A Soothing Touch of Realism

The Presidency/Hugh Sidey

The President has abandoned another piece or two of that image of himself as the barefoot boy with smile. That may be one of the best signals yet for his troubled leadership. Along with his Bible, he carried to the Middle East a new sensitivity to the world's historical eddies. He displayed an eloquence that until now he has resolutely choked. He got tired, irritated, frightened. He showed it all, a soothing touch of realism that has rarely been allowed. And in his success, caution and true humility replaced visions of the millennium and interviews with the network anchormen.

Just as Carter finally conceded to himself the realities of congressional manipulation and started to make some headway on the Hill, it could be that after more than two years of training he is learning the ropes of world power. Nobody knows for sure the delicate mix of events and emotions that produced the peace agreement. But having the carrier Constellation on its way toward the Arabian Sea, hurrying weapons and technicians to North Yemen and backing up his words of resolve with suggestions of further armed American presence surely helped more than those sermons on human rights.

A few days before Carter decided on his odyssey, he talked late one night with guests about his deepest worry-Israel was isolating itself in an increasingly hostile world. It had no other powerful friend besides the U.S., Carter noted with unusual fervor. Sadat had made a startling gesture for peace and Israel still quibbled. The Arabs were growing more hostile, richer, and they have enormous manpower. Western Europe, thirsting for oil, was irritated, and some of its leaders, like France's Giscard, were downright contemptuous of Israeli behavior. Nobody, continued the President, knew what would happen to American sentiments if another oil crisis developed.

That sense of history lay at the heart of Carter's decision to use the presidential presence as a weight to gently force some concessions from both parties. At the Israeli state dinner the President declared, "We love Israel. But we are not jealous of you. We want you to have other friends."

In his address to the Knesset, Carter displayed a new appreciation for graceful language and thought, deciding in those critical circumstances to go beyond himself ("Doubts are the stuff of great decisions, but so are dreams"). Men like Spinoza, whom he had rarely allowed entry into his down-home rhetoric, showed up ("Peace is not an absence of war, it is a virtue, a state of mind, a disposition for benevolence, confidence, justice").

When agreement came at the last edges of hope, the President let the world know with an announcement so low-keyed that it was almost not an announcement The deed shouted its own message without White House help or hype.

It may be that Jimmy Carter has accumulated a new sensitivity to the other world leaders and their cultures, gained a clearer view of what moves nations and an instinct for the proper moment in which to speak and act. He will need it. He has a way to go to recover the world's confidence.

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