Coming to Grips with the Job

Has he or hasn't he? That's the question America has to decide

TIME White House Correspondent Christopher Ogden has long watched Jimmy Carter wrestle with the problems of his office. He has accompanied the President on five trips overseas, and covered his reelection campaign. Here Ogden assesses how the President has changed and what he has learned while holding the free world's most demanding job.

The presidency takes its toll of every man who seizes it. Jimmy Carter, who sought the office with such determination and is now fighting so furiously to retain it, has been buffeted both by circumstances beyond his control and mistakes of his own making. His once thick shock of light brown hair is gray and strawlike in the unremitting glare of television lights. His soft skin mottles when he tires. The crises, the setbacks, the crushing burdens of the office have aged him a decade in the past four years, but they have not exhausted him nor burned him out. If anything, a calm serenity in private, despite occasional public flashes of vituperation directed at Ronald Reagan, has enveloped that icy-cold ambition driving Carter in the final weeks of this endless campaign.

He has settled into the job and grown more comfortable with it. His eyes flash with pleased excitement when he scampers up onstage at the University of Missouri at St. Louis and the band thumps out chorus after chorus of Hail to the Chief, which he once banned as too imperial but reinstated when he realized the importance of such symbolism. As he talks about the serious challenges facing America, he also makes a salesman's pitch. "The next time you get ready to change cars and buy a new model, give those new American cars and those American automobile workers a chance." Carter would not have thought of that kind of boosterism a year ago.

The town meeting, where he often sheds his coat and really mixes with the people, is Jimmy Carter at his best. The more such sessions he holds--he has had 26 since coming into office and nine since Labor Day--the better he becomes. He likes getting ideas across directly, without having them filtered by television and the press, which he believes is bitterly antagonistic to him.

Above the fire trucks upstairs in the Lyndhurst, N.J., fire department, Carter sits casually on a revolving stool, clasping his knee in his hands and spinning slowly, as he takes random questions from 300 area residents packing the room. He is not caught off guard when asked about the local water shortage problem in northern Jersey. His engineer's mind has a great capacity for absorbing detail. Whenever he is unable to answer, he takes down the questioner's name and promises that an aide will call within a day or two. He looks for a woman in a sea of men in the audience. When a young woman asks him bluntly about mortgage rates and plaintively wonders: "Will I ever have a house?" the President flashes that still gleaming grin. "I think I'll skip the women and go back to the gentlemen," he jokes, eyes crinkling. And then he addresses the question.

The consummate campaigner, in the White House or on the stump, he is outwardly personal and personable, whether relating the immigrant past of his ancestors or his 82-year-old mother's hip operation. He has had more Americans into the White House as visitors than any other President in history. Records show he has held more televised news conferences --59--and had his picture taken individually with more people than any of his predecessors. He cites the facts himself, proudly, as if they prove that he is not the distant figure his critics depict.

Yet for all that, and despite holding the most public office in the world under unforgiving scrutiny, Jimmy Carter is, remarkably, harder to figure out now than he was in 1973 when, as Governor of Georgia, he appeared as the mystery guest on the television show What's My Line? and stumped the panel. Though he lives in the spotlight, Carter remains an intensely private person. His hobbies are those of a loner--fishing by himself for hours on end in a Georgia pond or a Pennsylvania trout stream, or jogging through the woods of Camp David, to which he and Rosalynn now retreat almost weekly. Except for Charles Kirbo, the Atlanta attorney who is his confidant, and his former Budget Director, Bert Lance, he has few close friends and virtually none in Washington. He came to office running against Washington, the Congress, special interest groups and politics-as-usual; in many respects he is still against them.

"He isn't a politician in the traditional sense, yet he is a very good politician," says Robert Strauss, his campaign manager. "He doesn't like to sit around and swap political stories. It's not good relaxation for him. He's not a 'one-of-the-boys' kind. He'd rather have good music on, some of it classical and some of it country-and-western."

