Fallows' Fracas

How to enrage ex-colleagues

"If I had to choose one politician to sit at the Pearly Gates and pass judgment on my soul, Jimmy Carter would be the one," wrote former Presidental Speechwriter James Fallows. Having paid that compliment to the humanity and understanding of his onetime employer, he proceeded to render so harsh a judgment on Carter and his presidency that Fallows' wrathful ex-colleagues at the White House must wish that he had indeed reached the Pearly Gates.

In an Atlantic article entitled "The Passionless Presidency," the 29-year-old Fallows relates how he joined the Carter campaign with high hopes in the summer of 1976. Recalls Fallows: "I felt that he, alone among the candidates, might look past the tired formulas of left and right and offer something new." Almost as soon as Carter entered the White House, however, Fallows began growing disenchanted. As a speechwriter, he had enjoyed access to Carter when the new President was working out his own thoughts, and Fallows came to regard Carter as lacking in "sophistication," even "ignorant" of how power could or should be exercised. Though Carter holds "explicit, thorough positions on every issue under the sun," Fallows charges, he does not possess any unifying political philosophy. "He thinks he 'leads' by choosing the correct policy," writes Fallows, "but he fails to project a vision larger than the problem he is tackling at the moment." Surrounded by aides who mirror his own limitations, Carter displays "a combination of arrogance, complacency, and--dread thought--insecurity at the core of his mind and soul." Fallows quit his speechwriting job last fall to become Atlantic's Washington editor. He seems to have been surprised when the press publicized the nastiest quotes from his piece, but when he called Press Secretary Jody Powell home to say that his article had been misinterpreted, Powell had only one question: "What in God's name do you think you're doing?" Groused another aide: "If you talk to Fallows, he'll tell you he thinks he's done something good, decent, honorable and right. Bull!" Added a third: "Fast-buck journalism." Carter has read the article and declined public comment. As for the aides who accuse Fallows of disloyalty, they may be even more enraged by the next issue of the Atlantic. A second installment reportedly will focus on them.

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