Now, for the Substance

The occasion was Jimmy Carter's first White House state dinner, held in honor of Mexico's President Jose Lopez Portillo and his darkly glamorous wife. Carter and Rosalynn escorted their visitors down the grand staircase. But there were no trumpets, no color guard. Instead, the Presidents and their wives were preceded by Misty Malarky Ying Yang, Amy's Siamese cat, which stealthily descended the broad marble stairs, took one look at the assembled guests and swiftly retreated to safety. Misty Malarky thereby joined the Carter cardigan, the walk down Pennsylvania Avenue and the great limousine purge as a symbol of a new kind of presidency.

Style will carry a President only so far. The Carter Administration was still marred in some areas by confusion and unprofessionalism; the staff work was sometimes shoddy and key memos poorly prepared. Dozens of top jobs remained unfilled; the Agriculture Department has no deputy secretary, no general counsel and none of its six allotted assistant secretaries. But last week amid a burst of activity, Carter was coming to grips with matters of substance--and with uneven results.

DOMESTIC ISSUES. For months Carter has let it be known that he would start no expensive new social programs this year. The nation simply could not afford them, and they also could help boost inflation, which last month reached an annual rate of 10%. Carter opposed any major additions to Ford's proposed $440 billion budget for fiscal 1978 which begins on Oct. 1 (see story page 15). Says one White House insider: "There were some who thought all they had to do was take their case to Jimmy and he'd give them what they wanted." They learned differently. Producing a balanced budget by fiscal 1981 is one of Carter's main goals over the next four years. Hamilton Jordan, who was emerging as de facto chief of staff of the White House, supplied the political rationale: "If we balance the budget [by then], politically no one can touch Jimmy Carter in 1980."

The liberals in the Congress are likely to call for more social-action programs. The Congress is in a stubborn mood, determined to regain its powers. Says House Speaker Tip O'Neill: "There is no confrontation, but this is no rubber-stamp Congress."

Democrats on the Hill have often felt overlooked or even slighted by Carter. The incidents include the President's inviting the wrong Senators to an energy conference and petty but irritating gaffes by White House staffers. For example, Senate Democratic Whip Alan Cranston had a problem even getting a picture of Carter, although he is a supporter of the President. When a Cranston staffer called the White House with the request, he was told: "Sorry, you'll have to write a letter."

To soothe bruised feelings and win friends in Congress, Carter will be making more use of the diplomatic talents of Vice President Walter Mondale. The President's own record is mixed. He completely outmaneuvered Representative Jack Brooks, who wanted to alter the President's Government reorganization plans. The President invited 14 Democrats on Brooks' committee to the White House and persuaded them to endorse his approach. Knowing when he was beaten, Brooks said last week that he would make no attempt to stop the President's proposal.

Carter was not nearly so successful with the Democrats on the House Ways and Means Committee. When they balked at parts of Carter's economic stimulus program, the President asked them down to the White House last week for a spartan breakfast of orange juice, Danish and coffee. After saying grace, Carter tried to soft-sell his guests on the merits of his proposals--but failed to sway them.

Carter still shows a remarkable insensitivity at times to the special needs and cares of Congressmen and Senators. He did not, for instance, consult with anyone on the Hill before deciding to cut funding for 18 water-control projects in fiscal 1978. The plans, which are due to be announced this week, were firmly made before the White House began informing members of Congress from the affected areas.

Carter will need all the help he can get from Congress to put through his programs. The President aims to weld some 50 energy-related agencies into a single department, a reorganization that will require approval from the Hill. Meanwhile, White House Aide James Schlesinger is driving his nine-man staff to complete a comprehensive energy plan by April 20. HEW Secretary Joseph Califano is under orders to come up with a welfare reform program by May 1. As if that were not responsibility enough, Califano last week warned that his department might begin withholding grants from public school districts that were not moving rapidly enough toward racial integration--another policy that is bound to cause an uproar in Congress.

