Challenge for the Lame Ducks

By Frank B. Merrick.

Carter works with Reagan to maintain U.S. foreign policy

When, in disgrace with fortune

and men's eyes, I all alone beweep my outcast

state, And trouble deaf heaven with my

bootless cries...

Like the subject of Shakespeare's sonnet, Jimmy Carter sits, sometimes for three or four hours at a stretch, in his small private study off the Oval Office, listening to classical music and mulling over Government reports--and his future. He is making few domestic policy decisions in these waning days of his Administration, although last week he did announce plans to veto a $9.1 billion appropriations bill because the measure included a controversial provision, with troubling civil rights implications, that would bar the Justice Department from seeking court-ordered busing to desegregate schools. When enough House members sided with Carter to sustain his threatened veto, House Speaker Tip O'Neill and other congressional leaders postponed adjournment until this week so that a compromise could be worked out.

But Carter's most pressing problems, ones that could not wait for the change in Administrations, were matters of foreign policy. Both Carter and Reagan are deeply concerned about the hazards of "lameduck diplomacy"--that nations abroad might try to exploit the long transition between Administrations on the assumption that Washington would be too distracted and irresolute to respond.

Carter and his aides have carefully kept Reagan and his advisers informed of developments in foreign policy and, at critical junctures, tried to win their support. Jack Watson, Carter's Chief of Staff, consults regularly with Edwin Meese, Reagan's top counselor; Zbigniew Brzezinski, Carter's National Security Adviser, talks frequently with Richard Allen, Reagan's chief adviser on foreign affairs and the man likely to become his National Security Adviser. As a result, insists Watson, "there is no paralysis. There is no breakdown in our capacity to react."

Thus Carter and Reagan last week issued separate but equally stern warnings to the Soviets on Poland. Said Carter: "The attitude and future policies of the United States toward the Soviet Union would be directly and very adversely affected by any Soviet use of force in Poland." Allen declared that the consequences of a Soviet invasion of Poland "could border on wrecking relations [with the U.S.] for a long time. Business as usual after such a profound event could not easily be restored."

Similarly, the President and President-elect have stood together on the hostage crisis in Tehran. In Algiers last week, Deputy Secretary of State Warren Christopher, accompanied by U.S. Ambassador Ulric Haynes Jr., warned Tehran through Algerian intermediaries that Iran could not expect to get a better deal from the

Reagan Administration. He reminded the Iranians that Reagan has pledged to sup port any agreement on the 52 hostages reached by the Carter Administration.

Still, both teams are helpless to control one-man missions like the one to Moscow two weeks ago by Republican Charles Percy of Illinois, the next chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He boasted afterward that he had smoothed the way for reopening the SALT talks, which offended both Carter and Reagan aides. Percy also told Soviet leaders that he favored the establishment of a Pales tinian state, even if it were led by Yasser Arafat, head of the Palestine Liberation Organization -- a step that is opposed by both Carter and Reagan.

In addition, the Reagan group has been embarrassed by misunderstandings on the part of foreign emissaries who over-anxiously try to predict the new Administration's policies. For example, after sev eral meetings with Reagan advisers, a group of El Salvadoran businessmen went home with the erroneous impression that Reagan had decided to send military aid to help their nation's centrist government fight leftist guerrillas. To prevent further miscues, Allen warned Reagan's 120 defense and foreign policy advisers to be cautious in their conversations with reporters and visitors from overseas.

Meanwhile, the outgoing Administration was quarreling over what had been the failures of U.S. foreign policy in the past four years. Brzezinski squared off once again against Cyrus Vance, his adversary when Secretary of State. Brzezinski said last week that he interpreted Reagan's victory as signifying that Americans are ready to back a "policy of assertive competition" with the Soviets. Brzezinski implied that the Administration, when it agreed with the State Department, had been too soft on the Kremlin. He said U.S. lack of response ,to Moscow's sup port of Ethiopia in its war with Somalia in 1978 may have prevented Senate ratification of the SALT II treaty. Said Brzezinski: "SALT lies buried in the sands of Ogaden." Retorted Vance: "Hogwash."

He believes that Brzezinski puts too much emphasis on the "use of military power or bluff, ignoring, in my judgment, the political, the economic and trade aspects of our relationship with the Soviet Union."

The sharp exchange not only reopened old wounds, it offered the ultimate testimony as to why the Carter Administration had never been able to develop a consistent vision of U.S. foreign policy.

The exchange also added to the conviction of Reagan and his aides that the National Security Adviser must play a subsidiary role to the Secretary of State in forming and proclaiming U.S. foreign policy. That may be one of the most valuable legacies left to the new Administration by the old .

--By Frank B. Merrick. Reported by Christopher Ogden and Eileen Shields/Washington

With reporting by Christopher Ogden, Eileen Shields

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