"Hail to the Chief!'

The President emerges--cautiously--from his Rose Garden

"I'm free! I'm free!" exulted President Carter as he ran around the South Lawn of the White House in his T shirt. Or so said one top presidential aide, joking about the fact that his boss abandoned the White House Rose Garden last week and started campaigning again after 186 days of self-imposed isolation. Still Carter was only half free as he made his first political foray since the capture of the Tehran hostages. Though he had just swept to solid victories over Senator Edward M. Kennedy in the primary elections in Indiana, North Carolina and Tennessee (losing only in the District of Columbia), Carter was not sure how he would be received by a public fed up with inflation, the lingering captivity of the hostages and the rescue mission that so ignominiously collapsed. But if there were not many huzzahs for the President, there were not many catcalls either. In the rigorously scheduled day, Carter was not permitted to stumble.

First stop on Friday morning was Arlington National Cemetery, where an hour-long memorial service was held for the eight servicemen* who died in the aborted raid in Iran. After meeting beforehand with the families of the dead men, Carter delivered a nine-minute eulogy. "It is not the length of life," he said, "that determines its impact or its quality, but the depth of its commitment and the height of its purpose." While Carter spoke, his voice was firm. But later, when a lone bugler played taps, when six Thunderbird jets swooped across the sky in the "missing-man formation," when the hymn God of Our Fathers swelled up from the audience, the President wiped away tears with a handkerchief.

Flying to Philadelphia aboard helicopter Marine One, Carter was greeted with a rousing rendition of Hail to the Chief, the tune he had not allowed to be played in his presence for two years because of the pomp it brought to the presidency. But there was no further hailing the chief on this occasion. In an address to the World Affairs Council, delivered in his familiar halting style, Carter had little new or forceful to say. Still citing SALT II as a major accomplishment, he pledged to seek ratification "at the earliest opportune time." He warned that foreign policy is "not a matter of instant successes ... We must expect prolonged management of seemingly intractable situations and often contradictory realities."

The President's spirits seemed to lift a little when he attended the last event of the day, a "town meeting" of the type he greatly enjoys. For 68 minutes, he bantered easily with some 1,700 people gathered in McGonigle Hall at Temple University. When somebody complimented him for doing a "marvelous job," he quipped that this was his favorite question so far. The audience applauded.

The questions were far from zingers.

Asked about foreign policy differences among officials in his Administration, Carter first denied that there were any, then took the occasion to rap his National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski. Brzezinski, said Carter, "is kind of feisty. He's aggressive. He's innovative. He puts forth bright ideas, some of which have to be discarded." But Carter then dealt far more harshly with former Secretary of State Cyrus Vance. Said the President: "I see Ed Muskie as being a much stronger and more statesmanlike ... figure who will be a more evocative spokesman for our nation's foreign policy. I would prefer that Ed Muskie not be so personally involved in the details and negotiations with other nations." That function, said Carter, could be left to Deputy Secretary Warren Christopher. The President concluded: "There is one person in this nation responsible for the establishment of the carrying out of American foreign policy, and that is the President of the U.S."

Responding to a question about the hostages, Carter said he would continue his modest economic sanctions. Though military options would be kept open, he stressed his desire to resolve the issue by peaceful means. The dispersal of the hostages would also make military action more difficult. Once again, he said he thought the rescue mission would have succeeded if it had been able to go ahead. He added almost wistfully: "I wish now we had had another helicopter."

Challenged on his anti-inflation program, Carter took the offensive. The results, he claimed, were "far exceeding our expectations." The prime rate, he said, was falling a point a week, and mortgage rates were headed toward 13%. "My prediction to you is that in the summer we will see substantial reductions to a significant degree in the inflation rate." He added, however: "We're going to have a recession on our hands, no doubt about it ... It's not going to be an easy three or four months."

The visit to Philadelphia was billed as nonpolitical, since Pennsylvania has already had its primary, but it was hardly coincidental that the heavy press coverage of Carter's outing was broadcast into neighboring New Jersey, where the primary is still ahead. Carter's new strategy calls for him to campaign, but to look as nonpartisan and presidential as possible. That will test his ingenuity when he goes to Cleveland on May 29 just before the last critical Democratic primaries (Ohio, New Jersey, California and five other states) on June 3. But Carter has by now accumulated roughly 1,383 delegates, compared with Kennedy's 746. Needed to nominate: 1,666. Ohio helped to clinch the nomination for Carter in 1976, and his aides are already talking as though victory is again imminent. Gloated Campaign Director Robert Strauss: "It's all vanilla for us from here on."

* The Iranians claimed there were nine dead and returned nine coffins to the U.S. The Defense Department said, however, that the nine coffins held only eight bodies in all.

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