Carter has done little reaching out for help, and there is no reason to believe he would do more in a second term. He invited 100 prominent Americans to Camp David a year ago, when he was trying to resolve the national "malaise" crisis, but he seemed to be following a script drawn up by Pollster Patrick Caddell. When Media Adviser Gerald Rafshoon urged Carter to fire Cabinet members days later as a means of attracting attention, the President acceded, an egregious exercise that seemed to make a mockery of his search for wise advice.

Summoning a team and then synthesizing its advice is a favorite Carter assault on a problem, and it exemplifies an inclination to manage rather than to govern. He also has a tendency to mistake the delineation of solutions to a problem for the solution itself. That happened when he announced his first energy program in early 1977. Carter called it the "moral equivalent of war," and he was right, but then he stepped away. Having announced a necessary program, he seemed to believe it would move along automatically. He failed to recognize the importance of pushing and negotiating with Congress and selling the idea to the public. Governing, in other words.

Concentrating too much on the issue of the moment, Carter has passed so many conflicting signals that people at home and abroad often do not know what they are supposed to be hearing. Like a spinning magnet, Carter alternately attracts and repels constituencies, supporting recession and social justice, growth and inflation, energy and environment, security and human rights. A man who arouses no strong feelings of loyalty, Carter has found himself at the mercy of events with little support on Capitol Hill or in the country. He may lapse into demagoguery on the campaign trail, zapping Reagan, but he abhors strident oratory when trying to sell a program, and his soft-sell approach undermines his effect as a leader.

The appearance too often is of a "passionless presidency," in the words of onetime Chief Speechwriter James Fallows. Even some of his own staff are unsure about precisely what programs Jimmy Carter believes in enough to espouse if re-elected next month. Whether, for example, he will attempt to push the SALT II treaty through Congress or instead concentrate first on defense improvements.

Hamilton Jordan, the President's closest aide, believes the inability to project a vision of where he wants to lead the country and to explain clearly what he has accomplished has plagued the Administration most. "Our greatest single failure is that we have not communicated effectively a description of the country's problems or a pertinent solution to those problems," he says. It is more than that. At times Carter's touch has been so uncertain that he has caused many Americans to lose confidence in him, to wonder if he really had a vision for the country.

To be fair, the nation has come to make vast and probably unrealistic demands on the presidency. Anyone occupying the White House during the past four years would have found his leadership shaken and shaped by events over which he had virtually no control: the relative decline of American strength in the world; the slide in productivity and innovation in the American economy; the lessening of American willingness to compromise and horse-trade; the dramatic growth of lobbies and special interest groups; the evolving independence of Congress. In this environment, to make matters worse, Carter came to office more a dreamer than a realist. But he is learning. Says Jordan: "We have readjusted ourselves in a more pragmatic way to the problems we face."

Indeed, Carter has learned the necessity of being flexible. He abandoned his notion of giving taxpayers a $50 rebate to stimulate the economy, explaining that improved economic conditions led to his decision, although the proposal faced possible defeat in the Senate. He decided against withdrawing U.S. troops from Korea when convinced that none of his top advisers thought it was a good idea. Perhaps his most striking metamorphosis was on the issue of defense spending. He came into office determined to cut military costs, but changed his mind. Although he dropped the B-1 bomber, he has since pushed ahead with cruise missile development and talked European allies into upgrading their theater nuclear forces. He is now pressing for the development of a new bomber incorporating the so-called stealth technology. Last December, influenced by Soviet moves in Africa, Viet Nam and Cambodia and the threat to Afghanistan, Carter came full circle and endorsed a sustained growth in defense spending. Later, when Soviet forces poured into Afghanistan, the President felt betrayed by Soviet President Leonid Brezhnev, who had pledged his peaceful intentions only six months previously at their summit in Vienna.

The transformation from an idealistic and moralizing man who had called for the total abolition of nuclear weapons in his Inaugural Address to a more hard-headed realist who better understands power and existence, the perfidy of others and the limitations of his own authority is by no means complete and may never be. Still it is the most profound change the President has undergone in this term.