PERSONNEL. Carter continued his get-acquainted tours of the Government, which at one point took him to visit some youngsters at a HEW day-care center. He also was continuing to have his problems with prickly, prideful Senator Robert Byrd. The issue: the confirmation of Paul Warnke to be both the SALT negotiator and head of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency. The majority leader declared himself "on the fence" about Warnke, fearing that the nominee might be too dovish to drive a tough bargain with the Soviets on arms reduction. Says Byrd: "I'd prefer someone else as chief negotiator." Even so, the Senate is expected to confirm Warnke by a comfortable margin.

A second delicate problem facing Carter last week was the desire of Mike Mansfield, Byrd's predecessor as Senate majority leader, to become head of the U.S. Liaison Office in Peking. A Sinophile and frequent visitor to the People's Republic of China, Mansfield has the backing of Byrd and other congressional leaders. But Carter may well end up saying no. For one thing, he thinks Mansfield--at 73--is too old for the job (although the Chinese venerate old age). For another, the two men have not got on personally. Most important is the fact that Mansfield favors the abrogation of the U.S.-Taiwan Mutual Defense Treaty, closing the U.S. embassy in Taipei and full normalization of relations between Peking and Washington. Carter wants to strengthen ties with the mainland without dumping Taiwan--at least not yet.

If Mansfield did not go to Peking, there was the possibility that he might be named to head a delegation to Viet Nam to seek information on the 728 American servicemen still missing in action. The delegation, still in the planning phase, would probably also discuss steps toward resuming normal diplomatic relations with Hanoi.

FOREIGN POLICY. The President seemed last week to be trying to solve all of the nation's problems abroad at once: Sol Linowitz and Ellsworth Bunker were in Panama to negotiate a new treaty governing the canal (see following story); Secretary of State Cyrus Vance was in the Middle East (see THE WORLD); and U.N. Ambassador Andrew Young was just back from his tour of Africa.

Still, it was Carter himself who made the biggest news in foreign policy. He cut off covert CIA aid to Jordan's King

Hussein (see box page 13). Appearing at the Department of Agriculture, Carter startled his audience by casually remarking that he had received information "from indirect sources" that Cuba's Fidel Castro might be willing to remove his troops from Angola. If that were true, and if Cuba were to stop meddling in foreign affairs and resume its "former relationship ... toward human rights," said Carter, "then I would be willing to move toward normalizing relationships with Cuba."

White House, State Department and U.S. intelligence officials were at a loss to explain just what "indirect sources" had supplied Carter with his information. One possibility was New York Congressman Jonathan Bingham, who returned from a visit to Cuba last week and reported that Castro had told him he was moving some troops out of Angola. But U.S. intelligence insists that Castro is still maintaining his 15,000 troops in the country, where some are fighting anti-Communist guerrillas. One top source flatly told TIME: "Castro isn't moving a single trooper out of Angola unless he's a Medevac case or stretched out in a box."

Carter's statement about Cuba's reinstating its former policies on human rights is also puzzling--unless he was referring to a very brief period just after Castro seized power. Fulgencio Batista, the man Castro deposed as the dictator of Cuba, oppressed the political left as savagely as Castro now persecutes his right-wing opponents--some 30,000 of whom are in jail.

The day after the comments on Cuba, Soviet Physicist Andrei Sakharov announced that he had received a remarkable personal letter from the President pledging support for dissidents in the Soviet Union. The President's letter raised anew the danger that his determined criticism of Soviet policy on human rights might cause the Kremlin to crack down harder on the protesters, or be more truculent at the SALT negotiations (see THE WORLD).

The baffling comments on Cuba, the idealistic letter to Sakharov, the stubborn fight to hold down the budget, the inconsistent treatment of Congressmen and Senators--all reflected different sides of the new President as he wound up his first month in office. Apparently, Carter will be no easier to categorize now that he is in the White House than he was while fighting to get there--with perhaps one exception. He campaigned on the promise that he would be an activist President--and he certainly is.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.