A White House Workaholic?

By Hugh Sidey

In legend, men are crushed physically and emotionally by the burden of the presidency. In real life, their cheeks get pinker, their stomachs more relaxed, their spirits higher and their pocketbooks fatter. They go around telling people how good they feel and how much they enjoy the work. They find after years of nomadic campaigning they can sit down and eat dinner (Carter calls it supper) rather regularly with their families. Some Presidents were not all that thrilled at domestic reunification. But Carter indicates he is.

It may not always be so smooth for him as in these first weeks. The burden may get a little more weighty down the line. But the greater worry is that Carter, like others before him, will become uncomfortable in leisure.

For more years than one cares to calculate, the inhabitants of the Oval Office have gloried in the myth of super-human exertion. The more meetings, the more phone calls, the more crises, the longer the hours, the better it got. Lyndon Johnson, for instance, worked an early shift of eight hours, took a two-hour nap in the late afternoon, then stepped into a cold shower that pummeled him back to consciousness, after which he worked eight more hours. Richard Nixon by that measure was rather lazy, but he was so intimidated by his predecessor that his staff strove frantically to cover up the time he spent resting or brooding.

In our workaholic society Harry Truman would have been a flake. Right in the middle of rebuilding the world after World War II, he used to insist on interludes with his neighbors from Independence, Mo., poker games on his yacht on the Potomac and hours of inexpert splashing around in the warm waters of Key West. He was a successful President.

It has been a half-joke in Washington that the longer a President stayed at his desk the worse our troubles became. In capital lore, late-night lights were synonymous with devotion--waiting for the boys to come home from their bombing runs over North Viet Nam; pondering the strategy for the opening to China; massaging recalcitrant Congressmen.

For a few days there it looked like Jimmy Carter would restore balance. He went to work at the good country hour of 7:30 a.m. and got back home to dinner regularly at 6:30 p.m. He wrote his staff a memo saying that they needed rest and time with their families. Carter even opened up a little spare time in the mornings to think by himself. He went to the opera one Sunday afternoon and returned to Plains on a weekend to stroll along the main street.

This week came discouraging news. Carter's appointments secretary Tim Kraft disclosed that Carter had been getting up at 5:30 a.m. to cram in more study time, then going back to the office after supper to work on accumulated papers. He has divided the "users of the President's time" into nine categories (examples: Cabinet, political leaders, Congress, staff) to try to achieve more efficiency. But somebody who saw Carter said he looked tired. He talked only about the fun he was having. Another workaholic?

The 20-hour day, the seven-day week, may be necessary at times. But the challenge to a President is one of limiting himself to critical issues. The tragedy wrought by Presidents who felt they must listen to every voice, address every complaint has never been calculated. Surely it is immense.

Still, the evidence is not all in. Carter went off to the Kennedy Center one night last week to see Hal Holbrook perform as Mark Twain, a man who punctured self-important politicians. And the President planned to get over to the National Theater later to watch James Whitmore in Bully!, a roaring portrayal of Teddy Roosevelt. It might help when he gets there if Carter recalls that sometimes, when the sun was up and his juices were flowing, Roosevelt would knock off work at noon and take his family for a picnic down along the Potomac River. It might not be quite as good as a tax cut, but the therapeutic value to the national soul has been underestimated since about 1909.

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