Carter's men credit the change to his time in office. "There is no doubt in my mind that experience is the most priceless asset of all. Every day you do better," says White House Counsel Lloyd Cutler, the lawyer who is the only Washingtonian to have cracked the President's inner circle.

Jimmy Carter is selling experience and his hard-won realism as the best reasons for re-electing him. Says he: "I am more knowledgeable about our nation now, its strengths and its limitations, its opportunities and its problems, the relationship between the President and the administration of the Government, between the President and the Congress, between the United States and foreign leaders. Obviously three and a half years of learning under the most challenging circumstances acquaints one with the issues and prepares one to make a better judgment about what is best for our country."

Carter, of course, does have a record of some accomplishment to show for his years in office, a record he feels keenly is not sufficiently appreciated. The President is most proud of the energy program. While it is far from perfect, took him three years to put into effect and is largely a Senate product, it nonetheless is a start toward resolving what is likely to be the most critical issue facing the industrialized West during the rest of the century. The nation laughed at the moral equivalent of war, and Jimmy Cardigan quickly abandoned that unpopular rubric in late 1977. But he had his priorities right.

Carter also pushed through civil service reforms, deregulation of airlines, trucking and banking institutions and passed strip-mining legislation. Not surprisingly for a former farmer, his agriculture program has been extremely good, raising farm price supports and helping promote sales abroad. Each year in office, exports have broken records, culminating in this year's shipment worth $40 billion. But farmers, caught in the squeeze of inflation and angered by his embargo on grain sales to the Soviet Union, have often railed against him.

The President's finest hour in foreign policy was his negotiation of the Camp David peace accords that led to the treaty between Israel and Egypt. Normalizing relations with China--in campaign speeches Carter joyously refers to "a billion new friends"--while maintaining a working relationship with Taiwan has also been a major positive step. The Panama Canal treaties, lifting the Turkish arms embargo, the sale of nuclear materials to India and the attempt to create closer relations with Saudi Arabia through the sale of warplanes were all difficult issues that the Administration fought to successful conclusions.

Yet in many more areas of domestic and foreign policy, Carter has been unable to anticipate, to present a coherent approach to a problem, to avoid zigzagging. "The President has learned how to work with Congress," says Presidential Assistant Anne Wexler, one of Carter's savviest political advisers. "At the beginning he thought he didn't need to be as personally involved, but he has discovered the only way to get bills passed is to build coalitions of support."

But Carter has learned that lesson late, and incompletely. And he was dealing with Democratic majorities on the Hill--even if those majorities were riven by unruly factions. Congress embarrassed the White House this year by twice overriding vetoes, the first time a Democratic Congress had done that to a Democratic President in 28 years.

Carter's relations with Senate Majority Leader Robert Byrd, once one of the Administration's staunchest allies, have soured because the White House felt the West Virginian was pushing Ted Kennedy's challenge. Carter, who never liked or respected Congress and came to office running against it, still has poor relations with the Hill in general. His congressional liaison staff, the weakest major department in the White House, has been further sapped by Hamilton Jordan's skimming off the best of the group to work on the President's re-election campaign.

Though the President has shown little ability in managing the economy, he has had to contend with many difficulties beyond his control. The seeds of inflation were well nurtured before he took office. He had no say in setting OPEC's oil prices, nor could he be blamed for the fact that Toyota and Datsun anticipated America's growing desire for small cars well before Detroit. But Carter clearly has contributed to the confusion over the economy. Last spring, for example, he first asked the public to stop buying on credit, then reversed himself weeks later.

Last week, speaking at the National Press Club in Washington, he reported some good news about the economy's recovery from the recession, but failed to give any convincing explanation of why he thought that he could now control inflation when he has been unable to for the past four years. That too has been part of his learning experience. He admits being caught off guard by inflation, though a Governor who was in office during the 1973 oil embargo and who uses OPEC as his scapegoat should not have been. "This enormous buildup in oil prices has driven inflation high and interest rates high all over the world," Carter told a town meeting in Nashville. "Had I known ahead of time that would happen, I would have put much more emphasis the first couple of years on controlling inflation than I did."

