Carter's Swift Revival

It was a born-again presidency for Jimmy Carter. After months of discouraging setbacks, a steady decline in the polls and increasingly open disdain from members of his own party, the President was exuberantly on the move, roving from New Jersey to the Carolinas to the Middle West. Everywhere he went, crowds turned out and cheered him for his historic success at the Middle East summit talks at Camp David, and those ringing cheers were backed up by new polls that showed him making dramatic gains in the past week. According to a CBS survey, popular approval of his Administration climbed from 38% in June to 51% last week, while a Gallup poll rose from 39% in August to 56%. This shift testifies to the mercurial nature of public opinion, at least as measured by the surveys. One triumph can cause a President's rating to soar, one setback can start it plummeting again.

Despite the strains of the long bargaining sessions over the past fortnight, Carter appeared jaunty, confident, partisan, pugnacious, smiling more than ever --a revival of the man who had defied the odds and the experts to win the presidency. "Mr. President, it's wonderful how many friends you've discovered here in the last few days," remarked Republican Senator Clifford Case as he welcomed Carter to the federal aviation center in New Jersey. Replied Carter: "It is a good day for the world." Sounding much like a candidate once again, Carter was moved to make a grander claim at a fund-raising luncheon in Atlantic City: "I believe that we are making great strides in bringing peace to many areas of the world. I am proud that since I have been in the White House, there has not been a single American soldier who has lost blood in a foreign war or in combat. I would like to go out of office still having maintained that record."

The prospects were not entirely unclouded, of course, either for the world or for Jimmy Carter. In the Middle East itself, Israeli Premier Menachem Begin and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat received tumultuous welcomes home, but when Secretary of State Cyrus Vance flew to three Arab capitals to mobilize support for the Camp David agreements, he encountered reactions ranging from skepticism to outrage.

Noisiest of the opponents, predictably, was Palestine Liberation Organization Leader Yasser Arafat, who declared that "Camp David is a dirty deal and Carter will pay for it." While making a campaign stop in Pittsburgh later in the week, Carter compared the P.L.O. to the Ku Klux Klan, the Communist Party and the Nazis. Added the President: "It would be nice for us if they would just go away." From Soviet President Leonid Brezhnev came a searing denunciation of the summit talks, which he said made the Middle East "more explosive than ever."

Still, whatever the future difficulties, the Camp David accord brought peace between Israel and Egypt closer than at any time before, and that was a remarkable victory for Jimmy Carter, who had staked an inordinate amount of personal prestige on his ability to achieve a diplomatic coup that had seemed, in his own words before the Camp David talks began, a "remote" possibility. The extraordinary summit, confining two strong-willed opponents within a mountain retreat for a full fortnight, had been Carter's own idea. And by his mixture of idealism, tenacity and mastery of detail, he had won his gamble.

Among America's allies, too, Carter had acquired new stature. In Britain, where Arabists dominate the Foreign Office, a senior official commented: "Camp David was a formidable achievement by any standards, and establishes President Carter's credibility as a world statesman of the first rank." While not willing to promote Carter to such heights, Germany's Chancellor Helmut Schmidt did praise him for "decisive progress toward peace," and the nine foreign ministers of the European Community jointly offered "homage to President Carter for the great courage which he demonstrated in organizing the Camp David meeting and bringing it to a happy conclusion."

Carter's first political celebration of his victory last week was an address to a joint session of Congress. With a proper sense of the dramatic, Begin and Sadat first entered the House of Representatives with Rosalynn Carter. A moment later, when the President marched through the giant mahogany doors, both floor and galleries exploded in shouts, whistles and stamping. Delivering the kind of homespun, occasionally halting speech that often fails to arouse his audiences, Carter was cheered when he hailed the Camp David accord as "a chance for one of the bright moments in history." And he moved many of his listeners when he turned to the two Middle Eastern leaders and said to them: "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be the children of God."

