How to End Up No. 2

By Hugh Sidey

The Presidency

There is the worry around this company town that Jimmy Carter is just a bit too ready to accept second place, or, to use his words, "to adjust to the new realities." There are new realities about American power and resources and those of its adversaries and about this nation's ability to manage events in the world, but once you start to turn down your expectations and act unwilling or unable to sustain influence around the globe, the slide is hard to stop.

"I figure that if you start out to be No. 2," mused John Kennedy one night in the Oval Office when he was grappling with Nikita Khrushchev over Berlin, "then that is how you are going to end up." Even then, doubts about U.S. capabilities were beginning to creep into the official considerations. On that evening Kennedy walked over to the globe beside his desk, gave it a twirl, and traced with his finger the perimeter of the free world. How long could the U.S. continue to be the principal guardian of that endless frontier? he asked.

The frontier has changed, the nations on both sides have changed, and the convulsions seem to be accelerating. Carter's recent statements declining the role of world policeman have signaled almost everybody, intentionally or not, that as nations jostle for advantage, the U.S. plans to be just another member of the club.

To be sure, Carter and his people do not talk that way in their major messages delivered around the world. But even while declaring that the U.S. intends to remain on top, the uncertain U.S. response to events and the constant babble of background doubts have created the aura that we just may be tired of trying to be No. 1.

There is no doubt that Former Assistant Secretary of State Joseph Sisco is correct in his assessment that we are struggling through our Viet Nam guilt feelings and that the catharsis has taken its toll. Carter is a product of it. He began by rejecting many tokens of power and imperialism, even down to the way he dressed and spoke. His strategic sense, to the extent that anyone could figure it out, was to encourage a human rights campaign that would hold the perimeter of freedom even in the absence of a big Navy and an effective covert capacity. The evidence so far casts some doubt on the wisdom of that plan. Indeed, Carter himself has changed in some ways and, after promising to reduce defense spending, now seeks a larger budget.

Carter and his principal aides are struggling for some sound footing on the slippery slope they have helped to grease. Vice President Walter Mondale just a few days ago, talking to visiting editors, was condemning earlier U.S. covert operations in Chile. These "efforts to manipulate the internal affairs of another society," he suggested, would shame us for a generation. Parson's son that he is, Mondale in his fervor implied that the Administration felt that representing U.S. interests in such fashion was sinful, a position that shows some misunderstanding of what actually went on in Chile and why.

Just a few days before that, Carter gathered a bunch of Congressmen and women around him and talked about how the U.S. margin of power had begun to decline in Kennedy's time, about his idea that in adjusting to the new realities we had to rely more on trade, our religious heritage and human rights. Those who listened were impressed with the sincerity of the President and his collection of facts about people and places. But what did not add up was how this country was going to move beyond the disappointments in Iran and the Israeli-Egyptian impasse and go about protecting U.S. interests in Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Taiwan and other places. Sadly, many of the people who came away from the White House that night felt the President was spending his energy explaining and justifying America's decline rather than creating a realistic policy to retain respect and influence.

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