The Brother Billy Caper

By Hugh Sidey

Georgia's Carter clan never exactly made themselves out to be the family next door, Andy Hardy variety. There was always something a little different running in the blood.

Cartoonist Jeff MacNelly, of the Richmond News Leader, understood right off, and when he drew the White House he sometimes included a hound dog, a beat-up pickup, a gas pump and Billy--just to make the Carters feel at home. Humorist Art Buchwald eased the presidential family into national life by telling his audiences that to understand them one should consider the Carter Administration as just another Hollywood television serial where an average former submarine officer and peanut farmer becomes President. He has a mother who runs off to India at age 68, a daughter who lives in a tree house, aides who don't wear underwear, a sister who rides a motorcycle, a brother who drinks ten six-packs of beer a day and another sister who is a faith healer.

It played pretty well up until now. Then Brother Billy thought he would enlarge the script. First came an interview in Penthouse magazine in which the barefooted Billy called Charles Kirbo, the President's adviser, "about the dumbest bastard I ever met in my life" and labeled Hamilton Jordan, the top White House staff member, an "asshole." Some thought that Billy, who now makes about $300,000 a year by performing in public as the President's brother, crossed the line from being a plain, greedy slob into being an embarrassment to the presidency. Then last week came the Atlanta episode, in which a visiting delegation of Libyans, with Occidental Petroleum, among others, as their hosts, met with the presidential brother, whom they have apparently wooed to help them improve their image in America. According to reports, Billy urinated on the side of a building while waiting, then launched into his sales pitch about "some of the best friends I have in the world," noting that "there's a hell of a lot more Arabians than there is Jews." He added his view that "the Jewish media tears up the Arab countries full-time." The outcry was instant and loud. G.O.P. Chairman Bill Brock called Billy's remarks a sign of "disgusting antiSemitism" and added that "to some extent each of us is his brother's keeper." The chagrin in the White House ran deep. Libya is a repressive nation and sponsor of terrorism from the Japanese Red Army to Palestinian guerrillas. Our other troubles in the Middle East are bad enough without this new burden.

The incident would cause only low-level comment if Billy Carter were seldom seen, like Sam Houston Johnson, ne'er-do-well brother of Lyndon, or Donald Nixon, fumbling recipient of the Hughes loan back in 1956. But Billy has been elevated to special status by none other than his brother Jimmy ("a lot of substance to Billy"). Indeed, not since the Kennedys have we had a President who has so involved his family in official duties, sending wife, sons, daughter, mother, sister, cousin off to represent him. Some of Billy's earlier rednecking. Sister Ruth Stapleton's evangelizing, and commercial grabs by others have caused mild to middle embarrassment. Billy may now be a real issue.

Brothers have blessed or plagued most modern Presidents. Ike had four, models of success. Kennedy worried about how to announce the appointment of Bobby as Attorney General ("I think I'll open the front door of the Georgetown house some morning about 2 a.m. . . . and whisper, 'It's Bobby' "), and then Teddy's running for the Senate on presidential coattails, but both turned out to be great help. L.B.J. simply kept Sara Houston out of sight for most of his White House years. Donald Nixon, too, hid as much as he could, and while his sour business deals raised eyebrows, they never seriously hurt Richard Nixon.

Unless Billy's boozing and sibling jealousies have seriously warped him, the recent incidents may be his cure. He is no laughing matter right now, and that was the source of his appeal. If something has snapped in Billy, and he is uncontrollable despite the friendly pleas of the rest of the family, then it will be up to the President to put more official distance between himself and his brother. It is another of those melancholy duties of a President.

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