Afterward, members of Congress crowded around to congratulate him. "This gave the President a great boost," said Senate Majority Leader Robert Byrd. "He demonstrated great tenacity and courage." Added Senate Minority Leader Howard Baker: "This will nullify the bumbler image." Exulted Democratic Senator George McGovern: "This is the most dramatic moment in all the years I've been in Washington. I think history turned a corner tonight and the Middle East will never be the same."

In terms of practical politics, Carter could look forward to a stronger position vis-a-vis Congress, which has balked at many of his programs this year. The President's harassed chief of congressional liaison, Frank Moore, happily noted that the "atmosphere, the mood, the way you are received, has changed in the last couple of days." Confirming that viewpoint, the Senate gave Carter a notable victory last week. It voted more heavily than expected, 59 to 39, against recommitting his natural gas bill to a committee that would have killed it. That favorable tally indicates that the measure will be approved by the Senate and perhaps by the House as well. The President would then get, though in severely truncated form, his long sought energy bill. Said White House Aide Hamilton Jordan: "We have a hot hand on the Hill for the time being."

Buoyed by his success, Carter went out politicking with renewed zest. The mood of the crowds in North and South Carolina was so cordial that the President barely had to mention Camp David. He could count on someone else doing that for him. The most surprising example was a large ad in the Asheville (N.C.) Times that congratulated Carter for the Middle East breakthrough and concluded: "I am proud of you." The ad was paid for by Democrats who are supporting Republican Senator Jesse Helms for re-election even though Carter had come to the state to campaign for Helms' Democratic rival, John Ingram.

Speaking at a dinner, Carter was at his relaxed, reminiscent best. He repeated what Sadat had told him during a morning stroll at Camp David: "I believe that you have a sensitivity about our problems in the Middle East because you are of the South, because the South is the only part of the United States and Southerners are the only people in the United States that really know what it means to suffer the tortures of the aftermath of a war in an occupation government ... and a struggle for overcoming prejudice and hatred between one race and another. I believe that has given you not only a special insight but perhaps an additional commitment to bring a resolution between two peoples who have long hated each other." The Egyptian President also had some sage comments on the ups and downs of a head of state's popularity: "When things go bad, you get too much blame. When things go well--I must admit--you get too much praise."

Though the Middle East agreement creates an aura of success around the President, it does not by any means solve all his problems. Last week revised figures showed that the inflation rate in the second quarter of 1978 was a grim 11%. Despite the good news in the Middle East, the dollar continued to fall, reaching an alltime low of 1.51 Swiss francs. The dollar has now fallen about 37% against the Swiss franc in a single year. The price of gold rose to a record high of $216 per oz. Carter met with his top economic advisers last week to work out a plan to combat inflation, now the No. 1 domestic issue, and although he has repeatedly rejected all proposals for wage-price controls, there were indications that his advisers were definitely considering guidelines with some force in them. Both the Business Roundtable, a group of top executives, and AFL-CIO President George Meany denounced all plans for such guidelines. Nevertheless, Carter's group seemed to be leaning toward limits of 7% a year in wage increases and 6% in price boosts. Federal contractors might then be required to sign a pledge to abide by the guidelines if they want to continue to do business with the Federal Government.

Addressing a meeting of the United Steelworkers, in Atlantic City, Carter pledged that in "waging this war on inflation, I reject the politics of the past. I will not fight inflation by throwing millions of Americans out of work." He did not spell out a specific program, but in his new combative Camp David mood, he promised that it would be tough. "I will ask for restraint and for some sacrifice from all. I will ask you to consider what I will have to say with open minds and in a spirit of cooperation and patriotic concern."

In the midst of Carter's triumphant week, though, he encountered some serious difficulties with the Camp David agreement itself. The agreement so carefully worked out in 23 successive drafts had a number of gaps and ambiguities. Since several very touchy issues could not be resolved at Camp David, the three leaders agreed to postpone any decision on them. They also agreed to state their views in the form of letters, to be subsequently made public. But Begin wasted no time in setting forth his opinions in a series of televised appearances--not only his opinions on resolved issues but also his contrary view on a key issue that the other summit negotiators thought had actually been settled.

