Jimmy, Jerry, Zbig and Henry

By Hugh Sidey

One of the most important things that happened in 1977 may not have been in an Executive order or a law passed by Congress or an idea spoken by Jimmy Carter. It may have been the extraordinary web of civilized human relationships spun among the men and women of Washington and world power almost in spite of themselves.

Had Lyndon Johnson been around this holiday season, he would have raised his glass to his favorite Old Testament prophet, Isaiah, who urged humanity almost 3,000 years ago: "Come now, and let us reason together."

Jerry Ford and Jimmy Carter reasoned together a bit last week in the very Oval Office that one had wrested from the other. They gripped, grinned, patted and chortled over their special memories, plugged the glories of America and the new Panama Canal treaty, and reserved the right to gentlemanly argument just as soon as they parted. Indeed, that night, as Jimmy jitterbugged at a White House press party, the tuxedoed Ford in another part of town found a few things to quarrel over in the Carter record. Yet when Jerry flew off to Vail for the holidays, he complimented Carter on his graciousness and explained that political differences did not intrude in their "friendly relationship." Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower did not speak for more than eight years; Richard Nixon and John Kennedy spoke only when they had to.

The President's National Security Adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski, who did not like the way the world was running when he went to the White House, the other day rang up Henry Kissinger, one of the fellows who had put the world in the shape it was. Zbig asked Henry out to lunch at the Sans Souci, an eloquent eatery until now shunned by the Carter people. A covenant of mutual admiration was struck just a few feet from the mahogany Venus in the middle of the restaurant. Helped along by a couple of glasses of Almaden Chablis, the two former professors were soon intently but good-naturedly debating their respective views as if they were back in the classroom.

The wonder of Menachem Begin's overnight drop-in on the White House is still being pondered for lasting significance. Such visits were never before conceived in less than months. Suddenly, Israel's Premier was at the door. Jimmy's arms were open. When the first meeting was over, Carter plunked down at his desk and rang up Anwar Sadat over in Cairo just as if he were on the phone to Plains. Carter filled in the Egyptian President on what he and Begin had discussed. Begin went off to visit his old friend Kissinger, then dropped in on the ailing Senator Hubert Humphrey. When Zbig rose at lunch at the Israeli embassy to toast the mutual commitment to a noble ideal, to "the birth of peace," the emotional response in the room startled almost everyone. And a little later Henry Kissinger, the enduring wit, could chortle, "We may be doomed to peace."

There is in all of this the welcome dismissal of the stultifying protocol that has kept nations and men starched and stiff and at arm's length for too long. There is a new understanding of modern tools--the jet plane, the telephone, satellites and television. There is, too, something more profound. Most of the men and women who preside over the affairs of this globe sincerely believe, despite their vast differences, that no people or nation or political party ever benefits from hatred, or ever really wins a war.

In the holiday quiet that settled on Washington's Mall, breathtakingly beautiful in the morning mist from the Capitol to the Lincoln Memorial, there seemed to be at the very least a moment of shared hope that rose larger than the multitude of problems that any New Year inevitably brings.

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