be out and vice versa. Blonde Barbara Howar, a star of the L.B.J. days who was in eclipse during the Republican reign, may be on her way back up (she and Carter Advertising Director Gerald Rafshoon are already an item for gossip columnists). In her ascent, she may pass Joan Braden on her way down; Joan's salon regularly attracted the likes of Nelson Rockefeller and Henry Kissinger. The Kennedys? "They were secretly rooting for Ford," says one acute and tart-tongued observer of the capital scene. "With a Republican in the White House, they're the shadow government. Now who are they?" That remains to be seen.

One attractive and wealthy couple--Vicki and Smith Bagley of Winston-Salem, N.C.--appear to be in an enviable position. Bagley, an heir to the R.J. Reynolds tobacco fortune, and his wife moved to Washington late last year and rented a Georgetown house once occupied by the Ted Kennedys. After supporting former North Carolina Governor Terry Sanford in his brief bid for the presidency, they threw in wholeheartedly with Carter, working tirelessly as volunteers throughout the campaign. Just before the election, the Bagleys bought some Georgetown digs for $650,000 (Missouri's Republican Senator-elect John Danforth, a Ralston Purina heir, shelled out only $335,000 for his Washington home). When the President-elect decreed a five-day post-election vacation for himself, he rented (for $300 a day) the Bagleys' 1,300-acre Musgrove Plantation on St. Simon Island.

The Plum Book. Vicki Bagley, who works full time for a real estate firm because "I like to work, and I give away my money," is disarmingly uncynical about life in Washington. "We've had a tremendous number of invitations. I love it. I'm thrilled. Life is too short to think everybody is after us for ulterior motives." But she worries about what will happen when the normally "warm" and "open" Carter people find, as the Bagleys have, that any remark made at a dinner or cocktail party stands a good chance of appearing in a gossip column or a political dope story the following day. "They have to be allowed to be themselves," she adds, "or we'll have another closed society."

The transition tremors most vitally affect the 2,200 "Schedule C" employees and other high-grade appointees whose jobs are not protected by civil service regulations. These are the select few who are listed quadrennially in a guide known as "the plum book." Few if any can expect to appear in the next edition. Most such officials recognized the risk when they accepted the generally well-paying (average salary: around $37,000 per year) jobs. Even so, sudden separation is proving painful to many.

Gregory Parsons, 4, was distressed to learn from his father, Richard, an associate director of the Domestic Council, that he will no longer be able to have lunch at the White House when the Democrats take over. Concedes William Warfield, 38, an executive assistant at the Department of Housing and Urban Development: "I went into this thing with my eyes open. But I deluded myself into thinking that I was a professional in the field of housing, with a track record and competence to protect me."

Gwendolyn Gregory, 39, a Schedule-C official at the Department of Health, Education and Welfare, is philosophical about the imminent loss of her $36,000-a-year job: "There really are few slots in which a new President can put his people [at HEW, for example, only 142 of approximately 140,000 jobs]. He's not likely to keep the old [appointees]. Why should he?"

Frazzled Nerves. The general reluctance to leave the center of power is perhaps most clearly seen in the refusal of one of Gerald Ford's oldest friends and closest aides to do so. After only two years in the capital, White House Counsel Philip Buchen finds it impossible to return to the placid life of his (and Ford's) old home town of Grand Rapids. "It's awfully hard to go home again after living here," says Buchen. "This is a very supercharged atmosphere. When you go back after having a taste of this life and of the challenges--new and different ones every day--it's hard to be content. People who have left still long to come back." Buchen plans to open a law office and perhaps participate in a business venture with another former Grand Rapids citizen who has caught Potomac fever: Ford Adviser William Seidman.

The churning is evident far beyond the cobblestoned streets and elegant town houses of Georgetown. At think tanks and campuses across the country, aspiring policymakers hopefully await the phone call that will bring the summons to power. Nowhere are nerves more frazzled than at top law firms, where Republicans leaving Government service will be recruited (or welcomed back) to fill the slots of Democrats who will be packing for Washington. Even those who are not tapped may find their positions altered. Says Joseph Rauh, a liberal Democrat who went to Washington in 1935 and stayed (he is now a civil rights lawyer): "When they deal with the new Administration, the big firms will put their Democrats up front instead of their Republicans. Especially their good Southern Democrats. Especially their good Georgia Democrats, if they have any."

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