This inflamed controversy concerned the Israeli settlements on the West Bank. U.S. officials thought that Begin had agreed not to build any more of these communities during the five-year transition period while the Israelis and Arabs negotiate the future of the West Bank. Not so, said Begin. The only "negotiations" he had in mind were the three-month talks scheduled to lead to a peace treaty with Egypt. He had never, he insisted, made any commitment for a moratorium longer than that.

To support the U.S. argument, officials in Washington showed reporters a copy of an early version of one provision that they said was to have been published as a supplementary agreement and that seemed to uphold the U.S. position on the issue. Complained Begin: "Let me respectfully say that they shouldn't have done that. It's not proper to show to the media texts that have not been approved." But he didn't budge on the settlements, which the U.S. has repeatedly declared to be "illegal." To put further pressure on Begin, the U.S. withheld a letter promising that the U.S. would build two military bases in Israel's Negev desert to compensate for Israeli withdrawal from three airfields in the Sinai. Though no connection was formally drawn between the airfields and the settlements, the message was clear enough. Before leaving for Israel, Begin seemed to relent a bit. He said he would consult other members of the Israeli delegation, whose own statements have been closer to the U.S. position. "I will respect their better memory," he pledged.

The other object of anguished controversy was the city of Jerusalem, which was omitted entirely from the Camp David agreement. In another letter released last week, Sadat argued that East Jerusalem should be under Arab sovereignty, that all of the city's holy places should be controlled by their respective religious groups and that the essential functions of the city should be administered by a municipal council with equal numbers of Arab and Israeli members. "In this way," said Sadat, "the city shall be undivided." In Begin's letter, he uncompromisingly restated he Israeli position that "Jerusalem is one city indivisible, the capital of the state of Israel." Finally, Carter's letter asserted that the U.S. viewpoint, unchanged since 1967, declares the sovereignty of the city to be an open question, subject to future negotiations. Observed a U.S. State Department official: "It's absolutely impossible to write a paragraph on Jerusalem that both sides could agree to. It just doesn't work."

Looking back over Carter's remarkable diplomatic maneuver, TIME Washington Contributing Editor Hugh Sidey summarizes:

"The men, the mood, the time, the issues, the place, the weather and providence conspired on that Maryland mountaintop to produce Carter's Middle East summit success. Those who watched him closely in the hours after the summit adrenaline stopped pumping saw at least two things. Carter had a genuine increase in self-confidence and what one participant described as a 'new maturity,' which in essence was an understanding of the bits and pieces of presidential experience collected over the past 20 months. At last he seemed to fuse them into a leadership device of his design.

"Carter's control of the environment so that his special dimensions of personality and persuasion were most effective was masterly. He did not sermonize or drop new proposals like bombs. He took ideas from both men, combined them with his own, then carried them back as if they were the inspirations of his guests. Such subtle flattery got him almost everything.

"Carter's penchant for prayer, so suspect in other climes, was a reassurance at this particular summit. Indeed, the bond of spirituality among those three men may have been the most important emotional conduit. None was embarrassed by the others' deep convictions.

"Flowing out of the spiritual bond was trust. Though there were some disagreements later, neither Sadat nor Begin came off the summit declaring that Carter had misled them, tried to mislead them or even, in innocence, misguided them. When Carter went to one of the visitors with the other one's proposal, the words and the spirit of the message were well transmitted. And at last, all that memo reading and all those briefings, which have bogged Carter down in other efforts, paid off. He did not have to call for his experts when the dealings got complicated. No aides had to be inserted between him and his visitors.

"When at last Vance turned to Carter and said, 'I think we now have it,' nobody cheered or said anything memorable. Everybody could feel what had happened even as a thunderstorm broke outside Aspen Lodge. Carter may never be able to duplicate it--but, again, he just might."

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