Carter has generally tried to steer a conservative course, a rare and difficult goal for a Democratic President, but his compass has been erratic. He has actually introduced four anti-inflation plans. None have had much impact, partly because he has been reluctant to propose the kind of slashing required to get the federal budget into balance--provided he could have pushed such cuts through Congress. Last whiter the Administration submitted its normal budget, but then, when stunned by fresh inflation figures and an anticipated deficit of $16 billion, rushed out another in six weeks.

One reason for the scrambling was politics--Democratic politics. In the fall, when the Administration economists were preparing the budget, the President and his advisers worried about the challenge on the left from Kennedy. Cutting social programs could cost them important liberal support. But when inflation soared instead of dipping as they expected, and the Kennedy challenge started to fade, Carter rushed to the right to avoid being outflanked by Ronald Reagan, then starting to hit his stride.

In foreign policy, Carter missed his chance to get a SALT II treaty--essentially completed under President Ford --early in his Administration. By trying to sell far bigger cuts in nuclear arms to the Soviets, Carter almost derailed the whole SALT process and had vast difficulties finally negotiating the treaty, which is still unratified by Congress. Nevertheless, the President repeatedly cites his commitment to arms control and Reagan's opposition to the SALT pact as the most significant issue on which they differ in this election. Carter's position is clearly more realistic because SALT II promises at least a modest cap on the Soviet arms buildup and Reagan has not satisfactorily explained why the Soviets would accept the deep cuts he wants any more than those proposed by Carter.

On other matters, the reality of America's diminishing authority in the world was reflected in the Administration's problems to date in securing the release of the hostages in Tehran, to reverse Soviet expansionism in Africa or in Afghanistan, or to bring influence to bear in the Persian Gulf.

Hyperbole has also been a difficulty for the President and has exacerbated doubt about him. Four minutes after meeting President Hafez Assad of Syria, Carter described him before television cameras as one of his "favorite leaders," thoroughly confusing Assad, not to mention Israel. Visiting Tehran, Carter sang the praises of the Shah, then jettisoned the Iranian leader when the King of Kings began to fall; the episode was one of the sorriest in the Administration. The President's description of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan as "the most serious threat to peace since the Second World War" was another overstatement that confused Americans and foreigners alike. If it was so serious, why did not the U.S. try to do something far more impressive about it? Carter has described both the hostages in Iran and the Cuban refugees as "my most pressing human problems." The President hyperbolizes in another way--he regularly exaggerates his record. The Wall Street Journal recently called Carter's claim that he had a better legislative record than Franklin Roosevelt a "travesty," and proved it.

His on-the-job training has been a very painful process for Carter. He hurt himself from the start by both expecting and promising too much. He arrived in Washington with an almost limitless list of priorities that was too much, too soon. Some close aides maintain the President has benefited from that. "He's learned how to prioritize and to say no," says Strauss. "The Panama Canal treaties were important, but he should have worked harder on energy first." If Carter wins again, says Strauss, "he's got to work on long-term planning."

White House Counsel Cutler, who has advised past Presidents and who knows more than anyone else in the White House about how Washington works, believes that Carter has absorbed a great deal in four years. "He's learned the need for balance and knows now he can't achieve all of his goals at the same time. Everyone who has never been President thinks he can do it all if only he had those reins. This President has learned to put things in much better perspective."

Carter has discovered the importance of repeating his message over and over again to make sure that it gets through undistorted. "He has learned that the President is above all a teacher," says Wexler. In the course of his campaigning, swooping down in his gleaming silver-and-blue Air Force One jet to land in Tallahassee or Boston, St. Louis or Tacoma, he has done some of the best explaining of his Administration.

Extremely well organized and prepared, the President targets his audiences carefully. In Boston, with Kennedy at his side, Carter appears before an audience of some 500 elderly people and effectively portrays Reagan as a foe of Social Security, Medicare, health insurance and unemployment insurance. The old people applaud. To New Jersey labor leaders, Carter says Reagan opposes labor law reform. Scoffs Carter: "Ronald Reagan says unemployment compensation is a free paid vacation for freeloaders." In a state where the race is close, but a must win for Carter, the labor leaders nod and nudge each other.

While campaigning, Carter has been handicapped by one of the great burdens of the incumbency: a challenger need not, indeed cannot, prove that he could do better, and a sitting President cannot make claims with the casual insouciance of his out-of-office opponent. For example, Reagan is free to talk more boldly about his support for Israel than Carter, who has taken a far more even-handed approach in office. The general thrust of Carter's Middle East policy has been sound, if often marred in execution; Reagan's almost totally one-sided Middle East program would be unlikely to survive in office.

At the Forest Hills Jewish Community Center in Queens, New York City, the President is shouted at by a handful of Jews who believe that if re-elected he will put pressure on Israel to give up the West Bank and Gaza. "Jerusalem is Jewish," they chant. Carter shouts over the most raucous heckling he has endured as President. "I want each of you, including the demonstrators, to go back to the people in your neighborhoods and tell them this: the President will never turn his back on Israel. I never have and I never will ... this President will never use economic and military aid as a lever against Israel, not in the last four years, not now and not in the next four years."

For all the warm welcomes he usually gets, the campaigning Carter has not stilled the old question about his difficulty in being an inspiring leader. He still has trouble rising above the level of politician to project himself as truly presidential. His vituperative personal attacks on Reagan may have "worked," as his political advisers maintain. But by choosing that tactic Carter brushed aside the fact that Americans expect more of their Presidents. That too is a burden of incumbency, one of the prices to be paid for all the benefits it bestows.

If Carter is reelected, there will be a drastic reshuffling of the Cabinet, top agency chiefs and some of the senior White House staff. The President has never used his Cabinet well, relying far too much on the tiny band of Georgians who constitute most of his inner circle of advisers. Domestic Adviser Stuart Eizenstat, for example, has served on numerous occasions, in fact if not title, as Secretary of Energy and of Treasury. Cecil Andrus has already announced his intention to leave the Interior Department. Philip Klutznick will depart Commerce. The White House has been disappointed with both Benjamin Civiletti at Justice and Charles Duncan at Energy, and they are likely to go, along with many others, including, friends believe, Hamilton Jordan, who will have had enough of Washington if he succeeds in getting Carter re-elected

Jimmy Carter will feel vindicated if he wins again, which his instincts, if not yet the polls, tell him he will. Harry Truman is his hero. A bronze bust of the 33rd President faces him across the Oval Office. He sees striking similarities between himself and the feisty haberdasher who was all but written off until the final count of the 1948 election. "When I take a step that's not very popular, I think of the unpopularity that Harry Truman had to suffer before he was finally vindicated," Carter told an audience at Truman High School in Independence, Mo., last month.

But would Carter's vindication lead to a fresh start? There is concern in Washington that Jimmy Carter would be likely to feel, as he did in 1976, that he owed his victory to no one. Associates predict he would be even more private, working on only a few projects to assure his place in the history books--a strategic arms agreement with the Soviets, a comprehensive energy program that will secure the nation's energy independence. Carter's vision of the American future in a changing world is much more somber than Reagan's. "I don't claim to have all the magic answers, and I don't think there are any simple or easy answers, " he said in St. Louis last week. "We face very serious challenges." Many Americans believe he is right and that Reagan's proposals to make the future a better past are unrealistic and simplistic. Critics regard them as the free-form concepts of a man who does not understand the complexities of issues that force their way into the Oval Office and who would have as much to learn about the job as Jimmy Carter did--or more.

But many Americans are equally skeptical that Carter's prime assets, experience on the job and innate intelligence, are enough to meet challenges the next time around when they have largely overwhelmed him so far. There can be no doubt that he has learned a good deal in these four years. But whether a reborn Carter presidency would be a significantly better one is a question that remains as elusive as Carter himself.

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